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EDWARD GIBBON, 






History of Christianity: 



COMPRISING ALL THAT RELATES TO THE PROGRESS OF THE 

CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN " THE HISTORY OF THE DECLINE 

AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE," 



A VINDICATION 

Of some Passages in the 15th and 16th Chapters, 

BY 

Edward Gibbon, E^q. 



A / LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, PREFACE AND NOTES BY THE EDITOR, 

INCLUDING VARIORUM NOTES BY GUIZOT, WENCK, MILMAN, 

"AN ENGLISH CHURCHMAN, " AND OTHER SCHOLARS. 




NEW YORK : 
PETER ECKLER, No. 35 FULTON STREET. 

1887. 






Entered according to A 61 of Congress, in the year 1882, by 
PETER ECKLER, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



Transfer 
Engineers School Liby. 
June 29, 1931 



ECKLiR, PRINTER, 35 FUlTON ST., H. 




HERCULES. 



HERCULES. 
*' Most perfect Hero, tried in heaviest plight, of labors huge and hardy 

PROMETHEUS, crucified to a rock on Mount Caucasus, predicted to the 
unfortunate Io, that the thirteenth of her descendants should he his deliverer 
from the unjust punishment inflicted by Jupiter. The prophet Isaiah foretold in 
like manner the birth of Jesus ; and the miracles which establish Christ's divinity 
correspond to the miraculous labors of Hercules. Tyrants were subdued by the 
son of Alcmene, monsters were conquered, the enslaved set free, bounds set to 
injustice, and the beneficent god Prometheus, who had offended Jupiter by 
conferring benefits upon mankind, was delivered from his torments by the savior 
Hercules, as holy prophets had foretold. 

The serpents sent to destroy the infant Hercules were strangled by the divine 
babe; the Nemean lion yielded his life to the immortal youth; and the twelve 
labors which attest his manhood, though unjustly imposed, were performed with 
uncomplaining fortitude and resignation. 

Though born to be a king. Hercules, like Jesus, passed his life in labors for 
the good of mankind. To rescue his friend he descended into hell, and success- 
fully defied the powers of darkness. According to the Apostles' 1 Creed, Jesus 
afterwards performed a similar journey, and it is certain that Hercules, like 
Jesus, was awarded divine honors after his death. 

Under the name of Divus Fidius — the protector of plighted faith and of the 
sacrednessof oaths— Hercules was particularly worshiped. " Me Dins Fidius" 
— so help me the god Fidius, or Hercules ; or, by the favor of Hercules, was 
the form of oath administered. The eminent scholar, Alexander Adam, LL.D., 
Rector of the High School of Edinburgh, says in Roman Antiquities, p. 262, 
" Men used to swear by Hercules in their asseverations ; Hercle, Mehercle^ 
" ve\-es, so under the title of DIUS FIDIUS, i. e. Deus fidei, the god of faith or 
" honor : thus, per Dium Fidium, Plaut., me Dius Fidius, sc juvet, Sallust. Cat. 35." 
Taylor believes the ancient oath to have been " ' Me Deus Filius !' the filling 
" up of which formulary, with the words ita adjuvet, makes the sense complete, 
" So help me God the Son/' The form of oath used in our universities at this day 
" is, ' Ita me Deus adjuvet el sancta ejus evangelia ! '—So help me God and his holy 
" Gospels ! " * * * " And why might not Hercules be honored with the title of 
" God the son, to distinguish him from Jupiter, or God the Father, as by his 
" human nature standing in a nearer relation to mankind than the paternal deity, 
" and the fitter to be appealed to as a mediator in human transactions ; especially 
" seeing that he was known and recognized under the exactly similar designation 
" of the Son of God, and the Savior of the world? " 

The Jewish form of administering an oath, in which one party placed his hand 
under the other's thigh, as Abraham did, (Gen. xxiv. 2, 3.), was a most absurd, 
ridiculous, and barbarous custom, which has deservedly become obsolete. 

The solemn obligation of an oath was fully realized by the ancient Latins. " How 
" many persons," says Cicero, " are restrained from crime by the fear of divinepun- 
" ishment, and how holy is the society of citizenship, from the belief of the presence 
" of the immortal gods, as well with the judges as with the witnesses." 

Christ positively forbade his disciples to swear. " I say unto you, swear not 
" at all," {Matt, v : 34.) " But above all things, my brethren, swear not." (James 
V. 12). But modern courts of judicature, even when composed of professed followers 
of Christ, ignore the teaching of their Savior, and, in defiance of his express 
commands, adopt and enforce an ancient Pagan form of oath, in which the Jewish 
deity is substituted for the Zeus of the Greeks, and the Hercules of the Romans. 
Would to Hercules that these inconsistent believers, while imitating the Pagan 
form of swearing, had preserved the ancient Pagan and modern Mahometan re- 
spect for the sanctity of an oath, and had not been influenced by the Jesuitical 
example of St. Paul, the apostle of the gentiles, who lied, (a harsh word), for the 
truth and glory of God. (Romans, iii : 7.)— E. 




PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 



A pure and humble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, 
grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and 
finally erected the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the 
Capitol. "—Gibbon. 



THE establishment of Christianity on the ruins of the 
Roman Empire, was an occurence of such grave im- 
port in the annals of the human race, that the history, 
if not the traditions, of that eventful era, must ever challenge 
earnest attention from thoughtful minds. All that is known 
to be authentic in regard to this transition period of religious 
belief, is concisely and impartially narrated by Gibbon in his 
History of the Decli?ie and Fall of the Roman Empire, and 
this vital and interesting part of that great work, which may 
not improperly be termed Gibbon's History of Christianity, 
together with his Vindication. of some passages thereof from 
the attacks of his theological opponents, is now, for the first 
time, published separate from his other writings, and shows 
when, where and how Christianity originated, who were 
its founders, and what were the sentiments, character, man- 
ners, numbers, and condition of the primitive Christians. 

An additional reason for this publication is found in the 
fact, that a revised and abridged edition of Gibbon, called 
the "Student's Edition," edited by Wm. Smith, LL.D., 
has gained a wide circulation in our schools and colleges, 
and is deficient in a most important feature. This editor 
claims, by omitting certain portions, to have gained space 



IV PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 

for narrating at length those grand events which have influ- 
enced the history of the world. "The most important 
1 ' omissions, ' ' he naively remarks, ' * relate to the history of 
1 ' the Church, in which Gibbon too frequently displayed the 
" hostility he felt towards the Christian religion." 

These "most important omissions " are fully supplied by 
the present work. The matter here selected for publication 
being that portion of the Decline and Fall which relates to 
the history of the Christian religion, and this history is given 
in full, without alterations or interpolations, precisely as 
Gibbon, in his great work, first published it to the world. 

Bohn's edition of Gibbon is edited by a " distinguished 
1 ' English Churchman ' ' whose name, however, does not 
appear. This editor laments that ' ' no Christian reader of 
11 Gibbon's ' florid page' will be able or will desire to sup- 
' ' press a deep feeling of sorrow that the mind which could 
1 ' plan and compose the most valuable History of the Decline 
1 ' and Fall of the Roman Empire could find no rest in the 
' ' truths of Christianity ; ' ' and he quotes with approbation 
the criticism of Porson that Gibbon ' ' often makes, where he 
1 ' cannot readily find, an occasion to insult our religion, 
' ' which he hates so cordially, that he might seem to 
"revenge some personal injury." 

This "distinguished Churchman" acknowledges a debt of 
gratitude to Wenck, Guizot and Milman, ' ' for the care they 
1 ' have bestowed on those portions of the history where re- 
" ligion demanded their services, as well as on other parts 
' ' which either required correction, or admitted of extension, 
"or, from apparent inconsistency, called for explanation."* 

" The sight of an enemy," continues this w r riter, " of so 
' ' much vigor and stratagem as Gibbon exhibited, would 

* Impartial readers may not approve of the "care "these learned commentators 
"have bestowed on those portions of the history where religion demanded their 
" services," for the historian's only " care" should be to simply tell the truth, 
without suppression or " extension." 

In the year 1826 there was published in London an edition of Gibbon's Decline 
and Fall which strikingly illustrates the partisan spirit of many orthodox critics. 
The title page of this curious work openly admits that it is " Reprinted from the 

original text, with the careful omission of all passages of an irreligious or im- 
" moral tendency, by Thomas Bowdler." In the preface the devout Bowdler 
modestly intimates his desire that this mutilated edition may in time supersede 
the original work of Gibbon. 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. V 

" naturally enkindle steadfast believers to engage with him ; 
" and some appear to have entered the field without sufft- 
" cient preparation and without sufficient discernment." * 

The editors of the various editions of the Decliiie and 
Fall have all criticised Gibbon's views on religious sub- 
jects, which, of course, they had a perfect right to do. It 
is the covert method of their attack that is objectionable. • 
Gibbon's historical statements in regard to Christianity are 
either true or false. If false, the errors should have been 
exposed by some of the many Christian writers who, since 
the year 1776 when Gibbon's work first appeared, have 
devoted such earnest but fruitless efforts to the task. On 
the contrary, if his statements are true, why not frankly 
admit the truth ? How can it possibly be for the benefit of 
any sect to propagate historical errors ? How can it possibly 
be considered " an answer " to Gibbon's History of Chris- 
tianity to say that " Gibbon," because he fearlessly states 
the truth, "was an .Infidel?" f What has his religious 
belief to do with his statement of historical facts ? 

What Gibbon's religious views actually were may be left 
to conjecture. We have no statement to guide us after he 
publicly abjured Romanism and partook of the sacrament 
in the Protestant Church, at Lausanne, in Switzerland, on 
Christmas -day, 1754. His religion or want of religion was 
entirely his own affair. It is, however, very important for 
us to know that he was truthful and impartial in his his- 
torical statements. The attempt to throw discredit on his 

* "I wish," said the acute Porson, "that every writer who attacks the 
" infidels, would weigh the accusations, and keep a strict watch over himself, 
" lest his zeal should hurry him too far." 

f The followers of Mahomet first coined the word infidel and called the early 
Christians "Giaours" or "Infidels." The Catholic Christians evidently 
relished the euphonious sound, for they adopted the term and applied it with 
great impartiality to both Protestants and Pagans. The followers of Luther 
and Calvin liked it so well that they gave it to the disciples of Serve tus. The 
Unitarians generously passed it on to the Deists, the Pantheists and the 
Atheists, where it now rests. It has been worn threadbare by these 
enforced journeys, and its meaning so changed that now it is indefinite and 
vague. It is, however, considered a term of reproach by those who apply 
it, and is treated with contempt by those to whom it is applied. 



vi publisher's preface. 

History of Christianity, because his critics mistrust that his 
religious views do not agree with their religious views, is 
unworthy of men claiming to be civilized. * 

M. Guizot, in his translation of Gibbon's Work, exclaims : 
" The abolition of the religion of Greece and Rome, the origin 
" and growth of two other religions which have shared 
" between them the fairest provinces of earth, the old age 
" of the ancient world, the spectacle of its expiring glory 
" and moral degeneracy, the infancy of the modern world, 
•' the picture of its early progress and of a new impulse given 
" to mind and character, these form a subject to attract and 
" interest all who do not look with indifference on those 
" memorable epochs, when, as Corneille so beautifully said, 
" 'Un grand destin commence, un grand destin s'acheve.' " 

" In my opinion," continues M. Guizot, " we can neither 
u value too highly nor too warmly praise that immense 
" assemblage of knowledge and of thought, the courage 
" that ventured to employ it, and the perseverance which 
" conducted the work to its successful issue ; but most do 
" we owe to that freely judging mind, which no institutions 
" or times could fetter, and without which no historian can 
" be great or any history truthful. If words can add to 
" Gibbon's glory I conclude with these — that before him 
" no such work was ever written, nor whatever attempts 
" might here and there be made to continue or complete it, 
" has he left any room for such another." 

* "Dark and abstruse," says the late Thomas Carlyle, in his Life of 
Sterling, "without lamp or authentic finger-post, is the course of pious 
" genius towards the Eternal Kingdoms grown. No fixed highway more ; 
" the old spiritual highways and recognized paths to the Eternal, now all 
" tom-up and flung in heaps, submerged in unutterable, boiling mud -oceans 
" of Hypocrisy and Unbelievability, of brutal living Atheism and damnable 
" dead putrescent Cant. • • • Speedy end to Superstition, —a gentle 
" one if you can contrive it, but an end. What can it profit any mortal to 
«' adopt locutions and imaginations which do not correspond to fact ; which 
" no sane mortal can deliberately adopt in his soul as true ; which the 
" most orthodox of mortals can only, and this after infinite essentially 
" impious effort to put-out the eyes of his mind, persuade himself to ' believe 
" that he believes ' ? Away with it ; in the name of God, come out of it, 
" all true men ! " 



PUBLISHERS PREFACE. VII 

The current editions of Gibbon, published in this country, 
are mostly copied from the English edition, edited by the 
Rev. H. H. Milman, Prebendary of St. Peter's and Rector 
of St. Margaret's, Westminster. This learned divine* was 
permitted to inspect the unpublished posthumous works 
of Gibbon, with the express understanding, however, that 
none of their contents should be divulged. Lord Sheffield, 
in whose care they had remained, having positively 
prohibited, by a clause in his will, any further publi- 
cation of them. Mr. Milman, having thus had access to 
Gibbon's notes and private memoranda, and having devoted 
much time to the subject, was well qualified to form a correct 
estimate of Gibbon's labors ; and, notwithstanding his 
strong Christian prejudices, he is constrained to admit that 
he has " followed the track of Gibbon through many parts 
" of his work ; he has read his authorities with constant 
" reference to his pages ; and must pronounce his deliberate 
" judgment in terms of the highest admiration as to his 
" general accuracy." 

"And indeed, if, after all," continues Milman in a sorrow- 
ful strain, " the views of the early progress of Christianity 
" be melancholy and humiliating, we must beware lest we 
" charge the whole of this on the infidelity of the historian. 
" It is idle, it is disingenuous, to deny or to dissemble the 
" early depravations of Christianity, its gradual but rapid 
" departure from its primitive simplicity and purity, still 
" more, from its spirit of universal love." 

After admitting so much in favor of Gibbon's accuracy 
as an historian, and acknowledging so much that Gibbon 
has stated in regard to the " melancholy and humiliating " 
origin of Christianity, is it not somewhat surprising to see 

* In his preface Dean Milman takes his readers into his confidence and 
tells them frankly that " Christians, like M. Guizot and ourselves, will see 
" some things, and some persons, in a different light from the historian of 
" the Decline and Fall." What a striking resemblance is here shown to 
the conceited Pharisee, immortalized by St. Luke, who "stood and prayed 
" thus with himself : God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are." 



VIII PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 

this learned and cautious champion of the Church, use 
the following language, in endeavoring to explain why- 
some damaging truths, called "objectionable passages," 
in Gibbon's History, have been allowed by him to remain 
unchallenged ? 

"The editor," says Milman, speaking of himself, "would 
" further observe, that with regard to some other objection- 
" able passages, which do not involve misstatement or inac- 
" curacy, he has intentionally abstained from directing par- 
" ticular attention towards them by any special protest." 

A passage that is not misstated and is not inaccurate, 
must necessarily be true, and to call an historical truth 
" objectionable " because it conflicts with certain Christian 
prejudices, proves that this pious and learned divine was 
rather a partizan for his creed than a sincere lover of truth 
for its own sake. He considered it wiser to pass over these 
" objectionable passages " in silence, hoping the reader 
would not observe their significance, rather than risk the 
danger of arousing suspicion by challenging investigation. 
What a short-sighted and time-serving policy for an eminent 
Christian historian to assume ! What a contrast such 
methods afford to the labors of our modern scientists, who 
earnestly seek to demonstrate hidden facts in nature and 
discover new truths in science, regardless alike whether 
these new discoveries militate for or against their precon- 
ceived theories.* 

" The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impression 
" produced by these two memorable chapters," (the fifteenth 
and sixteenth), continues Dean Milman, " consists in his 
" confounding together, in one undistinguishable mass, the 
" origin and apostolic propagation of the Christian religion 

* As an illustration of this desire of scientific minds to arrive at the exact 
truth, see postscript in second volume of Darwin's Descent of Man, in which 
he regrets having " fallen into a serious and unfortunate error," &c. 

" For it is indeed," says Jacob Grimm, " the true characteristic of science, 
" that she casts her net in search of results on every side, seizes upon every 
" perceptible property of things, and subjects it to the hardest tests, no 
" matter what finally comes of it." 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. IX 

" with its later progress. * * * The main question, the divine 
" origin of the religio?i, was dexterously eluded, or spe- 
" ciously conceded by Gibbon ; his plan enabled him to 
" commence his account, in most parts, below the apostolic 
" times ; and it was only by the strength of the dark coloring 
" with which he brought out the failings and the follies of the 
" succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and suspicion was 
" thrown back upon the primitive period of Christianity." 

The Jews justly complained that their Egyptian task- 
masters compelled them to make bricks without straw; 
but this difficult performance would have been no greater 
than to attempt to write an authentic history without facts. 
" Short, indeed," says Bishop Watson, " are the accounts 
* which have been transmitted to us, of the first propagating 
" of Christianity." " The scanty and suspicious materials 
" of ecclesiastical history," says Gibbon, " seldom enable us 
" to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of 
" the church." Had Gibbon drawn upon his imagination 
for his facts, he could have written a history that would 
have given great satisfaction to Dean Milman and his fellow- 
churchmen. But a history written from such a standpoint 
would be as useless and ephemeral as were the productions 
of Gibbon's opponents, which have already passed into a 
merited oblivion.* 

M. Guizot goes a step further than Milman, and effectu- 
ally disposes of the latter's argument against Gibbon by 
asserting in effect that there was no history of the primi- 
tive Church to which Gibbon could have referred for 
information or authority — that in reality " the history of the 
" first age of Christianity is only found in the Acls of the 
" Apostles, and in order to speak of the first persecutions 
" experienced by the Christians, that book should naturally 
" have been consulted." 

* M. Guizot sincerely regrets that all that has been preserved of very many 
attacks on Gibbon's Rome, is the titles of the works and names of the various 
authors. 



X PUBLISHER S PREFACE. 

Such a method would certainly simplify the case very 
materially, and enable us in future to dispense entirely with 
the study of history.* We would only have to consult the four 
gospels, read carefully the texts of scripture, take assertions 
for facts, and repeat that stereotyped formula from generation 
to generation. Criticism would be unnecessary, investigation 
would cease, and uniformity of belief, one of the signs of 
the coming millennium, would necessarily be established. 

The appearance of the first volume of the Decline and 
Fall, produced, says Gibbon, "a fruitful crop of Answers ; 
"Apologies, Remarks, Examinatio7is, &c," the more promi- 
nent of which are as follows : 

Mr. Davies, Bachelor of Arts and Fellow of Baliol College 
in the University of Oxford, published An Examination of 
the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters of the History of the 
Decline and Fall of the Ro?nom Empire. Richard Watson, 
D. D., F. R. S., Lord Bishop of LandafT and Regius 
Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, pub- 
lished An Apology for Christianity. Dr. Priestley wrote 
A Letter to a Philosophical Unbeliever, with Observations 
on Mr. Gibbon's two First Volumes. Dr. White, assisted 
by Dr. S. Badcock, drew A Compariso?i Between Chris- 
tianity and Mahometanism, in which they endeavored to 
controvert Gibbon. Dr. J. Chelsum, Chaplain to the Bishop 
of Worcester, published Remarks on the two Last Chapters 
of the First Volume of Mr. Gibbon's History. Mr. East 
Apthorpe, Rector of St. Mary-le-Bow, London, published 
Letters on the Prevalence of Christianity, before its Civil 
Establishment, with Observations on Mr. Gibbon's History. 
Mr. Travis, Prebendary of Chester and Vicar of Eastham, 
published Letters to Edward Gibbon, Esq. The Rev. H. 
Kett preached eight sermons called the Bampton Lectures. 
Dr. Whitaker wrote and published under the name of an 

*"I will destroy your library," said the Mahometan soldier to the 
scholar, " for if your books agree with the Koran, they are unnecessary 
and superfluous, and if they disagree with that sacred revelation, they are 
necessarily wicked and should be destroyed." 



PUBLISHER S PREFACE. XI 

"Anonymous Gentleman." Works also appeared by Sir 
David Dalrymple, a Lord of Session ; Mr. Joseph Milner, 
a Methodist ; Mr. Taylor, an Arian, author of Thoughts o?i 
the Causes of the Grand Apostacy ; Mr. J. Beattie ; and 
others of less note. In Hamburg, M. Walterstern, a Ger- 
man theologian, wrote and published a work against 
Gibbon, entitled The Propagation of Christia?iity by Natu- 
ral Causes* In Helmstadt, M. Luderwald wrote a book 
on the same subject with a similar title, The Propagatio?i 
of the Christiaii Religion.^ A translation of Gibbon's 
History into German was undertaken by F. A. G. Wenck, 
Professor of Jurisprudence at Leipzig, in 1779. He com- 
pleted the first volume only, and the work was finished by 
M. Schreiter, a Professor at Leipzig. M. Wenck an- 
nounced his intention of publishing a separate dissertation 
on the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, in order to examine 
Gibbon's view of the propagation of Christianity, but he 
died before completing the task. A translation was also 
made into the Italian language. 

In answer to these writers Gibbon published A Vindication 
of Some Passages in the Fifteenth a?id Sixteenth Chapters 
of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roma?i Empire. 
Of the merits of this reply the reader will judge. It is 
almost universally conceded that Gibbon obtained an easy 
victory; and it is certain that he never changed, either 
in his Vindication or in his later writings, the views first 
promulgated in his History. The editor of Bohn's edition 
of Gibbon — the " distinguished Churchman " — says " It was 
" little glory to Gibbon to gain any victory over unskillful 
" antagonists." This can scarcely be considered as compli- 
mentary to the many Christian writers who felt constrained 
to enter the controversy. " Theologians," says M. Guizot, 

*®te 2ui§Breifimg be§ (£f)rifiettfi)irm3 au§ natiirlidjeit Urfadjen, 0011 
3B. ©. Sktterftenu 8bo. Hamburg, 1788. 

f 2>te 2ui3breihmg be3 <£f)ri[tliri)en 9Migiott, bon 3. S3. Shibertoalb. 
Stoo. §e(mftabt, 1788. 



XII publisher's preface. 

" assailed his fifteenth and sixteenth chapters, sometimes 
"justly, sometimes acrimoniously, almost always with 
" weapons weaker than those of their adversary, who 
" certainly possessed more knowledge, more genius, more 
" insight into his subject than his opponents." " His 
" defence was complete and in excellent temper," says James 
Cotter Morison, M. A., of Lincoln College, Oxford, in his 
Life of Gibbon, " his assailants were so ignorant and silly 
" that they gave no scope for a great controversial reply." 

Dr. Watson, the mitred Bishop of Landaff, distinguished 
himself throughout the controversy by his gentlemanly 
conduct and respectful language. A copy of his Apology 
was forwarded to Gibbon before publication, and the latter 
acknowledged the courtesy in the following note : 

" Bentinck Street, Nov. 2, 1776" 
" Mr. Gibbon takes the earliest opportunity of presenting his 
' compliments and thanks to Dr. Watson, and of expressing his 
' sense of the liberal treatment which he has received from so 
' candid an adversary. Mr. Gibbon entirely coincides in opinion 
1 with Dr. Watson, that as their different sentiments on a very 
1 important period of history are now submitted to the public, they 
' both may employ their time in a manner much more useful, as 
' well as agreeable, than they could possibly do by exhibiting a 
' single combat in the amphitheatre of controversy. Mr. Gibbon 
' is therefore determined to resist the temptation of justifying, in 
' a professed reply, any passages of his History which it might 
1 perhaps be easy to clear from censure and misapprehension. 
' But he still reserves to himself the privilege of inserting in a 
1 future edition, some occasional remarks and explanations of his 
f meaning. If any calls of pleasure or business should call Dr. 
1 Watson to town, Mr. Gibbon would think himself fortunate in 
1 being permitted to solicit the honor of his acquaintance. 

" Edward Gibbon." 
Dr. Watson's reply is as follows : 

" Cambridge, November 4th, 1776. 
" Dr. Watson accepts with pleasure Mr. Gibbon's polite invita- 
1 tion to a personal acquaintance. If he comes to town this 
' winter, will certainly do himself the honor to wait upon him. 



PUBLISHER S PREFACE. XIII 

" Begs, at the same time, to assure Mr. Gibbon, that he will be 
" very happy to have an opportunity of showing him every civility, 
" if curiosity, or other motives, should bring him to Cambridge. 
" Dr. Watson can have some faint idea of Mr. Gibbon's difficulty 
" in resisting the temptation he speaks of, from having been of 
" late in a situation somewhat similar himself. It would be very 
" extraordinary, if Mr. Gibbon did not feel a parent's partiality 
" for an offspring which has justly excited the admiration of all 
" who have seen it ; and Dr. Watson would be the last person in 
" the world to wish him to suppress any explanation which might 

" tend to exalt its merits. 

" R. Watson." 

When Mr. Gibbon published his reply to those who had 

assailed his History, he showed his respect for Dr. Watson 

by his courteous reference to the latters Apology* which 

was in strong contrast to the severity exhibited to his other 

opponents. Dr. Watson acknowledged this politeness in 

the following note : 

" Cambridge, January 14th, 1779. 

" Sir, — It will give me the greatest pleasure to have an oppor- 
11 tunity of becoming better acquainted with Mr. Gibbon : I beg 
" he would accept my sincere thanks for the too favorable manner 
" in which he has spoken of a performance, which derives its 
" chief merit from the elegance and importance of the work it 
" attempts to oppose. I have no hope of a future existence, 
" except that which is grounded on the truth of Christianity ; I 
" wish not to be deprived of this hope ; but I should be an apos- 
" tate from the mild principles of the religion I profess, if I could 
" be actuated with the least animosity against those who do not 
" think with me upon this, of all others, the most important subject. 
" I beg your pardon for this declaration of my belief; but my 
" temper is naturally open, and it ought assuredly to be without 
" disguise to a man whom I wish no longer to look upon as an 
" antagonist, but as a friend. I have the honor to be, with every 
" sentiment of respect, your obliged servant. 

" R. Watson. 

" Edward Gibbon, Esq." 

* The French have a proverb that " an apology is an accusation ! " And 
this word "Apology" seems to have been a favorite term with the worthy 
bishop, for he again uses it, twenty years later, in answer to Paine 's Age of 
Reason, calling his reply An Apology for the Bible, as though he believed 
that Christianity and the Bible needed an apology I 



XIV PUBLISHERS PREFACE. 

His Majesty, George III., asked an explanation of this 
note from Dr. Watson, as he considered it "odd" (such was 
the King's gracious remark), that such sentiments should 
be expressed toward an unbeliever, and Dr. Watson, says 
the learned editor of " Christian Evidences" was able to 
make a reply with which " His Majesty expressed himself 
" satisfied." 

" The mutual courtesy," says the Rev. J. S. Memes, 
LL. D,, in his Memoir of Bishop Watson, " which these 
" two eminent men thus manifested towards each other 
" personally, appears to have been so far misunderstood by 
" ' some doughty polemics,' as Dr. Watson calls them, that 
" they even affected to doubt the sincerity of the apologist, 
" from the verbal sifflvity of the Apology, 'and were angry 
" ' with him for not having bespattered Gibbon with a por- 
" ' tion of that theological dirt which the preceding age 
" ' had so liberally thrown at antagonists.' Invective never 
" aided the cause of truth, more particularly religious truth. 
" In this, therefore, Dr. Watson does not indulge : he writes 
" like a gentleman addressing his equal." 

We give below the first paragraph of Dr. Watson's 
Apology for Christianity, and commend the liberal views 
he therein so eloquently sets forth. Unfortunately, such 
sentiments from the clerical profession are as rare as they 
are commendable. We must, however, bear in mind when 
we hear the narrow sectarian views so commonly advocated 
by the clergy, that few Doctors of Divinity of the present 
day possess the knowledge, ability or refinement that 
characterized the celebrated Lord Bishop of Landaff.* 

"It would give me much uneasiness," says the learned 

prelate, " to be reputed an enemy to free inquiry in religious 

* When we reflect that Protestantism is grounded on freethought — that the 
corner stone of its structure is the right of private judgment— that its first 
and essential principle is the enfranchisement of the human mind from the 
shackles of sacerdotal bondage, we are amazed that the plea for mental 
freedom which Bishop Watson here so eloquently urges, should sound 
strange to protestant ears, and should not meet with a fervid response from 
every protestant heart. 



PUBLISHER S PREFACE. XV 

" matters, or as capable of being animated into any degree 
" of personal malevolence against those who differ from me 
" in opinion. On the contrary, I look upon the right of 
" private judgment, in every concern respecting God and 
" ourselves, as superior to the control of human authority. 
"... Let the followers of Mahomet, and the zealots of the 
" Church of Rome, support their several religious systems 
" by damping every effort of the human intellect to pry into 
" the foundations of their faith : but never can it become a 
" Christian, to be afraid of being asked ' a reason of the faith 
tc * that is in him ; ' nor a Protestant, to be studious of 
" enveloping his religion in mystery and ignorance." 

It is evident from the writings of Gibbon that he regarded 
with complacency the tolerant spirit* inculcated by the 
Pagan religion, f which so strongly contrasts with the 
aggressive nature of Christianity. J In peace and har- 
mony, and in accordance with the sacred institutions of 
their ancestors, without persecuting their fellow-citizens who 
cherished a different form of religious belief, these old 
Roman philosophers, whom Christians call " pagans," were 
content to adore the gods under whose auspices the Empire 
had been founded and Rome made mistress of the world. 
But the Roman Bishops and the Christian Emperors, from 
the guilty Constantine downward, have ever sought to fetter 

* " Gibbon saw in Christianity only the institution, which had substituted 
" the vespers and processions of bare -footed monks, for the magnificent 
" ceremonial of Jupiter's worship, and the august triumphs of the cap- 
" itol." — M. Guizot. 

f "According to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected 
" a superstition which they despised." — Gibbon. 

X "With respect to the inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, I 
" would refer it to a full persuasion of the truth of Christianity." — Watson. 

Faith is a consuming fire to its opposite. Paul, the apostle, cursed Elymas 
with blindness, because he withstood the faith. — Acts xiii. 8-12. " Do unto 
" others as ye would that others should do unto you," is a good, if obsolete, 
doctrine ; but, unfortunately, seems intended more for ornament than for 
use — for precept than for practice. 

" Christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith. If 
" that religion be true, there is but one savior, one inspired book, and 
" but one little narrow grass-grown path that leads to heaven. Such 
" a religion is necessarily uncompromising, unreasoning, aggressive and 
" insolent." — R. G. Ingersoll. 



xvi publisher's preface. 

and enslave the mind — to dictate a form of religious belief 
which all must endorse, or suffer the persecutions that in- 
tolerant orthodoxy inflicts. 

If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally 
true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The 
pure Deism of the first Christians, (who differed from their 
fellow Jews only in the belief that Jesus was the promised 
Messiah,) was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the 
incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan 
tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, 
were retained as being worthy of belief. The doctrine of 
the incarnation, and the mystery of transubstantiation, were 
both adopted, and are both as repugnant to reason, as was 
the ancient pagan rite of viewing the entrails of animals to 
forecast the fate Sf empires ! 

When the Church of Rome had risen to the height 
of its power and grandeur, and we may add, sunk to the 
depths of corruption and disgrace, it was, for its wickedness 
and venality, boldly assailed by the sturdy protestant re- 
formers — the purest and best of its own children — who, after 
years of suffering and persecution, have at length attained 
the ascendency. Protestantism, following the logical result 
of its doctrines, has in its turn given birth to a new and 
beneficent organization, which is called Rationalism; and 
this fairest, noblest creation of the brain, disclaiming per- 
secution and cruelty, seeks, with the peaceful weapons of 
reason and philosophy, to free the human mind from the 
ignoble trammels forged by faith — from the hideous super- 
stitions engendered by fear. It pleads for liberty, for justice, 
and for humanity. It strives for knowledge, for equality, 
and for happiness. And it teaches to an ignorant and 
priest-ridden world the sublime truth, that " religious duties 
" consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring 
" to make our fellow -creatures happy." 

Peter Eckler. 

New York, March 28, 1881. 







NOX. 
Night was personified in ancient myths as the daughter of Chaos. She is 
an allegorical-, rather than a mythological personage ; and in this sense sleep, 
dreams, and death are called her children. In an illuminated manuscript of the 
tenth century, now iti the Royal Library at Paris., (from which the above engrav- 
ing is copied,) she is represented with an inverted torch, and with rays of light 
surrounding her head, the rays being obscured by a flowing veil bespangled with 
stars.— E. 



MYTHOLOGY. 

MYTHOLOGY antedates Christianity, and may be briefly defined as man's 
early efforts to deify the powers of nature — as the first rude struggles of the 
untutored mind to symbolize in a material form the unknown forces that control 
the universe. 

The fertile land of Egypt gave birth to many crude religious systems that were 
afterwards refined by Plato and adopted by the Greeks and Romans. Osiris and 
Isis, the two principal Egyptian divinities, were, says the Rev. Joseph B. Gross, 
"the deified personifications of the astronomical attributes of nature. Osiris sym- 
" bolized the Sun and the Nile, Isis the Moon and Egypt ; and both, the solar year. 
" The god was worshiped under the form of an oxoro/«, strictly speaking, Taurus, 
" one of the twelve signs of the zodiac ; and the goddess under that of a cow." 

Here, then, we have the origin and history of the old mythology from its in- 
ception to its completion — from its germinating principle of error, through the 
period of growth, budding and blossoming, until we behold the ripe fruit of igno- 
rance and credulity. An object in nature is personified on earth, invested with 
incomprehensible attributes, and then deified and worshiped as a god in heaven. 
It is true that not a constellation, a planet or even a single star is thus honored with 
a Christian title ; because Christianity is modern as compared with these by-gone 
mythologies, which in their turn have succeeded older and cruder forms of faith. 
" As science advances," says Henry Hetherington. " heaven recedes," and as the 
truths of nature become established the mythologies and religions of the past dis- 
appear. 

The gods were first described, if not invented, by the poets, who, in the lan- 
guage of allegory and fable, endowed the " heroes of Olympus " with human 
virtues and human vices. To Homer we are indebted for much of our knowledge 
of the gods of Greece. The sublime genius of a mortal has conferred immortality 
on the " immortal gods." The Illiad contains an eloquent and poetic history, if 
not a predigree, of these pagan divinities ; and Homer achieved for the Grecian 
mythology what Milton in Paradise Lost attempted for the Mosaic cosmogony. 

The priesthood, being ambitious and avaricious, taught for their own emolument 
these poetic myths. The real meaning of their rituals and dogmas, veiled in 
mystic language, was apparent to the initiated and educated classes, but was 
concealed from the ignorant and careless multitude ; who, steeped in credulity and 
sensuality, worshiped gods of wood and stone, — blindly adored the graven 
image, — the visible object, — instead of the principle it represented or the truth it 
symbolized. 

" The most ancient theology, both of the Greeks and barbarians," says Plutarch, 
" was natural philosophy involved in fables, that physically and mystically con- 
" veyed the truth to the learned, as appears from the poems of Orpheus, the 
" Egyptian rites, and the Phrygian traditions." 

"The common people," says Heraclitus, "pray to these statues, just as one 
" would talk to the walls of a house, knowing nothing who or what are the gods to 
" whom they are praying." 

" These myths," says Ingersoll, " though false, are beautiful, and have for many 
" ages and in countless ways enriched the heart and kindled thought. They 
" clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of 
" the sons of men. In them the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes 
"and streams and springs, — the mountains, woods and perfumed dells, were 
" haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with 
" tremulous desire, made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of 
"love; filled Autumn's arms with sun-kissed grapes and gathered sheaves; and 
" pictured Winter as a weak old king, who felt, like Lear upon his withered 
" face, Cordelia's tears." — E. 




(Neptune and Amphitrite.) 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE* 



THE historian informs us he was born at Putney, in the 
county of Surry, England, on the 27th of April, 1737. 
Edward, his grandfather, was first a commissioner of 
customs, and next a director of the South Sea Company. In the 
latter capacity he had the misfortune to lose the principal part of 
his property, and no inconsiderable portion of his reputation. His 
grandson has taken some pains to exculpate him from the heavy 
charges brought against that body. By his skill and credit he 
succeeded in retrieving his fortune ; but to his son (who was also 
named Edward) he left only a small share of the estate, owing to 
a matrimonial connection, which had excited his disapprobation. 
Edward was twice a member of Parliament, and signalized him- 
self by a determined opposition to Sir Robert Walpole. He 
married Judith Porten, the daughter of a respectable merchant 
of London; by her he had six sons. and a daughter, all of whom 
died in early life, except the subject of our memoir, whose ex- 
treme weakness of constitution rendered it doubtful whether he 
would ever attain the age of manhood; and to his aunt, Mrs. 
Catherine Porten, our author acknowledges himself greatly in- 
debted for her tender care of his helpless infancy. 

* Gibbon's Memoirs of his Life and Writings, edited by Lord Sheffield, has 
been freely used in preparing this sketch of the author's life. The minor details 
in his history have been omitted, and only the most notable and interesting 
events selected for publication. To distinguish Gibbon's notes from those 

added by the publisher, the latter are signed " E." 

(xvii) 



XVIII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" A lively desire of knowing and of recording our ancestors 
" so generally prevails," says Gibbon, " that it must depend on 
" the influence of some common principle in the minds of men. 
" We seem to have lived in the persons of our forefathers ; it is 
" the labor and reward of vanity to extend the term of this ideal 
" longevity. Our imagination is always active to enlarge the 
" narrow circle in which Nature has confined us. Fifty or an 
" hundred years may be allotted to an individual, but we step 
" forwards beyond death with such hopes as religion and philoso- 
" phy will suggest ; and we fill up the silent vacancy that percedes 
" our birth, by associating ourselves to the authors of our exist- 
" ence. Our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate, than 
" to suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The sat- 
" irist may laugh, the philosopher may preach ; but reason herself 
" will respect the prejudices and habits which have been conse- 
" crated by the experience of mankind. 

" Wherever the distinction of birth* is allowed to form a supe- 
" rior order in the state, education and example should always, 
" and will often, produce among them a dignity of sentiment and 
" propriety of conduct, which is guarded from dishonor by their 
" own and the public esteem. 

" If we read of some illustrious line so ancient that it has no be- 
" ginning, so worthy that it ought to have no end, we sympathize 
" in its various fortunes, nor can we blame the generous enthusiasm 
" or even the harmless vanity of those who are allied to the hon- 
" ors of its name. For my own part, could I draw my predigree 
" from a general, a statesman, or a celebrated author, I should 
" study their lives with the diligence of filial love. In the inves- 
" tigation of past events our curiosity is stimulated by the imme- 
" diate or indirect reference to ourselves ; but in the estimate of 
" honor we should learn to value the gifts of nature above those 
" of fortune ; to esteem in our ancestors the qualities that best 
" promote the interests of society ; and to pronounce the descend- 
" ant of a king less truly noble than the offspring of a man of genius, 
" whose writings will instruct or delight the latest posterity. 

" The family of Confucius is, in my opinion, the most illustrious 
" in the world. After a painful ascent of eight or ten centuries, 
" our barons and princes are lost in the darkness of the middle 
" ages ; but, in the vast equality of the empire of China, the pos- 

*"High birth," says Bishop Warburton, "is a thing that I never knew 
" any one to disparage except him that had it not ; and I never knew any 
" one to make a boast of it, who had any thing else to be proud of." — E. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. XIX 

" terity of Confucius have maintained, above two thousand two 
" hundred years, their peaceful honors and perpetual succession. 
44 The chief of the family is still revered by the sovereign and the 
*' people, as the lively image of the wisest of mankind. The no- 
" bility of the Spensers has been illustrated and enriched by the 
" trophies of Marlborough ; but I exhort them to consider the 
- Fairy Queen as the most precious jewel of their coronet. I have 
" exposed my private feelings, as I shall always do, without scru- 
" pie or reserve. That these sentiments are just, or at least natural, 
" I am inclined to believe, since I do not feel interested in the 
" cause, for I can derive from my ancestors neither glory nor shame. 

" The chief honor of my ancestry is James Fiens, Baron Say and 
" Seale, and Lord High Treasurer of England in the reign of 
" Henry the Sixth ; from whom I am lineally descended in the 
H eleventh degree. His dismission and imprisonment in the Tower 
■ were insufficient to appease the popular clamor ; and the Treas- 
" urer, with his son-in-law Cromer, was beheaded (1450), after a 
" mock trial by the Kentish insurgents. The black list of his 
" offences, as it is exhibited in Shakespeare, displays the ignor- 
" ance and envy of a plebeian tyrant. Besides the vague reproaches 
" of selling Maine and Normandy to the Dauphin, the Treasurer 
" is specially accused of luxury for riding on a foot-cloth ; and of 
" treason for speaking French, the language of our enemies. 'Thou 
" ' hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm,' says 
" Jack Cade to the unfortunate Lord, ' in erecting a grammar- 
" ' school ; and whereas before our forefathers had no other books 
" ' than the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be 
" ' used ; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou 
" ' hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face, that thou 
■' ' hast men about thee, who usually talk of a noun and a verb, 
" ' and such abominable words, as no Christian ear can endure to 
" ' hear.' Our dramatic poet is generally more attentive to char- 
" acter than to history ; and I much fear that the art of printing 
" was not introduced into England, till several years after Lord 
" Say's death : but of some of these meritorious crimes I should 
" hope to find my ancestor guilty ; and a man of letters may be 
" proud of his descent from a patron and martyr of learning." 

In speaking of his aunt, Mrs. Catherine Porten, Gibbon remarks : 
" If there be any, as I trust there are some, who rejoice that I live, 
" to that dear and excellent woman, at whose name I feel a tear of 
" gratitude trickling down my cheeks, they must hold themselves 
" indebted." 



xx SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

As soon as the use of speech had prepared his mind for the 
admission of knowledge, he was instructed in the common 
branches of education ; and after this instruction at home, and at 
a day-school at Putney, he was committed at the age of seven to 
the care of Mr. John Kirkby, who, during eighteen months, per- 
formed the office of domestic tutor. Under his tuition were 
acquired the rudiments of English and Latin. Kirkby having, on 
one occasion forgotten to mention King George in his prayer, the 
zealous loyalty of old Gibbon dismissed him. Edward was then 
sent to Kingston-upon-Thames, to a school containing about 
seventy boys, kept by Dr. Wooddeson. Sickness frequently inter- 
rupted his studies ; and, at the expiration of two years, his mother 
died : this misfortune occasioned his return to the parental roof, 
where he was again placed under the care of his aunt, who now 
devoted the same attention to the improvement of his mind, which 
she had formerly applied to the strengthening of his constitution. 
"I feel," he remarks, "a melancholy pleasure in repeating my 
" obligations to that excellent woman— the true mother of my 
" mind, as well as of my health. Pain and languor were often 
" soothed by the voice of instruction and amusement ; and to her 
" kind lessons I ascribe my early and invincible love of reading 
" which I would not exchange for the treasures of India. I should 
" per.haps be astonished were it possible to ascertain the date at 
" which a favorite tale was engraved, by frequent repetition, in my 
" memory : the Cavern of the Winds, the Palace of Felicity, and 
" the fatal moment, at the end of three months or centuries, when 
" Prince Adolphus is overtaken by Time, who had worn out so 
" many pair of wings in the pursuit. Before I left Kingston school, 
" I was well acquainted with Pope's Homer, and the Arabian 
" Nights' Entertainments ; two books which will always please, by 
"the moving picture of human manners and specious miracles: 
" nor was I then capable of discerning that Pope's translation is a 
" portrait endowed with every merit, excepting that of likeness to 
" the original. The verses of Pope accustomed my ear to the 
" sound of poetic harmony. In the death of Hector, and the ship- 
" wreck of Ulysses, I tasted the new emotions of terror and pity; 
" and seriously disputed with my aunt on the vices and virtues of 
" the heroes of the Trojan war. From Pope's Homer to Dryden's 
" Virgil was an easy transition ; but I know not how, from some 
" fault in the author, the translator, or the reader, the pious iEneas 
'' did not so forcibly seize on my imagination ; and I derived more 
" pleasure from Ovid's Metamorphoses, especially in the fall of 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXI 

" Phaeton, and the speeches of Ajax and Ulysses. Where a title 
" attracted my eye, without fear or awe I snatched the volume 
" from the shelf, and Mrs. Porten, who indulged herself in moral 
" and religious speculations, was more prone to encourage than to 
■ check a curiosity above the strength of a boy. This year (1748), 
" the twelfth of my age, I shall note as the most propitious to the 
" growth of my intellectual stature." 

Not long after his mother's death, his grandfather became a 
bankrupt, and absconded ; and the daughter (our author's worthy 
aunt), who had advanced beyond her fortieth year, was reduced to 
a state of penury. But her spirit was superior to a life of depend- 
ence upon the bounty of her relations, and she resolved upon 
endeavoring to secure an honorable maintenance, by keeping a 
boarding-house for Westminster school: the attempt succeeded, 
and she laboriously acquired a competence for old age. Edward 
accompanied her thither, and was instantly placed in the school, 
which had for its head master Dr. John Nicoll. He was still the 
victim of severe bodily indisposition, which increased to so alarming 
a height that Mrs. Porten, with the advice of physicians, deter- 
mined to attend him to Bath. "A strange nervous affection," he 
says, "which alternately contracted my legs, and produced, with- 
" out any visible symptoms, the most excruciating pain, was inef- 
" fectually opposed by the various methods of bathing and pumping. 
" It might now be apprehended, that I should continue for life 
" an illiterate cripple ; but, as I approached my sixteenth year, 
" Nature displayed in my favor her mysterious energies : my con- 
" stitution was fortified and fixed ; and my disorders, instead of 
" growing with my growth, and strengthening with my strength, 
" most wonderfully vanished. My unexpected recovery again 
" encouraged the hope of my education, and I was placed at 
" Esher, in Surry, in the house of the Rev. Mr. Philip Francis, in a 
" pleasant spot, which promised to unite ihe various benefits of 
" air, exercise, and study." The neglect and irregularity attending 
his scholastic instruction induced his father to carry him to Oxford, 
and he was matriculated in the university as a gentleman-com- 
moner of Magdalen College. His account of himself at this period, 
and for some time prior thereto, is interesting. 

" The curiosity which had been implanted in my infant mind, 
" was still alive and active ; but my reason was not sufficiently 
" informed to understand the value or to lament the loss of three 
" precious years, from my entrance at Westminster to my admis- 
" sion at Oxford. Instead of repining at my long and frequent 



XXII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. 

" confinement to the chamber or the couch, I secretly rejoiced in 
" those infirmities which delivered me from the exercises of the 
" school and the society of my equals. As often as I was tolerably 
" exempt from danger and pain, reading, free desultory reading, 
" was the employment and comfort of my solitary hours. At 
" Westminster my aunt sought only to amuse and indulge me; in 
" my stations at Bath and Winchester, at Buriton and Putney, a 
" false compassion respected my sufferings ; and I was allowed, 
" without control or advice, to gratify the wanderings of an unripe 
" taste. My indiscriminate appetite subsided by degrees in the 
" historic line; and since philosophy has exploded all innate ideas 
" and natural propensities, I must ascribe this choice to the assid- 
" uous perusal of the Universal History, as the octavo volumes 
" successively appeared. This unequal work, and a treatise of 
" Hearne, the Ductus Historicus, referred and introduced me to 
" the Greek and Roman historians ; to as many at least as were 
" accessible to an English reader. All that I could find were 
" greedily devoured, from Littlebury's lame Herodotus, and Spel- 
" man's valuable Xenophon, to the pompous folios of Gordon's 
" Tacitus, and a ragged Procopius of the beginning of the last 
" century. The cheap acquisition of so much knowledge con- 
" firmed my dislike to the study of languages ; and I argued with 
" Mrs. Porten that, were I master of Greek and Latin, I must 
" interpret to myself in English the thoughts of the original, and 
" that such extempore versions must be inferior to the elaborate 
" translations of professed scholars ; a silly sophism which could 
" not be easily confuted by a person ignorant of any other lan- 
" guage than her own. From the ancient I leapt to the modern 
" world; many crude lumps of Speed, Rapin, Mezeray, Davila, 
" Machiavel, Father Paul, Bower, &c, I devoured like so many 
" novels ; and I swallowed with the same voracious appetite the 
' descriptions of India -and China, of Mexico and Peru. 

" My first introduction to the historic scenes, which have since 
1 engaged so many }^ears of my life, must be ascribed to an accident. 
' In the summer of 1751, I accompanied my father on a visit to 
' Mr. Hoare's, in Wiltshire ; but I was less delighted with the 
" Beauties of Stourhead than with discovering in the library a 
' common book, the Continuation of Echard's Roman History, 
" which is indeed executed with more skill and taste than the 
" previous work. To me the reigns of the successors of Constan- 
" tine were absolutely new; and I was immersed in the passage of 
" the Goths over the Danube, when the summons of the dinner- 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXIII 

" bell reluctantly dragged me from my intellectual feast. This 
" transient glance served rather to irritate than to appease my 
" curiosity; and as soon as I returned to Bath, I procured the 
" second and third volumes of HowePs History of the World, 
11 which exhibited the Byzantine period on a larger scale. Mahomet 
" and his Saracens soon fixed my attention ; and some instinct of 
" criticism directed me to the genuine sources. Simon Ockley, an 
" original in ever} r sense, first opened my eyes ; and I was led from 
" one book to another till I had ranged round the circle of Oriental 
" history. Before I was sixteen, I had exhausted all that could be 
" learned in English of the Arabs and Persians, the Tartars and 
" Turks ; and the same ardor urged me to guess at the French of 
" d'Herbelot, and to construe the barbarous Latin of Pocoke's 
" Abulfaragius. Such vague and multifarious reading could not 
" teach me to think, to write, or to act; and the only principle that 
" darted a ray of light into the indigested chaos, was an early and 
11 rational application to the order of time and place. The maps 
" of Cellarius and Wells imprinted in my mind the picture of 
" ancient geography ; from Stranchius I imbibed the elements of 
" chronology ; the Tables of Helvicus and Anderson, the Annals 
" of Usher and Prideaux, distinguished the connection of events, 
" and engraved the multitude of names and dates in a clear and 
" indelible series. But, in the discussion of the first ages, I over- 
" leaped the bounds of modesty and use. In my childish balance 
" I presumed to weigh the systems of Scaliger and Petavius, of 
" Marsham and Newton, which I could seldom study in the origi- 
" nals ; and my sleep has been disturbed by the difficulty of recon- 
" ciling the Septuagint with the Hebrew computation* I arrived 
" at Oxford with a stock of erudition that might have puzzled a 
" doctor, and a degree of ignorance of which a school-boy would 
" have been ashamed. To the University of Oxford I acknowledge 
• " no obligation ; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, 
" as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother." 

At Magdalen College he remained fourteen months, and he 
states those to have been the most inactive and unprofitable he 
ever knew : yet he was not, in his sixteenth year, devoid of capa- 
city, nor had he been unaccustomed to reflection ; and he is there- 
fore disposed, for this neglect, to impute a greater proportion of 
blame to the manner of the school, than the indifference of the 
scholar. His first tutor was Dr. Waldegrave, whom he describes 

* This difficulty still exists to perplex those who recognize the fact that no two truths 
ever disagree. Theological students, however, now lose but little sleep on account of 
the discrepancy. — E. 



XXIV SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

as a learned and pious man, though possessing an indolent temper, 
and scarcely any knowledge of the world beyond the confines of 
the university. "As soon," he observes, "as my tutor had sounded 
" the insufficiency of his disciple in school-learning, he proposed 
" that we should read every morning, from ten to eleven, the 
" comedies of Terence. During the first weeks I constantly 
" attended these lessons in my tutor's room ; but as they appeared 
" equally devoid of profit and pleasure, I was once tempted to 
" try the experiment of a formal apology. The apology was 
" accepted with a smile. I repeated the offence with less cere- 
" mony ; the excuse was admitted with the same indulgence : the 
" slightest motive of laziness or indisposition, the most trifling 
" avocation at home or abroad, was allowed as a worthy impedi- 
" ment ; nor did my tutor appear conscious of my absence or 
" neglect. Had the hour of lecture been constantly filled, a single 
" hour was a small portion of my academic leisure. No plan of 
" study was recommended for my use ; no exercises were pre- 
" scribed for his inspection ; and, at the most precious season of 
" youth, whole days and weeks were suffered to elapse, without 
" labor or amusement, without advice or account. I should have 
" listened to the voice of reason, and of my tutor ; his mild 
" behavior had gained my confidence." 

The long recess between Trinity and Michaelmas terms afforded 
him an opportunity of visiting his father's house at Buriton in ' 
Hampshire, and he cheerfully embraced it. At this time his love 
of literature revived, and he determined to employ his talent at 
composition, so far as to form a book ! The title was, The Age of 
Sesostris ; suggested, he conceived, by Voltaire's Age of Louis 
XIV., which had obtained popularity. His chief aim in this 
undertaking was, to ascertain the probable period of the life and 
reign of the Asiatic conqueror, which he conjectured to have 
been about the tenth century before the Christian era. What . 
credit might be due to the performance cannot now be decided : 
upon a review of it, some years afterward, he was himself so little 
satisfied with the subject, and the execution of it, that he com- 
mitted it to the flames. 

The vacation being over, he again returned to Oxford. Dr. 
Waldegrave had accepted a living at Washington in Sussex, and 
Gibbon was in consequence transferred to an academical suc- 
cessor, whose literary attainments failed to command the respect 
of the college. In the course of one winter he visited Bath, made 
a tour to Buckinghamshire, and took four excursions to London, 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXV 

" without once hearing the voice of admonition, without once 
" feeling the hand of control." His natural taste for research and 
controversy prompted him to peruse with attention the works of 
Roman Catholic divines, and two productions from the pen of 
Bossuet were the instruments in converting him to the Popish 
faith. In the impetuosity of youthful ardor, and unbiassed by the 
considerations of a temporal nature, he resolved to make an open 
profession of his new religion ; and, on coming to London, he was 
recommended to a priest, who, after ascertaining the motives of 
his change, readily admitted him into the pale of the Roman 
Church. To his father he wrote an elaborate epistle, acquainting 
him with the particulars of this important event, and using every 
argument in his power to justify his conduct. The good sense of 
his father was astonished at a departure so sudden and extra- 
ordinary, and, in the first ebullition of anger, communicated what 
it would have been wisdom to conceal, and the gates of the 
college were for ever barred against the apostate's return. 

Anxious to prevent the new opinions taking too deep a root, 
and desirous of removing the impression they had already made, 
his father, after due consideration, formed the resolution of sending 
him to Lausanne, in Switzerland. On his arrival there he was 
placed under the roof and tuition of M. Pavilliard, a minister of 
Calvanistic sentiments. The state of his mind, upon this occasion, 
is strongly depicted by himself, " Fixed in my new habitation, I 
" had leisure to contemplate the strange and melancholy prospect 
" before me. My first complaint arose from my ignorance of the 
" language. In my childhood I had once studied the French 
" Grammar, and I could imperfectly understand the easy prose of 
" a familiar subject. But when I was thus suddenly cast on a 
" foreign land, I found myself deprived of the use of speech and 
" of hearing ; and, during some weeks, incapable not only of 
" enjoying the pleasures of conversation, but even of asking or 
" answering a question in the common intercourse of life. To a 
" home-bred Englishman, every object, every custom was offen- 
" sive ; but the native of any country might have been disgusted 
" with the general aspect of his lodging and entertainment. I 
" had now exchanged my elegant apartment in Magdalen College, 
" for a narrow, gloomy street, the most unfrequented of an 
" unhandsome town, for an old, inconvenient house, and for a 
" small chamber, ill contrived, and ill furnished, which, on the 
" approach of winter, instead of a companionable fire, must be 
" warmed by the dull, invisible heat of a stove. From a man, I 



XXVI SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. 

" was again degraded to the dependence of a school-boy. M. 
" Pavilliard managed my expenses, which had been reduced to a 
" diminutive state. I received a small monthly allowance for my 
" pocket-money ; and helpless and awkward, as I had ever been, 
" I no longer enjoyed the indispensable comfort of a servant. 
" My condition seemed as destitute of hope as it was devoid of 
" pleasure- I was separated for an indefinite, which appeared an 
" infinite term, from my native country, and I had lost all connec- 
" tion with my Catholic friends. I have since reflected with 
" surprise, that as the Romish clergy of every part of Europe 
" maintain a close correspondence with each other, they never 
" attempted, by letters or messages, to rescue me from the 
" heretics, or at least to confirm my zeal and constancy in the 
" profession of the faith. Such was my first introduction to 
" Lausanne ; a place where I spent nearly five years with pleasure 
" and profit, which I afterward revisited without compulsion, and 
11 which I have finally selected as the most grateful retreat for the 
" decline of my life But it is the peculiar felicity of youth, that 
" the most unpleasing objects and events seldom make a deep or 
" lasting impression ; it forgets the past, enjoys the present, and 
" anticipates the future." 

The kind treatment received from M. Pavilliard reconciled 
Gibbon to his situation, and the prominent object of his journey 
was speedily accomplished. " The intermixture of sects," he says, 
" has rendered the Swiss clergy acute and learned in the topics of 
" controversy, and I have some of his (M. Pavilliard 's) letters, in 
" which he celebrates the dexterity of his attack, and my gradual 
" concessions, after a firm and well-managed defence. I was 
" willing, and I am now willing, to allow him a handsome share 
" of the honour of my conversion; yet I must observe, that it was 
" principally effected by my private reflections. The various 
" articles of the Romish creed disappeared like a dream ; and, 
" after a full conviction, on Christmas-day, 1754, I received the 
" sacrament in the Church of Lausanne." 

He now pursued his studies with the utmost avidity, and care- 
fully perused nearly the complete circle of Latin classics, arranged 
under the four divisions of, 1. historians ; 2. poets ; 3. orators ; 
and 4. philosophers, in a chronological series, from the days of 
Plautus and Sallust to the decline of the language and empire of 
Rome. Nor was this course of study merely superficial ; many of 
the authors he read two or three times, always consulted the 
most learned or ingenious commentators, and, in the fervency of 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. XXVII 

his inquiries, embraced a large compass of historical and critical 
erudition. Some acquaintance with Grecian literature he acquired, 
and bestowed much attention on the works of Grotius, Puffendorf, 
Locke, Crousaz, Montesquieu, and Pascal ; he commenced also a 
correspondence with Professor Breitinger, Crevier, and Gesner. 
After remaining at Lausanne three summers he was permitted to 
make the tour of Switzerland, which he performed in a month, and 
derived much satisfaction from the journey. About this period 
the charms of Mademoiselle Curchod made a deep impression 
upon his mind. His own relation of this circumstance is as 
follows : 

" I hesitate, from the apprehension of ridicule, when I approach 
" the delicate subject of my early love. By this word I do not 
" mean the polite attention, the gallantry, without hope or design, 
u which has originated in the spirit of chivalry, and is interwoven 
" with the texture of French manners. I understand by this 
" passion, the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which 
" is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of 
" her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the 
" sole happiness of our being I need not blush at recollecting 
" the object of my choice ; and though my love was disappointed 
" of success, I am rather proud that I was once capable of feeling 
" such a pure and exalted sentiment. The personal attractions of 
" Mademoiselle Curchod were embellished by the virtues and 
" talents of the mind. Her fortune was humble, but the family 
" was respectable. Her mother, a native of France, had preferred 
" her religion to her country. The profession of her father did 
" not extinguish the moderation and philosophy of his temper, 
" and he lived content with a small salary and laborious duty, in 
" the obscure lot of minister of Crassy, in the mountains that 
" separate the Pays de Vaud from the country of Burgundy. In 
" the solitude of a sequestered village, he bestowed a liberal, and 
" even learned, education on his only daughter. She surpassed 
" his hopes by her proficiency in the sciences and languages ; and 
" in her short visits to some relations at Lausanne, the wit, the 
" beauty, and erudition of Mademoiselle Curchod were the theme 
" of universal applause The report of such a prodigy awakened 
" my curiosity ; I saw and loved. I found her learned without 
" pedantry, lively in conversation, pure in sentiment, and elegant 
" in manners ; and the first sudden emotion was fortified by the 
" habits and knowledge of a more familiar acquaintance. She 
" permitted me to make her a few visits at her father's house. 



XXVIII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. 

" I passed some happy days there in the mountains of Burgundy, 
" and her parents honorably encouraged the connection. In a 
" calm retirement the gay vanity of youth no longer fluttered in 
" her bosom ; she listened to the voice of truth and passion, and I 
" might presume to hope that I had made some impression on a 
" virtuous heart. At Crassy and Lausanne, I indulged my dream 
" of felicity ; but, on my return to England, I soon discovered that 
" my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that with- 
" out his consent I was myself destitute and hopeless. After a 
" painful struggle, I yielded to my fate : I sighed as a lover, I 
" obeyed as a son ;* my wound was insensibly healed by time, 
" absence, and the habits of a new life. My cure was accelerated 
" by a faithful report of the tranquility and cheerfulness of the 
" lady herself, and my love subsided in friendship and esteem. 
" The minister of Crassy soon afterward died ; his stipend died 
1 ' with him ; his daughter retired to Geneva, where, by teaching 
" young ladies, she earned a hard subsistence for herself and 
" mother ; but in her lowest distress she maintained a spotless 
" reputation, and a dignified behavior. A rich banker of Paris, a 
" citizen of Geneva, had the good fortune and good sense to dis- 
11 cover and possess this inestimable treasure; and in the capital 
" of taste and luxury she resisted the temptations of wealth, as 
" she had sustained the hardships of indigence. The genius of 
" her husband has exalted him to the most conspicuous station in 
" Europe. In every change of prosperity and disgrace he has 
" reclined on the bosom of a faithful friend ; and Mademoiselle 
" Curchod is now the wife of M. Necker, the minister, and perhaps 
" the legislator, of the French monarchy."! 

*"It is difficult to explain why," says James Cotter Morison, "Gibbon's 
" solitary and innocent love passage has been made the theme of a good deal 
" of malicious comment. The parties most interested, and who, we may pre- 
" sume, knew the circumstances better than any one else, seem to have been 
" quite satisfied with each others conduct. Gibbon and Mdlle. Curchod, 
" afterwards Madame Necker, remained on terms of the most intimate 
" friendship till the end of the former's life." — E. 

f The daughter of Jacques Necker, Anne -Louise Germaine Necker, mar- 
ried Baron de Stael Holstein, the Swedish Ambassador at the Court of 
France at the time of the first Napoleon, and became celebrated throughout 
Europe as a brilliant conversationalist and a distinguished authoress. She 
was persecuted by Napoleon because, as was supposed, he dreaded her in- 
tellectual supremacy. From her mother, (who was Gibbon's first and only 
love, ) she inherited the rare gift of genius, but not the rare beauty which j 
distinguished Mdlle. Curchod. Gibbon observes that, "Madame de Stael 
was a pleasant little woman, with a much larger provision of wit than of 
beauty."— E. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. XXIX 

" Before I was recalled from Switzerland, " says Gibbon, "I had 
" the satisfaction of seeing the most extraordinary man of the 
" age ; a poet, an historian, a philosopher, who has filled thirty 
" quartos, of prose and verse, with his various productions, often 
" excellent, and always entertaining. Need I add the name of 
* Voltaire ? After forfeiting, by his own misconduct, the friend- 
" ship of the first of kings, he retired, at the age of sixty, with a 
" plentiful fortune, to a free and beautiful country, and resided 
" two winters (1757 and 1758) in the town or neighborhood of 
" Lausanne. My desire of beholding Voltaire, whom I then 
" rated above his real magnitude, was easily gratified. He re- 
" ceived me with civility as an English youth ; but I cannot boast 
" of any peculiar notice or distinction, Virgilium vidi tantuvi. 

"The highest gratification which I derived from Voltaire's 
" residence at Lausanne, was the uncommon circumstance of 
" hearing a great poet declaim his own productions on the stage. 
" He had formed a company of gentlemen and ladies, some of 
" whom were not destitute of talent, A decent theatre was 
" framed at Monrepos, a country-house at the end of a suburb ; 
" dresses and scenes were provided at the expense of the actors ; 
" and the author directed the rehearsals with the zeal and atten- 
tion of paternal love. In two successive winters his tragedies 
" of Zayre, Alzire, Zulime, and his sentimental comedy of the 
" Enfant Prodigue, were played at the theatre at Monrepos. Vol- 
" taire represented the characters best adapted to his years, 
" Lusignan, Alvarez, Benassar, Euphemon. His declamation was 
"fashioned to the pomp and cadence of the old stage ; and he 
" expressed the enthusiasm of poetry, rather than the feelings of 
" nature. My ardor, which soon became conspicuous, seldom 
" failed of procuring me a ticket. The habits of pleasure fortified 
" my taste for the French theatre, and that taste has perhaps 
" abated my idolatry for the gigantic genius of Shakespeare, 
" which is inculcated from our infancy as the first duty of an 
" Englishman. The wit and philosophy of Voltaire, his table and 
" theatre, refined in a visible degree, the manners of Lausanne ; 
" and, however addicted to study, I enjoyed my share of the 
" amusements of society." 

" A life of devotion and celibacy was the choice of my aunt, 
" Mrs. Hester Gibbon, who, (1789), at the age of eighty-five, still 
" resides in a hermitage at Cliffe, in Northamptonshire ; having 
" long survived her spiritual guide and faithful companion, Mr. 
" William Law, who, at an advanced age, about the year 1761, 



XXX SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" died in her house. In our family he had left the reputation of a 
" worthy and pious man who believed all that he professed, and 
" practiced all that he enjoined. His discourse on the absolute 
" unlawfulness of stage-entertainments is sometimes quoted for 
" a ridiculous intemperance of sentiment and language : ' The 
" ' aclors and spectators must all be damnecl : the playhouse is 
" 'the porch of Hell, the place of the Devil's abode, where he 
"'holds his filthy court of evil spirits: a play is the Devil's 
" ' triumph, a sacrifice performed to his glory, as much as in the 
" ' heathen temples of Bacchus or Venus, &c.'* But these sallies 
" of religious phrenzy must not extinguish the praise which is due 
" to Mr. William Law as a wit and a scholar. His argument on' 
" topics of less absurdity is specious and acute, his manner is 
" lively, his style forcible and clear ; and had not his vigorous 
" mind been clouded by enthusiasm, he might be ranked with 
" the most agreeable and ingenious writers of the times." 

In speaking of the religious instruction he received at Oxford, 
our author remarks : " It might at least be expected that an eccle- 
" siastical school should inculcate the orthodox principles of reli- 
" gion. But our venerable mother had contrived to unite the 
" opposite extremes of bigotry and indifference ; an heretic or 
" unbeliever was a monster in her eyes ; but she was always, or 
" often, or sometimes, remiss in the spiritual education of her 
" own children. According to the statutes of the University, 
" every student, before he is matriculated, must subscribe his 
" assent to the thirty-nine articles of the church of England, 
" which are signed by more than read, and read by more than 
" believe them." 

" Bayle," says Gibbon, " was the son of a Calvinist minister in 
" a remote province of France, at the foot of the Pyrenees. Na- 
" ture had designed him to think as he pleased, and to speak as 
" he thought. Had Bayle adhered to the catholic church, had he 
" embraced the ecclesiastical profession, the genius and favor of 
" such a proselyte might have aspired to wealth and honors in 
" his native country : but the hypocrite would have found less 
" happiness in the comforts of a benefice, or the dignity of a 
" mitre, than he enjoyed at Rotterdam in a private state of exile, 

* Some have supposed that the mantle of this fanatical enemy of dramatic 
art has fallen upon a certain reverened Boanerges of Brooklyn, who from 
his pulpit occasionally denounces the stage and its patrons with much 
warmth of language, but with little knowedge of facts, and no charity for 
those who differ from his opinions. — E. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXXI 

" indigence and freedom. Without a country, or a patron, or a 
" prejudice, he claimed the liberty and subsisted by the labors of 
" his pen. The inequality of his voluminous works is explained 
" and excused by his alternately writing for himself, for the book- 
" sellers, and for posterity ; and if a severe critic would reduce 
" him to a single folio, that relic, like the books of the Sybil, 
" would become still more valuable. A calm and lofty spectator 
" of the religious tempest, the philosopher of Rotterdam con- 
" demned with equal firmness the persecution of Louis the XIV. 
" and the republican maxims of the Calvinists ; their vain proph- 
" ecies, and the intolerant bigotry which sometimes vexed his 
" solitary retreat. In reviewing the controversies of the times, 
" he turned against each other the arguments of the disputants ; 
" successively wielding the arms of the catholics and protestants, 
" he proves that neither the way of authority, nor the way of ex- 
" amination can afford the multitude any test of religious truth ; 
" and dexterously concludes that custom and education must be the 
" sole grounds of popular belief. The ancient paradox of Plutarch, 
" that atheism is less pernicious than superstition, acquires a ten- 
" fold vigor when it is adorned with the colors of his wit, and 
" pointed with the acuteness of his logic. His Critical Dictionary 
" is a vast repository of fads and opinions ; and he balances the 
"false religions in his skeptical scales till the opposite quantities 
" (if I may use the language of algebra) annihilate each other. 
" The wonderful power which he so boldly exercised, of as- 
" sembling doubts and objections, had tempted him jocosely to 
" assume the title of the ve^eX^yepera Zevg, the cloud-compelling 
" Jove ; and in a conversation with the ingenious • Abbe (after- 
" wards Cardinal) de Polignac, he freely disclosed his universal 
" Pyrrhonism. ' I am most truly (said Bayle) a protestant ; for I 
" ' protest indifferently against all systems and all sects.' " 

During an excursion through the principal towns of Switzer- 
land, Mr. Gibbon visited a remarkable spot which, he said, made 
a lasting impression on his memory. "We passed through 
" Neufchatel, Bienne, Soleurre, Arau, Baden, Zurich, Basil, and 
" Bern. In every place we visited the churches, arsenals, libraries, 
" and all the most eminent persons. From Zurich we pro- 
" ceeded to the Benedictine Abbey of Einfidlen, more commonly 
" styled Our Lady of the Hermits. I was astonished by the pro- 
" fuse ostentation of riches in the poorest corner of Europe ; 
" amidst a savage scene of woods and mountains, a palace 
" appears to have been erected by magic ; and it was erected by 



XXXII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" the potent magic of religion. A crowd of palmers and votaries was 
" prostrate before the altar. The title and worship of the Mother of 
" God provoked my indignation/ and the naked image of supersti- 
" tion suggested to me, as in the same place it had done to Zuingli- 
"us, a most pressing argument for the reformation of the church. 
"If my childish revolt against the religion of my country had 
" not stripped me in time of my academic gown, the five impor- 
" tant years, so liberally improved in the studies and conversation 
"at Lausanne, would have been steeped in port and prejudice 
" among the monks at Oxford. Had the fatigue of idleness com- 

* Protestants are "provoked to indignation " by the title and worship of the 1 
" Mother of God ; " but if they really believe the trinitarian dogma they profess, 
that the " Father," the "Son," and the " Holy Ghost " are not three gods, but 
one God, and that this God was born of the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem of Judea, 
how can they logically deny to this Jewish Madonna — who became the mother 
of her own creator — the august title of the "Mother of God," bestowed upon 
her by the " naked image of superstition ? " 

An illustrated Calendar of the Anglican Church, published in London in 1851, has 
a long list of English Saints and Evangelists from old manuscripts, ancient em- 
broidery, and medieval paintings, showing that the Church of England fairly 
rivals the Church of Rome in this species of religious wealth, and also showing the 
veneration and devotion the ancient pagan worship of images still inspires in the 
church which claims to have been " reformed." The frontispiece of this Calendar 
is from a painted glass in the east window of St. Michael's church in Oxford, 
England, and represents the Virgin and Child — Mary holding in her arms the 
infant Jesus in the same manner as the Egyptian goddess, Isis, is represented on 
ancient monuments holding in her arms her god-begotten son, Horus. 

" Isis," says Lempriere, "was the Venus of Cyprus, the Minerva of Athens, 
" the Cybele of the Phrygians, the Ceres of Eleusis, the Proserpine of Sicily, the 
" Diana of Crete, the Bellona of the Romans," and, may we not add, the Madonna 
of Romanism ? Apuleius makes her say : " I am nature, the parent of all things, 
" the sovereign of the elements, the primary progeny of time, the most exalted of 
" the deities, the first of the heavenly gods and goddesses, whose singledeity the 
" whole world venerates in many forms, with various rites, and various names." 
Her temple at Sias bore this memorable inscription : "/ am all that has been, 
" that is, or shall be \ no mortal man hath ever me unveiled.''' And it is to the 
attempt of Godfrey Higgins to draw aside this mystic veil, which concealed in 
allegory and fable the wisdom of the ancients, that we are indebted for the 
Anacalypsis, one of the grandest triumphs of modern research. '•' The worship 
"of the Virgin and Child," says this learned author, "which we find in all 
" Romish countries, was nothing more than a remnant of the worship of Isis'and 
" Horus — the virgin of the celestial sphere — to whom the epithet of virgin, 
" though a mother, was without absurdity applied." 

" The celestial sign of the Virgin and Child," says M. Dupius," was in existence 
" several thousand years before the birth of Christ. The constellation of the 
" celestial Virgin by its ascension above the horizon presided at the birth of the 
" god Sol, or light, and seemed to produce him from her side. Here is the origin 
" of Jesus born from the side of his mother. The Magi, as well as the priests of 
" Egypt, celebrated the birth of the god Sol, or Light, or Day, incarnate in the 
" womb of a virgin, which had produced him without ceasing to be a virgin." 

Toward the end of the republic and at the beginning of the empire the worship 
of Isis was introduced at Rome. Her priests were tonsured, surpliced, sandaled, 
and. like the Romish priests of the present day, were bound with solemn vows to 
a life of chastity and celibacy. After the religion of Jesus had been transformed 
into a political svstem under Constantine, andthe union of Paganism and Roman- 
ism had been effected, the old idolatry still remained, but in a modified form and 
under another name. "Olvmpus was restored," says Prof. Draper, " and such res- 
" torations of old conceptions under novel forms were everywhere received with 
" delight. When it was announced to the Ephesians that the Council, headed by 
" Cyril, had decreed that the Virgin should be called ' the Mother of God,' with 
" tears of jov they embraced the knees of their bishop,— it was the old distinct 
" peeping out. Not only was the adoration of Isis under a new name restored, but 
" even her image, standing on the crescent moon, reappeared. The well-known 
" effigy of that goddess, with the infant Horus in her arms, has descended to our 
" days in the beautiful, artistic creations of the Madonna and Child."— E. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXXIII 

" pelled me to read, the path of learning would not have been 
" enlightened by a ray of philosophic freedom. I should have 
" grown to manhood ignorant of the life and language of Europe, 
" and my knowledge of the world would have been confined to 
" an English cloister. But my religious error fixed me at Lau- 
" sanne in a state of banishment and disgrace. The rigid course 
" of discipline and abstinence, to which I was condemned, invig- 
" orated the constitution of my mind and body ; poverty and 
" pride estranged me from my countrymen. One mischief, how- 
" ever, and in their eyes a serious and irreparable mischief, was 
" derived from the success of my Swiss education : I had ceased 
" to be an Englishman. At the flexible period of youth, from the 
" age of sixteen to twenty-one, my opinions, habits, and senti- 
" ments were cast in a foreign mould ; the faint and distant 
" remembrance of England was almost obliterated ; my native 
" language was grown less familiar ; and I should have cheerfully 
" accepted the offer of a moderate independence on the terms of 
" perpetual exile." 

Gibbon had been absent from home almost five years, when his 
father, hearing of his restoration to the Protestant Church, the 
improvement made in his studies, and the good behavior he main- 
tained, was pleased to desire his return. He took leave of 
Lausanne on the nth of April, 1758, with a mixed emotion of 
pleasure and pain. On his arrival in England he hastened to the 
house of his aunt Porten, with whom was indulged a mutual 
effusion of joy and confidence. The meeting with his father was 
more ceremonious, though it proved very agreeable. " He received 
" me," says the historian, " as a man and a friend ; all constraint 
" was banished at our first interview, and we ever after continued 
" on the same terms of easy politeness. He applauded the suc- 
" cess of my education ; every word and action was expressive of 
" the most cordial affection ; and our lives would have passed 
" without a cloud, if his economy had been equal to his fortune, 
" or if his fortune had been equal to his desires. During my 
" absence he had married his second wife, Miss Dorothea Patton, 
" who was introduced to me with the most unfavorable prejudice. 
" I considered his second marriage as an act of displeasure, and 
" I was disposed to hate the rival of my mother. But the injus- 
■ tice was in my own fancy, and the imaginary monster was an 
" amiable and deserving woman." 

Of the two years he had been in England only nine months 



XXXIV SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. 

were passed in London— the other time was spent in the retired 
walks, and amidst the usual enjoyments of a country life. Of the 
former he writes thus : 

" The metropolis affords many amusements, which are open to 
" all. It is itself an astonishing and perpetual spectacle to the 
" curious eye ; and each taste, each sense, may be gratified by the 
" variety of objects which will occur in the long circuit of a 
" morning walk. I assiduously frequented the theatres at a very 
" propitious era of the stage, when a constellation of excellent 
" actors, both in tragedy and comedy, was eclipsed by the meri- 
" dian brightness of Garrick, in the maturity of his judgment, and 
" vigor of his performance. The pleasures of a town life are 
" within the reach of every man who is regardless of his health, 
" his money, and his company. By the contagion of example I 
" was sometimes seduced ; but the better habits, which I had 
" formed at Lausanne, induced me to seek a more elegant and 
" rational society ; and if my search was less easy and successful 
" than I might have hoped, I shall at present impute the failure 
" to the disadvantages of my situation and character. Had the 
" rank and fortune of my parents given them an annual establish- 
" ment in London, their own house would have introduced me to 
" a numerous and polite circle of acquaintance. I found myself a 
" stranger in the midst of a vast and unknown city. The most 
" useful friends of my father were the Mallets. By their assist- 
1 ance I was introduced to Lady Hervey, the mother of the 
" present Earl of Bristol. Her age and infirmities confined her 
" at home ; her dinners were select ; in the evening her house 
" was open to the best company of both sexes and all nations ; 
" nor was I displeased at her preference and affectation of the 
" manners, the language, and the literature of France. But my 
" progress in the English world was in general left to my own 
" efforts, and those efforts were languid and slow. I had not 
" been endowed by art or nature with those happy gifts of confi- 
" dence and address, which unlock every door and every bosom ; 
u nor would it be reasonable to complain of the just consequences 
" of my sickly childhood, foreign education, and reserved temper. 
" While coaches were rattling through Bond street, I have passed 
" many a solitary evening in my lodging with my books. My 
" studies were sometimes interrupted by a sigh, which I breathed 
" towards Lausanne ; and on the approach of spring I withdrew, 
" without reluctance, from the noisy and extensive scene of 
" crowds without company, and dissipation without pleasure." 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. XXXV 

Gibbon preferred the tranquility of his father's residence in 
Hampshire to the tumultuous gratifications of the metropolis, 
and availed himself, as often as possible, of the comforts he found 
beneath the parental roof. The old mansion, being in a decayed 
state, had been improved with the conveniences of a modern 
habitation. " Our immediate neighborhood," he states, " was rare 
" and rustic ; but from the verge of our hills, as far as Chichester 
" and Goodwood, the western district of Sussex was interspersed 
" with noble seats and hospitable families, with whom we culti- 
" vated a friendly, and might have enjoyed a very frequent inter- 
" course. As my stay at Buriton was always voluntary, I was 
" received and dismissed with smiles ; but the comforts of my 
" retirement did not depend on the ordinary pleasures of the 
" country. My father could never inspire me with his love and 
" knowledge of farming. I never handled a gun, I seldom 
" mounted a horse ; and my philosophic walks were soon ter- 
" minated by a shady bench, where I was long detained by the 
" sedentary amusement of reading or meditation. At home I 
" occupied a pleasant and spacious apartment ; the library on the 
" same floor was considered as m) r peculiar domain ; and I might 
" say with truth, that I was never less alone than when by myself. 
" By the habit of early rising, I always secured a sacred portion 
" of the day, and many scattered moments were stolen and 
" employed by my studious industry." His father's study con- 
tained some valuable editions of the classics, and many English 
publications of modern date; to this collection he never neglected 
to make a judicious addition, whenever his means permitted. 
The English writers, since the Revolution, commonly occupied 
his leisure : this appeared to him the best method to recover the 
purity of his own language from the corruption contracted by the 
use of a foreign idiom. To Swift and Addison he chiefly directed 
his attention : as the style of the first displays a manly, original 
vigor; and that of the'latter is adorned with the graces of elegance 
and simplicity. 

In the spring of 1761 he ventured to make his appearance as 
an Author. He published a small volume, entitled Essai sur 
P Etude de la Literature ; which was begun at Lausanne, and 
finished in his own country. In France, and other places abroad, 
it gained the most flattering commendations, whilst the writer's 
countrymen received it with cold indifference ; owing, it is prob- 
able, to the language in which it was written. He would not 
permit his bookseller to reprint it, though a new edition, some 



XXXVI SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

years afterward, was much desired: its scarcity, and the rising 
fame of the Author, enhanced the value from half-a-crown to 
thirty shillings. 

When the Essay was published, Mr. Gibbon was induced to 
enter upon a mode of life not very agreeable to his taste and 
general habits. A regiment of militia had been raised in Hamp- 
shire, and he was appointed to the office of captain. This new 
profession was not altogether unprofitable to him. "After my 
" foreign education," he says, " with my reserved temper, I 
" should long have continued a stranger in my native country, 
" had I not been shaken in this various scene of new faces and 
" new friends ; had not experience forced me to feel the characters 
" of our leading men, the state of parties, the forms of office, and 
" the operation of our civil and military system. In this peaceful 
" service I imbibed the rudiments of the language and science of 
" tactics, which opened a new field of study and observation. I 
" diligently read, and meditated, the Memoires Militaires of 
" Quintus Icilius (Mr. Guichardt), the only writer who has united 
" the merits of a professor and a veteran. The disclipine and 
" evolutions of a modern battalion, gave me a clearer notion of 
" the phalanx and the legion ; and the captain of the Hampshire 
" grenadiers (the reader may smile), has not been useless to the 
" historian of the Roman Empire." 

At the restoration of peace in 1762-3, his regiment was broken 
up, and he resumed his studies upon a more regular and system- 
atic plan. He was undetermined, at first, whether to direct his 
mental energies to the mathematics, or the Greek language, both 
of which he had neglected since he left Lausanne : at length he 
decided in favor of Greek, and to it he gave a vigorous application. 
But whatever might be the nature of his studies, the object he had 
in view was invariably the same — from early youth he aspired to 
the character of an historian ! 

The tour of Europe having been k>ng considered as essentially 
necessary to complete the education of an English gentleman, he 
now determined to travel, and succeeded in obtaining the consent 
of his father. From the Duke de Nivernois, Mr. Walpole, Lady 
Hervey, &c, he received recommendatory letters to their private 
or literary friends, though his Essay had justly entitled him to the 
gratitude and civility of the French nation. On coming to Paris, 
he became intimately acquainted with Diderot, D'Alembert, 
Barthelemy, Arnaud, Reynal, Helvetius, and several other eminent 
persons. To Mrs. Gibbon he writes :— " Paris, in most respects, 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XXXVII 

" has fully answered my expectations. I have a number of very 
" good acquaintance, which increase every day ; for nothing is so 
" easy as the making them here. Instead of complaining of the 
" want of them, I begin already to think of making a choice. Next 
" Sunday, for instance, I have only three invitations to dinner. 
" Either in the houses you are already acquainted, you meet with 
" people who ask you to come and see them, or some of your 
" friends offer themselves to introduce you. When I speak of 
" these connections, I mean chiefly for dinner and the evening. 
" Suppers as yet I am pretty much a stranger to, and I fancy shall 
" continue so ; for Paris is divided into two species, who have 
" but little communication with each other. The one, who is 
" chiefly connected with the men of letters, dine very much at 
" home, are glad to see their friends, and pass the evenings till 
" about nine in agreeable and rational conversation. The others" 
" are the most fashionable, and sup in numerous parties, and 
" always play, or rather game, both before and after supper. 
" You may easily guess which sort suits me best. Indeed, madam, 
" we may say what we please of the frivolity of the French, but I 
" do assure you, that in a fortnight passed at Paris, I have heard 
" more conversation worth remembering, and seen more men of 
" letters among the people of fashion, than I had done in two or 
" three winters in London. Amongst my acquaintance, I cannot 
" help mentioning M. Helvetius, the author of the famous book 
" de V Esprit. I met him at dinner at Madame Geofrrin's, where 
" he took great notice of me, made me a visit next day, has ever 
" since treated me, not in a polite, but in a friendly manner." — 
Pursuing the subject in a letter to his father, he says: "The 
" buildings of every kind, the libraries, the public diversions, take 
" up a great part of my time ; and I have already found several 
" houses where it is both very easy and very agreeable to be 
" acquainted. Lady Hervey's recommendation to Madame 
" Geoffrin was a most excellent one. Her house is a very good 
" one ; regular dinners there every Wednesday, and the best 
" company of Paris, in men of letters and people of fashion. It 
u was at her house I connected myself with M. Helvetius, who, 
" from his heart, his hand, and his fortune, is a most valuable 
" man. At his house I was introduced to the Baron d'Holbach, 
" who is a man of parts and fortune, and has two dinners every 
" week. The other houses I am known in are the Duchess 
" d'Aiguillon's, Madame la Comtesse de Froulay's, Madame du 
" Bocage, Madame Boyer, M. le Marquis de Mirabeau, and M. de 



XXXVIII SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

" Foucemagn. All these people have their different merit : in 
" some I met with good dinners ; in others, societies for the 
" evening ; and in all, good sense, entertainment, and civility, 
" which, as I have no favors to ask, or business to transact with 
" them, is sufficient for me. Their men of letters are as affable 
" and communicative as I expected. My book has been oi* great 
" service to me, and the compliments I have received upon it, 
" would make me insufferably vain, if I laid any stress on them." 

" The splendor of the French nobles is confined to their town 
" residences ; that of the English is more usefully distributed in 
" their country seats ; and we should be astonished at our own 
" riches, if the labors of architecture, the spoils of Italy and 
" Greece, which are now scattered from Inverary to Wilton, were 
" accumulated in a few streets between Marybone and Westmin- 
" ster. All superfluous ornament is rejected by the cold frugality 
" of the protestants ; but the catholic superstition, which is always 
" the enemy of reason, is often the parent of the arts. The wealthy 
" communities of priests and monks expend their revenues in 
" stately edifices ; and the parish church of St. Sulpice, one of 
" the noblest structures in Paris, was built and adorned by the 
" private industry of a late cure." 

After staying fourteen weeks in Paris he again visited Lausanne, 
a place which excited many delightful recollections. " An absence 
" of five years," he tells us, " had not made much alteration in 
" manners, or even in persons. My old friends, of both sexes, 
" hailed my voluntary return — the most genuine proof of my 
" attachment. They had been flattered by the present of my 
" book, the produce of their soil ; and the good Pavilliard shed 
" tears of joy, as he embraced a pupil, whose literary merit he 
11 might fairly impute to his own labors." 

" By some ecclesiastical quarrel, Voltaire had been provoked 
" to withdraw himself from Lausanne, and retire to his castle at 
" Ferney, where I again visited the poet and the actor. The the- 
" atre which he had founded, the aclors whom he had formed, 
" survived the loss of their master. I attended with pleasure at 
" the representation of several tragedies and comedies. I shall 
" not descend to specify particular names and characters ; but I 
" cannot forget a private institution, which will display the inno- 
" cent freedom of Swiss manners. My favorite society had 
" assumed, from the age of its members, the proud domination of 
" the spring (la so ctttt du printims). It consisted of fifteen or 
" twenty young unmarried ladies, of genteel, though not of the 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. XXXIX 

" very first families ; the eldest perhaps about twenty, all agreea- 
" ble, several handsome, and two or three of exquisite beauty. 
" At each other's houses they assembled almost every day without 
" the control, or even the presence of a mother or an aunt ; they 
" were trusted to their own prudence, among a crowd of young 
" men of every nation in Europe. They laughed, they sang, they 
" danced, the}' played at cards, they acted comedies ; but in the 
u midst of this careless gaiety, they respected themselves, and 
" were respected by the men ; the invisible line between liberty 
" and licentiousness was never transgressed by a gesture, a word, 
" or a look, and their virgin chastity was never sullied by the 
" breath of scandal or suspicion. A singular institution, expres- 
" sive of the innocent simplicity of Swiss manners." 

" In this agreeable society I resided nearly eleven months (May 
" 1763 — April 1764) ; and in this second visit to Lausanne, among 
" a crowd of my English companions, I knew and esteemed Mr. 
" Holroyd (now Lord Sheffield) ; and our mutual attachment was 
" renewed and fortified in the subsequent stages of our Italian 
"journey. Our lives are in the power of chance, and a slight 
" variation on either side, in time or place, might have deprived 
" me of a friend, whose activity in the ardor of youth was always 
" prompted by a benevolent heart, and directed by a strong un- 
" derstanding." 

Our author now undertook the tour of Italy, having previously 
studied the geography of ancient Rome and the science of medals. 
" Rome is the great object of our pilgrimage. I climbed Mount 
" Cenis, and descended into the plain of Piedmont. The size and 
" populousness of Milan could not surprise an inhabitant of 
" London : but the fancy is amused by a visit to the Boromean 
" Islands, an enchanted palace, a work of the fairies in the midst 
" of a lake encompassed with mountains, and far removed from 
" the haunts of men. By the road of Bologna and the Apennine 
" I at last reached Florence, where I reposed from June to Sep- 
" tember, during the heat of the summer months. In the Gallery 
" and especially in the Tribune, I first acknowledged, at the feet 
" of the Venus of Medicis, that the chisel may dispute the pre- 
" eminence with the pencil, a truth in the fine arts which cannot 
" on this side of the Alps be felt or understood. After leaving 
" Florence, I compared the solitude of Pisa with the industry of 
u Lucca and Leghorn, and continued my journey through Sienna 
" to Rome, where I arrived in the beginning of October. Mytem- 
" per is not very susceptible of enthusiasm ; and the enthusiasm I 



XL SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

" do not feel, I have ever scorned to affect. But, at the distance 
" of twenty-five years, I can neither forget nor express the strong 
" emotions which agitated my mind as I first approached and 
" entered the eternal city. After a sleepless night I trod, with a 
" lofty step, the ruins of the Forum ; each memorable spot where 
" Romulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar/*?//, was at once pres- 
" ent to my eye ; and several days of intoxication were lost or 
" enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute investiga- 
" tion. My guide was Mr. Byers, a Scotch antiquary of experience 
" and taste ; but in the daily labor of eighteen weeks, the powers 
" of attention were sometimes fatigued, till I was myself qualified, 
" in a last review, to select and study the capital works of ancient 
" and modern art. Six weeks were borrowed for my tour of 
" Naples, the most populous of cities, relative to its size, whose 
" luxurious inhabitants seem to dwell on the confines of paradise 
" and hell-fire." 

" It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing 
" amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed friars 
" were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, [now the church 
" of the Zoccolants or Franciscan Friars,] that the idea of writing 
" the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind. But 
" my original plan was circumscribed to the decay of the city 
" rather than of the empire : and, though my reading and re- 
" flections began to point towards that object, some years 
" elapsed, and several avocations intervened, before I was seri- 
" ously engaged in-the execution of that laborious work." 

" Rome and Italy had satiated my curious appetite, and I was 
" now ready to return to the peaceful retreat of my family and 
" books. On the 25th of June, 1765, I arrived at my father's house, 
" and the five years and a half between my travels and my father's 
" death (1770) are the portion of my life which I passed with the 
" least enjoyment, and which I remember with the least satisfac- 
" tion. Every spring I attended the monthly meeting and exer- 
" cise of the militia at Southampton ; and by the resignation of 
" my father, and the death of Sir Thomas Worsley, I was succes- 
" sively promoted to the rank of major and lieutenant-colonel 
" commandant : but I was each year more disgusted with the inn, 
" the wine, the company, and the tiresome repetition of annual 
" attendance and daily exercise. My connection with Mrs. Gibbon 
" was mellowed into a warm and solid attachment ; my growing 
" years abolished the distance that might yet remain between a 
" parent and a son, and my behavior satisfied my father, who was 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XLI 

" proud of the success, however imperfect in his own life-time, of 
" my literary talents. Our solitude was soon and often enlivened 
" by the visit of the friend of my youth, Mr. Deyverdun, whose 
" absence from Lausanne I had sincerely lamented. We freely 
" discussed my studies, my first Essay, and my future projects. 
" The Decline and Fall of Rome I still contemplated at an awful 
" distance : but the two historical designs which had balanced my 
" choice were submitted to his taste ; and in the parallel between 
" the Revolutions of Florence and Switzerland, our common par- 
" tiality for a country which was his by birth and mine by adoption, 
" inclined the scale in favor of the latter. According to the plan, 
" which was soon conceived and digested, I embraced a period of 
" two hundred years, from the association of the three peasanti 
" of the Alps to the plenitude and prosperity of the Helvetic body 
" in the sixteenth century. I should have described the deliver- 
" ance and victory of the Swiss, who have never shed the blood 
" of their tyrants but in a field of battle ; the laws and manners of 
" the confederate states ; the splendid trophies of the Austrian, 
" Burgundian, and Italian wars ; and the wisdom of a nation, who 
" after some sallies of martial adventure, has been content to 
" guard the blessings of peace with the sword of freedom. 

" Manus haec inimica tyrannis 

" Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem. 

" My judgment as well as my enthusiasm, was satisfied with the 
" glorious theme ; and the assistance of Deyverdun seemed to 
" remove an insuperable obstacle. The French or Latin memo- 
" rials, of which I was not ignorant, are inconsiderable in number 
" and weight ; but in the perfect acquaintance of my friend with 
" the German language, I found the key of a more valuable col- 
" lection. The most necessary books were procured ; he translated 
" for my use ; yet such was the distance and delay, that two years 
* elapsed in these preparatory steps ; and it was late in the third 
" summer (1767) before I entered, with these slender materials, 
" on the more agreeable task of composition. A specimen of my 
History, the first book, was read the following winter in a liter- 
ary society of foreigners in London ; and as the author was 
" unknown, I listened, without observation, to the free strictures 
" and unfavorable sentence of my judges* The momentary sen- 

* David Hume, the historian, expressed a different opinion in a friendly 
letter to Mr. Gibbon, and it is a subject of regret, especially to the natives 
of Switzerland, that Lord Sheffield did not publish this History with Gib- 
bon's Miscellaneous Works. — E. 



XLII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" sation was painful ; but their condemnation was ratified by my 
" cooler thoughts. Perhaps I may impute the failure to the inju- 
" dicious choice of a foreign language. Perhaps I may suspect 
" that the language itself is ill adapted to sustain the vigor and 
" dignity of an important narrative. But if France, so rich in lit- 
" erary merit, had produced a great original historian, his genius 
" would have formed and fixed the idiom to the proper tone, the 
" peculiar mode of historical eloquence." 

In connexion with Mr. Deyverdun, Mr. Gibbon next undertook 
a Journal in imitation of Dr. Maty's Journal Britannique. " Our 
Journal for the year 1767," says he, " under the title of Memoir es 
Literaires de la Gra?id Bretagne, was soon finished and sent to 
the press. For the first article, Lord Lyttelton's History of 
Henry II., I must own myself responsible : but the public has 
ratified my judgment of that voluminous work, in which sense 
and learning are not illuminated by a ray of genius. The next 
specimen was the choice of my friend, The Bath Guide, a light 
and whimsical performance, of local, and even verbal, pleasantry. 
I started at the attempt : he smiled at my fears ; his courage 
was justified by success ; and a master of both languages 
will applaud the curious felicity with which he has trans- 
fused into French prose the spirit, and even the humor, 
of the English verse. It is not my wish to deny how deeply I 
was interested in these Memoirs, of which I need not surely be 
ashamed. A second volume (for the year 1768) was published. 
I will presume to say, that their merit was superior to their rep- 
utation ; but it was not less true that they were productive of 
more reputation than emolument. They introduced my friend 
to the protection, and myself to the acquaintance, of the Earl of 
Chesterfield, whose age and infirmities secluded him from the 
world ; and of Mr. David Hume. The former accepted a dedi- 
cation, (April 12th, 1769) : the latter enriched the Journal with 
a reply to Mr. Walpole's Historical Doubts, which he afterwards 
shaped in the form of a note. The materials of the third vol- 
ume were almost completed, when I recommended Deyverdun 
as governer to Sir Richard Worsley, a youth, the son of my old 
Lieutenant Colonel, who was lately deceased. They set out on 
their travels ; nor did they return to England till some time 
after my father's death. 

" My next publication was an accidental sally of love and re- 
sentment ; of my reverence for modest genius, and my aversion 
for insolent pedantry. The sixth book of the JEneid is the most 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XLIII 

" pleasing and perfect composition of Latin poetry. The descent 

" of ./Eneas and the Sybil to the infernal regions, to the world of 

" spirits, expands an awful and boundless prospect, from the noc- 

" turnal gloom of the Cumaean grot, 

" Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram, 

" to the meridian brightness of the Elysian fields ; 

" Largior hie campos aether et lumine vestit 
" Pupureo 

" from the dreams of simple Nature, to the dreams, alas ! of 
11 Egyptian theology, and the philosophy of the Greeks. But the 
" final dismission of the hero through the ivory gate, whence 

" Falsa ad caelum mittunt insomnia manes, 

" seems to dissolve the whole enchantment, and leaves the reader 
" in a state of cold and anxious skepticism. This most lame and 
" impotent conclusion has been variously imputed to the taste or 
" irreligion of Virgil ; but, according to the more elaborate inter- 
" pretation of Bishop Warburton, the descent to hell is not a false, 
" but a mimic scene ; which represents the initiation of ^Eneas, if. 
" the character of a lawgiver, to the Eleusinian mysteries. This 
" hypothesis, a singular chapter in the Divifte Legation of Moses* 
" had been admitted by many as true ; it was praised by all as 
" ingenuous ; nor had it been exposed, in a space of thirty years, 
" to a fair and critical discussion. The learning and abilities of 
" the author had raised him to a just eminence ; but he reigned 

* According to Moritz, the descent of ^Eneas — the beloved of gods and 
men — into Hades, was for the purpose of visiting his father Anchises, who 
disclosed to him the mysteries of birth and death, of growth and decay, and 
also the events of futurity. In this journey he visited gloomy Tartarus, 
where the souls of the wicked suffered for their misdeeds. He also visited the 
mansions of the blessed in Elysium, where the souls of the just, freed from the 
passions of mortality, enjoyed the pleasures of existence, until, at the command 
of Jupiter, they drank of Lethe' 's dark watei's. This myth, from which has 
descended the modern Christian doctrine of immortality, agrees with the Eleu- 
sinian mysteries, as taught at the magnificent temple of Ceres and Bacchus 
at Eleusis. " The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was here taught," 
says Leland, author of The Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Rev eta- 
tion, " by shows and representations which might strike the senses." Ceres, 
goddess of the earth, gave the fruits of the earth, or her body, to be eaten by 
her children ; and Bacchus, the god of wine, freely gave to mortals his blood, 
to drink — the red juice of the grape — which in the foaming cup symbolizes the 
rich bounty of nature. Viewed in this light, as the deified personifications of 
Nature, whose mysteries no mortal eye may penetrate, the mysterious body 
and blood, eaten and drank in modern Christian churches, lose their incarna- 
dine tint, and are again resolved into their original elements of myth and fable. 

Bishop Warburton, author of the Divine Legation of Moses, admits that 
Moses failed to teach the doctrine of immortality — of an eternal existence be- 
yond the grave — to God's chosen people, the Jews ; but this doctrine, which 
was successively taught by Plato, Jesus, and Mahomet, may easily be traced to 
its primeval source in the rich storehouse of ancient Pagan Mythology. — E. 



XLIV SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

" the dictator and tyrant of the world of literature. The real merit 
" of Warburton was degraded by the pride and presumption with 
" which he pronounced his infallible decrees ; in his polemic 
'• writings he lashed his antagonists without mercy or moderation ; 
11 and his servile flatterers, (see the base and malignant Essay on 
" the Delicacy of Friendship,) exalting the master critic far above 
" Aristotle and Longinus, assaulted every modest dissenter who 
" refused to consult the oracle, and to adore the idol. In a land 
" of liberty, such despotism must provoke a general opposition, 
" and the zeal of opposition is seldom candid or impartial. A 
" late professor of Oxford, (Dr. Lowth,) in a pointed and polished 
" epistle, (August 31st, 1765,) defended himself, and attacked the 
" Bishop ; and, whatsoever might be the merits of an insignificant 
" controversy, his victory was clearly established by the silent 
" confusion of Warburton and his slaves. / too, without any pri- 
" vate offence, was ambitious of breaking a lance against the 
" giant's shield ; and in the beginning of the year 1770, my 
" Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the ALneid were sent, 
" without my name, to the press. In this short Essay, my first 
u English publication, I aimed my strokes against the person and 
" hypothesis of Bishop Warburton. I proved, at least to my own 
" satisfaction, that the ancient lawgivers did not invent the myste- 
" ries, and that ^Eneas was never invested with the office of law- 
" giver ; that there is not any argument, any circumstance, which 
" can melt a fable into allegory, or remove the scene from the 
" Lake Avernus to the Temple of Ceres ; that such a wild suppo- 
" sition is equally injurious to the poet and the man ; that if Virgil 
" was not initiated he could not, if he were he would not, reveal 
" the secrets of the initiation : that the anathema of Horace {vetabo 
" qui Cereris sacrum vulgarity &c.) at once attests his own ignor- 
" ance and the innocence of his friend. As the Bishop of Glou- 
" cester and his party maintained a discreet silence, my critical 
" disquisition was soon lost among the pamphlets of the day ; but 
" the public coldness was overbalanced to my feelings by the 
" weighty approbation of the last and best editor of Virgil, Pro- 
" fessor Heyne of Gottingen, who acquiesces in my confutation, 
" and styles the unknown author, dotlus . . . et elegantissimus 
" Britannus. But I cannot resist the temptation of transcribing 
" the favorable judgment of Mr. Hayley, himself a poet and a 
" scholar : " \ An intricate hypothesis, twisted into a long and 
"' labored chain of quotation and argument, the Dissertation on 
" ' the Sixth Book of Virgil, remained some time unrefuted. At 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XLV 

" ■ length, a superior, but anonymous critic arose, who, in one of 
" * the most judicious and spirited essays that our nation has pro- 
" 4 duced, on a point of classical literature, completely overturned 

• ' this ill-founded edifice, and exposed the arrogance and futility 
" ' of its assuming architect.' He even condescends to justify 
" an acrimony of style, which had been gently blamed by the 
" more unbiassed German."* 

" In the fifteen years between my Essay on the Study of Liter a- 
" hire and the first volume of the Decline and Fall, (i 761-1776,) 
" this criticism on Warburton, and some articles in the Journal, 
u were my sole publications. It is more especially incumbent on 
" me to mark the employment, or to confess the waste of time, 
" from my travels to my father's death, an interval in which I was 
" not diverted by any professional duties from the labors and 
" pleasures of a studious life. 1. As soon as I was released from 
" the fruitless task of the Swiss revolutions, (1768), I began gradu- 
" ally to advance from the wish to the hope, from the hope to the 

* design, from the design to the execution, of my historical work, 
" of whose limits and extent I had yet a very inadequate notion. 
" The Classics, as low as Tacitus, the younger Pliny, and Juvenal, 
" were my old and familiar companions. I insensibly plunged 
" into the ocean of the Augustan history ; and in the descending 
" series I investigated, with my pen almost always in my hand, 
" the original records, both Greek and Latin, from Dion Cassius 
" to Ammianus Marcellinus, from the reign of Trajan to the last 
" age of the Western Caesars. The subsidary rays of medals, and 
" inscriptions of geography and chronology, were thrown on their 
" proper objects ; and I applied the collections of Tillemont, 
" whose inimitable accuracy almost assumes the character of 
" genius, to fix and arrange within my reach the loose and 
" scattered atoms" of historical information. Through the dark- 
" ness of the middle ages I explored my way in the Annals and 
"Antiquities of Italy of the learned Muratori; and diligently 
" compared them with the parallel or transverse lines of Sigonius 
" and Maffei, Baronius and Pagi, till I almost grasped the ruins 
" of Rome in the fourteenth century, without suspecting that 
" this final chapter must be attained by the labor of six quartos 
" and twenty years. Among the books which I purchased, the 

" * The editor of the Warburtonian tracts, Dr. Parr, (p. 192,) considers 
"the allegorical interpretation 'as completely refuted in a most clear, 
" 'elegant, and decisive work of criticism ; which could not, indeed, derive 
" ' authority from the greatest name ; but to which the greatest name might 
" 'with propriety have been affixed.' " - 



XLYI SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

Theodocian Code, with the commentary of James Godefroy, 
must be gratefully remembered. I used it (and much I used it) 
as a work of history, rather than of jurisprudence : but in every 
' light it may be considered as a full and capacious repository of 
' the political state of the empire in the fourth and fifth centuries. 
' As I believed, and as I still believe, that the propagation of the 
' Gospel, and the triumph of the church, are inseparably connected 
' with the decline of the Roman monarchy, I weighed the causes 
' and effects of the revolution, and contrasted the narratives and 
' apologies of the Christians themselves, with the glances of 
1 candor or enmity which the Pagans have cast on the rising 
' sects. The Jewish and Heathen testimonies, as they are col- 
' lected and illustrated by Dr. Lardner, directed, without super- 

■ seding, my search of the originals; and in an ample dissertation 
• on the miraculous darkness of the passion, I privately drew my 
' conclusions from the silence of an unbelieving age. I have 
' assembled the preparatory studies, directly or indirectly relative 
' to my history ; but, in strict equity, they must be spread beyond 
' this period of my life, over the two summers (1771 and 1772) 
1 that elapsed between my father's death and my settlement in 
' London. 2. In a free conversation with books and men, it 
' would be endless to enumerate the names and characters of all 
' who are introduced to our acquaintance ; but in this general 
i acquaintance we may select the degrees of friendship and 
- esteem. According to the wise maxim, Multum legere potins 
' quam multa, I reviewed, again and again, the immortal works 
1 of the French and English, the Latin and Italian classics. My 
' Greek studies (though less assiduous than I designed) main- 
' tained and extended my knowledge of that incomparable idiom. 
' Homer and Xenophon were still my favorite authors ; and I had 
' almost prepared for the press an Essay on the Cyrop<zdia, 
' which, in my own judgment, is not unhappily labored. After a 
' certain age, the new publications of merit are the sole food of 
' the many ; and the most austere student will be often tempted 

■ to break the line, for the sake of indulging his own curiosity, 
' and of providing the topics of fashionable currency. A more 
' respectable motive may be assigned for the third perusal of 
' Blackstone's Comme7itaries ; and a copious and critical abstract 
' of that English work was my first serious production in my 
' native language. 3. My literary leisure was much less complete 
' and independent than it might appear to the eye of a stranger. 
' In the hurry of London I was destitute of books ; in the solitude 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XLVII 

" of Hampshire I was not master of my time. My quiet was 
" disturbed by our domestic anxiety, and I should be ashamed of 
" my unfeeling philosophy had I found much time or taste for 
" study in the last fatal summer (1770) of my father's decay and 
" dissolution. His constitution was broken ; he lost his strength 
" and his sight ; the rapid progress of a dropsy admonished him 
" of his end, and he sunk into his grave on the 10th of November, 
" 1770, in the sixty-fourth year of his age. I submitted to the 
" order of Nature ; and my grief was soothed by the conscious 
" satisfaction that I had discharged all the duties of filial piety. 

" As soon as i had paid the last solemn duties to my father, and 
" obtained, from time and reason, a tolerable composure of mind, 
" I began to form the plan of an independent life, most adapted to 
" my circumstances and inclination. Yet so intricate was the net, 
" my efforts were so awkward and feeble, that nearly two years 
" (November, 1770-October, 1772) were suffered to elapse before 
" I could disentangle myself from the management of the farm, 
" and transfer my residence from Beriton to a house in London. 
" During this interval I continued to divide my year between 
" town and the country ; but my new situation was brightened by 
" hope ; my stay in London was prolonged into the summer ; and 
" the uniformity of the summer was occasionally broken by visits 
" and excusions at a distance from home. The gratification of 
" my desires (they were not immoderate) has been seldom dis- 
" appointed by the want of money or credit ; my pride was never 
" insulted by the visit of an importunate tradesman ; and my 
" transient anxiety- for the past or future has been dispelled by 
" the studious or social occupation of the present hour. My 
" conscience does not accuse me of any act of extravagance or 
" injustice, and the remnant of my estate affords an ample and 
" honorable provision for my declining age. I shall not expatiate 
" on my economical affairs, which cannot be instructive or amusing 
" to the reader. It is a rule of prudence, as well as of politeness, 
" to reserve such confidence for the ear of a private friend, with- 
" out exposing our situation to the envy or pity of strangers ; for 
" envy is productive of hatred, and pity borders too nearly on 
" contempt. Yet I may believe, and even assert, that in circum- 
" stances more indigent or more wealthy, I should never have 
" accomplished the task, or acquired the fame, of an historian ; 
" that my spirit would have been broken by poverty and contempt, 
" and that my industry might have been relaxed in the labor and 
" luxury of a superfluous fortune." 



XLVIII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" I had now attained the first of earthly blessings, independence: 
" I was the absolute master of my hours and actions : nor was I 
" deceived in the hope that the establishment of my library in 
" town would allow me to divide the day between study and 
" society. Each year the circle of my acquaintance, the number 
" of my dead and living companions, was enlarged. To a lover 
" of books, the shops and sales of London present irresistible 
" temptations ;- and the manufacture of my history required a 
" various and growing stock of materials. The militia, my travels, 
" the House of Commons, the fame of an author, contributed to 
" multiply my connexions : I was chosen a member of the fashion- 
" able clubs; and, before I left England in 1783, there were few 
" persons of any eminence in the literary or political world to 
" whom I was a stranger.' 1 ' It would most assuredly be in my 
" power to amuse the reader with a gallery of portraits and a 
" collection of anecdotes. But I have always condemned the 
" practice of transforming a private memorial into a vehicle of 
" satire or praise. By my own choice I passed in town the 
" greatest part of the year ; but whenever I was desirous of 
" breathing the air of the country, I possessed an hospitable 
" retreat at Sheffield-place in Sussex, in the family of my valuable 
" friend, Mr. Holroyd, whose character, under the name of Lord 
" Sheffield, has since been more conspicuous to the public. 

" No sooner was I settled in my house and library than I under- 
" took the composition of the first volume of my History. At 
" the outset all was dark and doubtful ; even the title of the work, 
" the true era of the Decline and Fall of the Empire, the limits of 
" the introduction, the division of the chapters, and the order of 
" the narrative : and I was often tempted to cast away the labor of 
" seven years. The style of an author should be the image of his 
" mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of 
" exercise. Many experiments were made before I could hit the 
" middle tone between a dull chronicle and a rhetorical declama- 
" tion : three times did I compose the first chapter, and twice the 

" * From the mixed, though polite, company of Boodle's, White's, and 
" Brookes's, I must honorably distinguish a weekly society, which was 
" instituted in the year 1764, and which still continues to flourish, under 
" the title of the Literary Club. {Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 415 ; 
" BoswelPs Tour to the Hebrides, p. 97.) The names of Dr. Johnson, 
" Mr. Burke, Mr. Topham Beauclerc, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Goldsmith, Sir 
"Joshua Reynolds,* Mr. Colman, Sir William Jones, Dr. Percy, Mr. Fox, 
" Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Adam Smith, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Dunning, Sir Joseph 
" Banks, Dr. Warton, and his brother, Mr. Thomas Warton, Dr. Burney, 
" &c, form a large and luminous constellation of British stars." 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. XLIX 

second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their effect. 
In the remainder of the way I advanced with a more equal and 
easy pace ; but the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters have been 
reduced by three successive revisals, from a large volume to 
their present size ; and they might still be compressed, without 
any loss of fads or sentiments. An opposite fault may be 
imputed to the concise and superficial narrative of the first reigns 
from Commodus to Alexander ; a fault of which I have never 
heard, except from Mr. Hume in his last journey to London. 
Such an oracle might have been consulted and obeyed with 
rational devotion ; but I was soon disgusted with the modest 
practice of reading, the manuscript to my friends. Of such 
friends some will praise from politeness, and some will criticise 
from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of his own 
performance ; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject ; 
no one is so sincerely interested in the event. 
" By the friendship of Mr. (now Lord) Eliot, who had married 
my first cousin, I was returned at the general election for the 
borough of Leskeard. I took my seat at the beginning of 
the memorable contest between Great Britain and America, 
and supported, with many a sincere and silent vote, the rights, 
though not, perhaps, the interest, of the mother country. After 
a fleeting illusive hope, prudence condemned me to acquiesce 
in the humble station of a mute. I was not armed by Nature 
and education with the intrepid energy of mind and voice. 

" Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis. 
Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the success of my pen 
discouraged the trial of my voice. But I assisted at the debates 
of a free assembly; I listened to the attack and defense of 
eloquence and reason : I had a near prospect of the characters, 
views, and passsions of the first men of the age. The cause of 
government was ably vindicated by Lord North, a statesman 
of spotless integrity, a consummate master of debate, who could 
wield, with equal dexterity, the arms of reason and of ridicule. 
He was seated on the Treasury-bench between his Attorney 
and Solicitor General, the two pillars of the law and state, 
magis pares quam similes ; and the minister might indulge in a 
short slumber, whilst he was upheld on either hand by the 
majestic sense of Tkurlow, and the skilful eloquence of 
Wedderburne. From the adverse side of the house an ardent 
* and powerful opposition was supported, by the lively declama- 



L SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" tion of Barre, the legal acuteness of Dunning, the profuse and 
■ philosophic fancy of Burke, and the argumentative vehemence 
" of Fox, who in the conduct of a party approved himself equal 
" to the conduct of an empire. By such men, every operation of 
" peace and war, every principle of justice or policy, every ques- 
" tion of authority and freedom, was attacked and defended ; and 
" the subject of the momentous contest was the union or separa- 
" tion of Great Britain and America. The eight sessions that I 
" sat in Parliament were a school of civil prudence, the first and 
" most essential virtue of an historian. 

" The volume of my History, which had been somewhat delayed 
" by the novelty and tumult of a first session, was now ready for 
" the press. After the perilous adventure had been declined by 
" my friend Mr. Elmsly, I agreed, upon easy terms, with Mr. 
" Thomas Cadell, a respectable bookseller, and Mr. William Stra- 
" han, an eminent printer ; and they undertook the care and risk 
" of the publication, which derived more credit from the name of 
" the shop than from that of the author. The last revisal of the 
" proofs was submitted to my vigilance ; and many blemishes of 
" style, which had been invisible in the manuscript, were discov- 
" ered and corrected in the printed sheet. So moderate were our 
" hopes, that the original impression had been stinted to five hun- 
" dred, till the number was doubled by the prophetic taste of Mr. 
" Strahan. During this awful interval I was neither elated by the 
" ambition of fame, nor depressed by the apprehension of con- 
" tempt. My diligence and accuracy were attested by my own 
" conscience. History is the most popular species of writing, 
" since it can adapt itself to the highest or the lowest capacity. 
" I had chosen an illustrious subject. Rome is familiar to the 
" school-boy and the statesman ; and my narrative was deduced 
" from the last period of classical reading. I had likewise flattered 
" myself, that an age of light and liberty would receive, without 
" scandal, an enquiry into the human causes of the progress and 
" establishment of Christianity. 

" I am at a loss how to describe the success of the work, without 
" betraying the vanity of the writer. The first impression was 
" exhausted in a few days ; a second and third edition were 
" scarcely adequate to the demand ; and the bookseller's property 
" was twice invaded by the pirates of Dublin. My book was on 
" every table, and almost on every toilette ; the historian was 
" crowned by the taste or fashion of the day ; nor was the general 
" voice disturbed by the barking of any profane critic. The favor 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. LI 

" of mankind is most freely bestowed on a new acquaintance of 
" any original merit ; and the mutual surprise of the public and 
" their favorite is productive of those warm sensibilities, which at 

* a second meeting can no longer be rekindled. If I listened to 
" the music of praise, I was more seriously satisfied with the 
" approbation of my judges. The candor of Dr. Robertson em- 
" braced his disciple. A letter from Mr. Hume overpaid the labor 

* of ten years ; but I have never presumed to accept a place in 
" the triumvirate of British historians." 

The following is the letter from Mr. Hume to which Mr. Gibbon 
refers : 

" Edinburgh, iSth March, 1776. 

" Dear Sir! As I ran through your volume of history with 
' great avidity and impatience, I cannot forbear discovering some- 

■ what of the same impatience in returning you thanks for your 
' agreeable present, and expressing the satisfaction which the 
1 performance has given me. Whether I consider the dignity of 
' your style, the depth of your matter, or the extensiveness of 
' your learning, I must regard the work as equally the object of 
' esteem ; and I own that if I had not previously had the happi- 
'nessofyour personal acquaintance, such a performance from 

1 an Englishman in our age would have given me some surprise. 
1 You may smile at this sentiment ; but as it seems to me that 
' your countrymen, for almost a whole generation, have given 

■ themselves up to barbarous and absurd faction, and have totally 
1 neglected all polite letters, I no longer expected any valuable 
' production ever to come from them. I know it will give you 
' pleasure (as it did me) to find that all the men of letters in this 
' place concur in the admiration of your work, and in their anxious 
1 desire of your continuing it. 

" When I heard of your undertaking, (which was some time 
1 ago,) I own I was a little curious to see how you would extricate 
' yourself from the subject of your two last chapters. I think you 
' have observed a very prudent temperament. It was impossible 
' to treat the subject so as not to give grounds of suspicion against 
' you, and you may expect that a clamor will arise. This, if any 
1 thing, will retard your success with the public ; for in every 
1 other respect your work is calculated to be popular. But among 
' many other marks of decline, the prevalence of superstition in 
1 England prognosticates the fall of philosophy and decay of 
1 taste ; and though nobody be more capable than you to revive 
' them, you will probably find a struggle in your first advances. 

" I see you entertain a great doubt with regard to the authen- 
' ticity of the poems of Ossian. You are certainly right in so 
1 doing. It is indeed strange that any men of sense could have 
' imagined it possible, that the above twenty thousand verses, 
1 along with numberless historical facts, could have been pre- 
' served by oral tradition during fifty generations, by the rudest, 
' perhaps, of all the European nations, the most necessitous, the 



LII SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

" most turbulent, and the most unsettled. Where a supposition 
" is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it 
" ought never to be regarded. Men run with great avidity to 
" give their evidence in favor of what natters their passions and 
" their national prejudices. You are therefore over and above 
" indulgent to us in speaking of the matter with hesitation. 

" I must inform you that we are all very anxious to hear that 
" you have fully collected the materials for your second volume, 
" and that you are even considerably advanced in the composition 
" of it. I speak this more in the name of my friends than in my 
" own ; as I cannot expect to live so long as to see the publication 
" of it. Your ensuing volume will be more delicate then the pre- 
" ceding, but I trust in your prudence for extricating you from 
" the difficulties ; and, in all events, you have courage to despise 
" the clamor of bigots. I am, with great regard, dear sir, your 
''most obedient, and most humble servant, David Hume." 

" Some weeks afterwards," says Mr. Gibbon, " I had the melan- 
" choly pleasure of seeing Mr. Hume in his passage through 
" London ; his body feeble, his mind firm. On the 25th of August 
" of the same year (1776) he died, at Edinburgh, the death of a 
" philosopher." 

Mr. Ferguson addressed Mr. Gibbon, as follows : 

Edinburgh, March 19th, 1776. 

" Dear Sir : I received about eight days ago, after reading your 
" History, the copy which you have been so good as to send me, 
" and for which I now trouble you with my thanks. But even if I 
" had not been thus called upon to offer you my respects, I could 
" not have refrained from congratulating you on the merit, and 
" undoubted success, of this valuable performance. The persons 
11 of this place, whose judgment you will value most, agree in 
" opinion, that you have made a great addition to the classical 
" literature of England, and given us what Thucydides proposed 
" leaving with his own countrymen, a possession in perpetuity. 
" Men of a certain modesty and merit always exceed the expecta- 
" tions of their friends ; and it is with very great pleasure I tell 
" you, that although you must have observed in me every mark 
" of consideration and regard, that this is, nevertheless, the case, 
" I receive your instruction, and study your model, with great 
" deference, and join with every one else, in applauding the extent 
" of your plan, in hands so well able to execute it. Some of 
" your readers, I find, were impatient to get at the fifteenth chap- 
" ter, and began at that place. I have not heard much of their 
" criticism, but am told that many doubt your orthodoxy. 

" With the greatest respect, dear sir, your most obliged, and 
" most humble servant, Adam Ferguson." 

The following are extracts from Dr. Robertson's letters : 

" College of Edinburgh, July 30, 1788. 
" Dea^r Sir : Long before this I should have acknowledged the 
receipt of your most acceptable present. . . During my solitude 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. LIII 

" the perusal of your book has been my chief amusement and 
" consolation. I have gone through it once with great attention, 
" and am now advanced to the last volume in my second reading. 
" I ventured to predict the superior excellence of the volumes 
" lately published, and I have not been a false prophet. Indeed 
" when I consider the extent of your undertaking, and the im- 
" mense labor of historical and philosophic research requisite 
" towards executing every part of it, I am astonished that all this 
" should have been accomplished by one man. I know no exam- 
'• pie, in any age or nation, of such a vast body of valuable and 
11 elegant information communicated by any individual. I feel, 
" however, some degree of mortification mingled with my aston- 
" ishment. Before you began your historic career, I used to pride 
" myself in being at least the most illustrious historian of the age ; 
" but now, alas ! I can pretend no longer to that praise, and must 
" say, as Pliny did of his uncle, Si comparer Mi sum desidiosissi- 
" mus. Your style appears to me improved in these new volumes ; 
" by the habit of writing, you write with greater ease. I am sorry 
" to find that our ideas on the effects of the Crusades do not alto- 
" gether coincide. I considered that point with great care, and 
" cannot help thinking still that my opinion was well founded. 
" I shall consult the authorities to which I refer ; for when my sen- 
" timents differ from yours, I have some reason to mistrust them. 

" Your chapter concerning the pastoral nations is admirable ; 
"and though I hold myself to be a tolerably good general histo- 
" rian, a great part of it was new to me. As soon as I have leisure 
" I propose to trace you to your sources of information , and I 
" have no doubt of finding you as exact there, as I have found 
" you in other passages where I have made a scrutiny. It was 
'"' always my idea that an historian should feel himself a witness 
" giving evidence upon oath. I am glad to perceive by your 
" minute scrupulosity, that your notions are the same. Farewell 
" my dear Sir. I ever am yours most faithfully. 

" William Robertson." 

Dr. Adam Smith addressed to Mr. Gibbon the following note : 
" Edinburgh, December ioth, 1788. 

" My Dear Friend : I have ten thousand apologies to make, 
" for not having long ago returned you my best thanks for the 
" very agreeable present you made me of the three last volumes 
" of your History. I cannot express to you the pleasure it gives 
" me to find, that by the universal assent of every man of taste 
" and learning, whom I either know or correspond with, it sets 
" you at the very head of the whole literary tribe at present exist- 
" ing in Europe. I ever am, my dear friend, most affectionately 
" yours. Adam Smith." 

Extract from a letter to Mr. Gibbon by Sir William Jones : 
" Lamb's Buildings, June 30th, 1781. 

" Dear Sir : I have more than once sought, without having 
* been so fortunate as to obtain, a proper opportunity of thanking 
" you very sincerely for the elegant compliment which you pay 
" me, in a work abounding in elegance of all kinds. 



LIV 

" My Seven Arabian Poets will see the light before next winter, 
" and be proud to wait upon you in their English dress. Their 
" wild productions will, I flatter myself, be thought interesting, 
" and not venerable merely on account of their antiquity. 

" With regard to Asiatic Letters, a necessary attention to my 
" profession will compel me wholly and eternally to abandon 
" them, unless Lord North should think me worthy to concur in 
" the improved administration of justice in Bengal, and should 
" appoint me to supply the vacancy of the Indian Bench. I should 
" probably travel through part of Egypt and Arabia, and should 
" be able, in my way, to procure many Eastern tracts of literature 
" and jurisprudence. I might become a good Mahomedan lawyer 
" before I rea ;hed Calcutta, and, in my vacations, should find 
" leisure to explain in my native language, whether the Arabs, 
" Persians, and Turks have written on science, history, and the 
" fine arts. At all times, and in all places, I shall ever be, with 
" undissembled regard, dear Sir, your much obliged and faithful 
" servant. W. Jones." 

" My second excursion to Paris," says Gibbon, "was determined 
" by the pressing invitation of M. and Madame Necker, who had 
" visited England in the preceding summer. On my arrival I 
" found M. Necker Director-general of the finances, in the first 
" bloom of power and popularity. His private fortune enabled 
"him to support a liberal establishment; and his wife, whose 
" talents and virtues I had long admired, was admirably qualified 
" to preside in the conversation of her table and drawing-room. 
" As their friend I was introduced to the best company of both 
" sexes ; to the foreign ministers of all nations, and to the first 
" names and characters of France ; who distinguished me by 
" such marks of civility and kindness, as gratitude will not suffer 
" me to forget, and modesty will not allow me to enumerate. 
" The fashionable suppers often broke into the morning hours ; 
" yet I occasionally consulted the Royal Library, and that of the 
" Abbey of St. Germain, and in the free use of their books at 
" home, I had always reason to praise the liberality of those in- 
" stitutions. The society of men of letters I neither courted nor 
" declined ; but I was happy in the acquaintance of M. de Buffon, 
" who united with a sublime genius the most amiable simplicity 
" of mind and manners. At the table of my old friend, M. de 
" Foncemagne, I was involved in a dispute with the Abbe" de 
" Mably ; and his jealous irascible spirit revenged itself on a work 
" which he was incapable of reading in the original." 

The following account is from the pen of an unknown critic, 
who was present at the dispute, and also at a preceding discussion 
on the English constitution, at the house of the Countess de 
Froulay : 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LV 

" Vous etiez chez M. de Foncemagne, mon cher Theodon, le 
" jour que M. l'Abbe de Mably et M. Gibbon y dinerent en grande 
" compagnie. La conversation roula presque entierement sur 
" l'histoire. L'Abbe etant un profond politique, la tourna sur 
" 1 'administration, quand un fut au desert: et comme par caraclere, 
" par humeur, par l'habitude d'admirer Tite Live, il ne prise que 
" le systeme republicain, il se mit a, vanter l'excellence des repub- 
" liques : bien persuade que le savant Anglois l'approuveroit en 
" tout, et admireroit la profondeur de genie qui avoit fait deviner 
" tous ces avantages a un Francois. Mais M. Gibbon, instruit par 
" l'experience des inconveniens d'un gouvernement populaire, ne 
" fut point du tout de son avis, et il prit genereusement la defense 
" du gouvernement monarchique. L'Abbe voulut le convaincre 
" par i ite Live, et par quelques argumens tires de Plutarque en 
" faveur des Spartiates. M. Gibbon, doue de la memoire la plus 
" heureuse, et ayant tous les faits presens a la pensee, domina 
14 bien-tot la conversation ; l'Abbe se facha, ils s'emporta, il dit des 
" choses dures ; l'Anglois, conservant le phlegme de son pays, 
" prenoit ses avantages, et pressoit l'Abbe avec d'autant plus de 
" succes que la colere le troubloit de plus en plus. La conversa- 
" tion s'echauffoit, et M. de Foncemagne la rompit en se levant de 
" table, et en passant dans le salon, oil personne ne fut tente de 
" la renouer." Supplement de la Manilre (Tecrire UHistoire.* 

Mr. Gibbon continues his narrative as follows : 

" Nearly two years had elapsed between the publication of my 
" first and the commencement of my second volume ; and the 
" causes must be assigned of this long delay, i. After a short 
" holiday I indulged my curiosity in some studies of a very differ- 
" ent nature, a course of anatomy, which was demonstrated by 
" Doctor Hunter ; and some lessons of chemistry, which were 
" delivered by Mr. Higgins. The principles of these sciences, and 
" a taste for books of natural history, contributed to multiply my 
" ideas and images ; and the anatomist and chemist may probably 
" track me in their own snow. 2. I dived, perhaps too deeply, 
" into the mud of the Arian controversy ; and many days of 
" reading, thinking, and writing were consumed in the pursuit of a 
" phantom. 3. It is difficult to arrange, with order and perspicuity, 
" the various transactions of the age of Constantine ; and so 
" much was I displeased with the first essay, that I committed to 
" the flames above fifty sheets. 4. The six months of Paris and 
" pleasure must be deducted from the account. But when I re- 
" sumed my task I felt my improvement ; I was now master of my 

" * Mably was a lover of virtue and freedom ; but his virtue was austere, 
" and his freedom was impatient of an equal. Kings, magistrates, nobles, 
" and successful writers, were the objects of his contempt, or hatred, or en- 
" vy ; but his illiberal abuse of Voltaire, Hume, Buffon, the Abbe Reynal, 
" Dr. Robertson, and tidii quanti, can be injurious only to himself." 



LVI SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

style and subject, and while the measure of my daily perform- 
' ance was enlarged, I discovered less reason to cancel or correct. 
1 It has always been my practice to cast a long paragraph in a 
' single mould, to try it by my ear, to deposit it in my memory, 
' but to suspend the action of the pen till I had given the last 
' polish to my work. Shall I add, that I never found my mind 
' more vigorous, nor my composition more happy, than in the 
' winter hurry of society and parliament ? 

" Had I believed that the majority of English readers were so 
1 fondly attached even to the name and shadow of Christianity ; 
' had I foreseen that the pious, the timid, and the prudent, would 
1 feel, or affect to feel, with such exquisite sensibility ; I might, 
' perhaps, have softened the two invidious chapters, which would 
' create many enemies, and conciliate few friends. But the shaft 
1 was shot, the alarm was sounded, and I could only rejoice that 
' if the voice of our priests was clamorous and bitter, their hands 
1 were disarmed from the powers of persecution. I adhered to 
' the wise resolution of trusting myself and my writings to the 
' candor of the public, till Mr. Davies of Oxford presumed to 
1 attack, not the faith, but the fidelity, of the historian. My Vin- 
1 dication, expressive of less anger than contempt, amused for a 
' moment the busy and idle metropolis ; and the most rational 
1 part of the laity, and even of the clergy, appear to have been 
' satisfied of my innocence and accuracy. I would not print this 
' Vindication in quarto, lest it should be bound and preserved with 
' the history itself. At the distance of twelve years, I calmly 
' affirm my judgment of Davies, Chelsum, &c. A victory over 
' such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation. They, however, 
1 were rewarded in this world. Poor Chelsum was indeed 

neglected ; and I dare not boast the making Dr. Watson a 

bishop ; he is a prelate of a large mind and liberal spirit : but I 
: enjoyed the pleasure of giving a Royal pension to Mr. Davies, 
! and of collating Dr. Apthorpe to an archiepiscopal living. Their 
; success encouraged the zeal of Taylor, the Arian* and Milner, 
; the Methodist,! with many others, whom it would be difficult to 

" The stupendous title, Thoughts on the Causes of the Grand Afostacv, at 
' first agitated my nerves, till I discovered that it was the apostacy of the whole 
' church, since the Council of Nice, from Mr. Taylor's private religion. ' ' 

" f From his grammar-school at Kingston upon Hull, Mr. Joseph Milner 
' pronounces an anathema against all rational religion. His faith is a divine 
' taste, a spiritual inspiration; his church is a mystic and invisible body: the 
1 natural Christians, such as Mr. Locke, who believe and interpret the 
' Scriptures, are, in his judgment, no better than profane infidels." 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LVII 

" remember, and tedious to rehearse. The list of my adversaries, 
" however, was graced with the more respectable names of Dr. 
" Priestley, Sir David Dalrymple, and Dr. White ; and every 
" polemic, of either university, discharged his sermon or pamph- 
" let against the impenetrable silence of the Roman historian. 
" In his History of the Corruptions of Christianity Dr, Priestley 
" threw down his two gauntlets to Bishop Hurd and Mr. Gibbon. 
" I declined the challenge in a letter, exhorting my opponent to 
" enlighten the world by his philosophical discoveries, and to 
" remember that the merit of his predecessor Servetus is now 
" reduced to a single passage, which indicates the smaller circu- 
" lation of the blood through the lungs, from and to the heart. 
" Instead of listening to this friendly advice, the dauntless philos- 
" opher of Birmingham continued to fire away his double battery 
" against those who believed too little, and those who believed too 
" much. From my replies he has nothing to hope or fear ; but 
" his Socinian shield has repeatedly been pierced by the spear of 
" Horsley, and his trumpet of sedition may at length awaken the 
" magistrates of a free country. 

" The profession and rank of Sir David Dalrymple (now a Lord 
" of Session) has given a more decent color to his style. But 
" he scrutinized each separate passage of the two chapters with 
" the dry minuteness of a special pleader ; and as he was always 
" solicitous to make, he may have succeeded sometimes in finding, 
•' a flaw. In his Annals of Scotland, he has shown himself a 
" diligent collector and an accurate critic. 

" I have praised, and still praise, the eloquent sermons which 
" were preached in St. Mary's pulpit at Oxford by Dr. White. If 
" he assaulted me with some degree of illiberal acrimony, in such 
'■ a place, and before such an audience, he was obliged to speak 
" the language of the country. I smiled at a passage in one of his 
" private letters to Mr. Badcock ; ' The part where we encounter 
" ' Gibbon must be brilliant and striking.' 

" In a sermon preached before the university of Cambridge, 
" Dr. Edwards complimented a work, ' which can only perish 
" ' with the language itself;' and esteems the author a formidable 
" enemy. He is, indeed, astonished that more learning and m- 
" genuity has not been shown in the defence of Israel ; that the 
" prelates and dignitaries of the church (alas, good man ! ) did 
" not vie with each other, whose stone should sink the deepest 
" in the forehead of this Goliah." 



LVIII SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

The Monthly Review of October, 1790, speaks of this subject as 
follows : " But the force of truth will oblige us to confess, that in 
" the attacks which have been leveled against our skeptical histo- 
" rian, we can discover but slender traces of profound and 
" exquisite erudition, of solid criticism and accurate investigation ; 
" but we are too frequently disgusted by vague and inconclusive 
" reasoning ; by unseasonable banter and senseless witticisms ; 
" by embittered bigotry and enthusiastic jargon ; by futile cavils 
" and illiberal invectives. Proud and elated by the weakness of 
" his antagonists, he condescends not to handle the sword of 
" controversy." 

" Let me frankly own," says Gibbon, " that I was startled at the 
" first discharge of ecclesiastical ordnance : but as soon as I found 
" that this empty noise was mischeivous only in the intention, my 
" fear was converted into indignation ; and every feeling of indig- 
" nation or curiosity has long since subsided in pure and placid 
" indifference. 

" The prosecution of my History was soon afterwards checked 
" by another controversy of a very different kind. At the request 
" of the Lord Chancellor, and of Lord Weymouth, then Secretary 
" of State, I vindicated, against the French manifesto, the justice 
" of the British arms. The whole correspondence of Lord 
" Stormont, our late ambassador at Paris, was submitted to my 
" inspection, and the Memoire Justiftcatif, which I composed in 
" French, was first approved by the Cabinet Ministers, and then 
" delivered as a state paper to the courts of Europe. 

" Among the honorable connections which I had formed, I may 
" justly be proud of the friendship of Mr. Wedderburne, at that 
" time Attorney General, who now illustrates the title of Lord 
" Loughborough, and the office of Chief Justice of the Common 
" Pleas. By his strong recommendation, and the favorable dispo- 
" sition of Lord North, I was appointed one of the Lords Com- 
" missioners of Trade and Plantations ; and my private income 
" was enlarged by a clear addition of between seven and eight 
" hundred pounds a year. The fancy of an hostile orator [Mr. 
" Burke] may paint, in the strong colors of ridicule, 'the perpetual 
" ' virtual adjournment, and the unbroken sitting vacation of the 
" ' Board of Trade.' But it must be allowed that our duty was 
" not intolerably severe, and that I enjoyed many days and weeks 
" of repose, without being called away from the library to the 
" office. My acceptance of a place provoked some of the leaders 
" of opposition, with whom I had lived in habits of intimacy ; and 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LIX 

u I was most unjustly accused of deserting a party, in which I 
*' had never enlisted. 

" The aspecl of the next session of parliament was stormy and 
" perilous ; county meetings, petitions, and committees of corres- 
" pondence, announced the public discontent ; and instead of 
" voting with a triumphant majority, the friends of government 
" were often exposed to a struggle, and sometimes to a defeat. 
" The House of Commons adopted Mr. Dunning's motion, ' That 
" ' the influence of the Crown had increased, was increasing, and 
" • ought to be diminished : ' and Mr. Burke's bill of reform was 
" framed with skill, introduced with eloquence, and supported by 
" numbers. The storm, however, blew over for a time ; a large 
" defection of country gentlemen eluded the hopes of the patriots : 
" the Lords of Trade were revived ; administration recovered 
" their strength and spirit ; and the flames of London, which were 
" kindled by a mischievous madman, admonished all thinking 
" men of the danger of an appeal to the people. In the premature 
" dissolution which followed this session of parliament I lost my 
" seat. Mr. Elliot was now deeply engaged in the measures of 
" opposition, and the electors of Leskeard are commonly of the 
" same opinion as Mr. Elliot. 

" In this interval of my senatorial life I published the second 
" and third volumes of the Decline and Fall. My ecclesiastical 
" history still breathed the same spirit of freedom ; but protestant 
" zeal is more indifferent to the characters and controversies of 
" the fourth and fifth centuries* My obstinate silence had damped 
" the ardor of the polemics. Dr. Watson, the most candid of my 
" adversaries, assured me that he had no thoughts of renewing 

♦Gibbon, says Milman, "might have annihilated the whole fabric of post- 
" apostolic miracles, if he had left uninjured by sarcastic insinuation those 
" of the New Testament ; he might have cashiered, with Dodwell, the whole 
" host of martyrs, which owe their existence to the prodigal invention of 
" later days, had he but bestowed fair room, and dwelt with his ordinary 
" energy on the sufferings of the genuine witnesses to the truth of Christianity." 
That is to say, had Gibbon penned a partisan essay, instead of writing an im- 
partial history ; had he selected only agreeable truths, and suppressed all 
unwelcome facts, it would not now be necessary to publish mutilated editions 
of his History for the use of schools in which every disparaging reference to 
Christianity has been excluded or revised, except, perchance, those portions 
inimical to the Catholic church. Protestants can endure in a spirit of true 
Christian fortitude all adverse criticism on the Catholic faith, and it is but 
strict justice to the Catholics to admit that this Christian feeling is by them 
warmly reciprocated. The command of Jesus, " Love ye one another," 
is by these Christian sectaries "more honor 'd in the breach than the 
" observance." — E. 



LX SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE, 

" the attack,* and my impartial balance of the virtues and vices of 
" Julian was generally praised. This truce was interrupted only 
" by some animadversions of the Catholics of Italy, and by some 
" angry letters of Mr. Travis, who made me personally responsi- 
" ble for condemning, with the best critics, the spurious text of 
" the three heavenly witnesses.! 

" The piety or prudence of my Italian translator has provided 
" an antidote against the poison of his original. The fifth and 
" seventh volumes are armed with five letters from an anonymous 
" divine to his friends, Foothead and Kirk, two English students 
" at Rome ; and this meritorious service is commended by Mon- 
" signor Stoner, a prelate of the same nation, who discovers 
" ' much venom in the fluid and nervous style of Gibbon.' The 
" Critical Essay at the end of the third volume was furnished by 
" the Abbate Nicola Spedalieri, whose zeal has gradually swelled 
" to a more solid confutation in two quarto volumes. Shall I be 
" excused for not having read them ? 

" The brutal insolence of Mr. Travis's challenge can only be 
" excused by the absence of learning, judgment, and humanity ; 

* Doctor Watson was, apparently, very careful in his Apology for Christi- 
anity not to provoke a reply from Mr. Gibbon. Discretion is often consid- 
ered as the better part of valor. In his Apology for the Bible, which was a 
reply to Paine 's Age of Reason, the worthy Bishop grows more combative, 
and even criticises Mr. Paine for deriving his belief in the existence of God 
from the exercise of reason, rather than from the dictum of revelation. — E. 

f " For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, 
" and the Holy Ghost : and these three are one. And there are three that 
" bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood : and these 
" three agree in one." — i John v. 7,8. 

The learned revisers of the New Testament have confirmed the judgment 
of Mr. Gibbon in regard to the spurious character of the above text, and Dr. 
Alexander Roberts in the Companion to the Revised Version of the New 
Testament honestly tells the reason why " the whole of these verses bearing 
" upon what is known as ' the heavenly witnesses,' has been omitted in the 
" Revised Version." Because : " The words left out can be proved to have 
" no claim whatever to a place in the text of Scripture. None of the Uncial 
" manuscripts contain them. None of the ancient versions represent them. 
" None of the Fathers quote them, even when arguing on the subject of the 
" Trinity. . . No defender of the genuineness of 1 John v. 7, 8, will 
" probably arise in the future. The controversy regarding the passage is 
" finished, and will never be renewed. But the literary history to which it 
4 ' has given rise will never be forgotten. . . The voices of some zealous 
" friends ot Scripture — Bishops, Cardinals, and others — have been un- 
" wisely lifted up in defence of * the three heavenly witnesses,' yet so de- 
" cidedly have the minds of all scholars now been made up as to the spurious- 
" ness of the words, that they have been omitted in the Revised Version 
" without a line even on the margin to indicate that they had ever been 
" admitted in the sacred text." — E. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LXI 

" and to that excuse he has the fairest or foulest pretension. Com- 
" pared with Archdeacon Travis, Chelsum and Davies assume 
" the title of respectable enemies. 

" The bigoted advocate of popes and monks may be turned 
" over even to the bigots of Oxford ; and the wretched Travis 
" still smarts under the lash of the merciless Porson. I consider 
" Mr. Porson's answer to Archdeacon Travis as the most acute 
" and accurate piece of criticism which has appeared since the 
" days of Bentley. His strictures are founded in argument, en- 
" riched with learning, and enlivened with wit ; and his adversary 
" neither deserves nor finds any quarter at his hands. The 
" evidence of the three heavenly witnesses would now be rejected 
" in any court of justice : but prejudice is blind, authority is deaf, 
" and our vulgar bibles will ever be polluted by this spurious 
" text, ' sedet csternumque sedebif.' The more learned ecclesiatics 
" will indeed have the secret satisfaction of reprobating in the 
" closet what they read in the church. 

" 1 perceived, and without surprise, the coldness and even preju- 
" dice of the town ; nor could a whisper escape my ear that, in 
11 the judgment of many readers, my continuation was much in- 
" ferior to the original artempts. An author who cannot ascend 
" will always appear to sink : envy was now prepared for my 
" reception, and the zeal of my religious, was fortified by the 
" motive of my political, enemies. Bishop Newton, in writing 
" his own life, was at full liberty to declare how much he himself 
" and two eminent brethren were disgusted by Mr. G.'s prolixity, 
" tediousness, and affectation. But the old man should not have 
" indulged his zeal in a false and feeble charge against the histo- 
" rian who had faithfully and cautiously rendered Dr. Burnet's 
" meaning by the alternative of sleep or repose. That philo- 
" sophic divine supposes, that, in the period between death and 
" the resurrection, human souls exist without a body, endowed 
" with internal consciousness, but destitute of all active or 
" passive connection with the external world. 

" I was however encouraged by some domestic and foreign 
" testimonies of applause ; and the second and third volumes 
" insensibly rose in sale and reputation to a level with the first. 
" But the public is seldom wrong ; and I am inclined to believe 
" that, especially in the beginning, they are more prolix and less 
" entertaining than the first : my efforts had not been relaxed by 
" success, and I had rather deviated into the opposite fault of 
" minute and superfluous diligence. On the Continent my name 



LXII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" and writings were slowly diffused : a French translation of the 
" first volume had disappointed the booksellers of Paris ; and a 
" passage in the third was construed as a personal reflection on 
" the reigning monarch. 

" Before I could apply for a seat at the general election the list 
" was already full ; but Lord North's promise was sincere, his 
" recommendation was effectual, and I was soon chosen on a va- 
" cancy for the borough of Lymington, in Hampshire. In the first 
" session of the new parliament, administration stood their ground ; 
" their final overthrow was reserved for the second. The Ameri- 
" can war had once been the favorite of the country : the pride 
" of England was irritated by the resistance of her colonies, and 
" the executive power was driven by national clamor into the 
" most vigorous and coercive measures. But the length of a 
" fruitless contest, the loss of armies, the accumulation of debt 
" and taxes ; and the hostile confederacy of France, Spain, and 
" Holland, indisposed the public to the American war, and the 
" persons by whom it was conducted ; the representatives of the 
" people, followed, at a slow distance, the changes of their opin- 
" ion ; and the ministers who refused to bend were broken by the 
" tempest. As soon as Lord North had lost, or was about to 
" lose, a majority in the House of Commons, he surrendered his 
" office and retired to a private station, with the tranquil assurance 
" of a clear conscience and a cheerful temper : the old fabric 
" was dissolved, and the posts of government were occupied by 
" the victorious and veteran troops of opposition. The lords of 
" trade were not immediately dismissed, but the board itself was 
" abolished by Mr. Burke's bill, which decency had compelled 
" the patriots to revive ; and I was stripped of a convenient salary, 
" after having enjoyed it about three years. 

" So flexible is the title of my History that the final era might 
" be fixed at my own choice ; and I long hesitated whether I 
" should be content with the three volumes, the fall of the West- 
" era empire, which fulfilled my first engagement with the public. 
" In this interval of suspense, nearly a twelvemonth, I returned 
" by a natural impulse to the Greek authors of antiquity : I read 
" with a new pleasure the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Histories of 
" Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, a large portion of the 
" tragic and comic theatre of Athens, and many interesting dia- 
" logues of the Socratic school. Yet in the luxury of freedom 
" I began to wish for the daily task, the active pursuit, which gave 
" a value to every book, and an object to every inquiry : the pre- 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. LXIII 

" face of a new edition announced my design, and I dropped 
" without reluctance from the age of Plato to that of Justinian. 
" The original texts of Procopius and Agathias supplied the events 
" and even the characters of his reign : but a laborious winter was 
u devoted to the Codes, the Pandetls, and the modern interpreters, 
" before I presumed to form an abstract of the civil law. My skill 
" was improved by practice, my diligence perhaps was quickened 
" by the loss of office ; and, excepting the last chapter, I had 
" finished the fourth volume before I sought a retreat on the 
" banks of the Leman Lake. 

" It is not the purpose of this narrative to expatiate on the 
•' public or secret history of the times : the schism which followed 
" the death of the Marquis of Rockingham, the appointment of 
" the Earl of Shelburne, the resignation of Mr. Fox, and his fa- 
" mous coalition with Lord North. But I may assert, with some 
" degree of assurance, that in their political conflict those great 
" antagonists had never felt any personal animosity to each other, 
" that their reconciliation was easy and sincere, and that their 
" friendship has never been clouded by the shadow of suspicion 
" or jealousy. The most violent or venal of their respective 
" followers embraced this fair occasion of revolt, but their alliance 
" still commanded a majority in the House of Commons ; the 
" peace was censured, Lord Shelburne resigned, and the two 
" friends knelt on the same cushion to take the oath of secretary 
" of state. From a principle of gratitude I adhered to the coalition : 
" my vote was counted in the day of battle, but I was overlooked 
" in the division of the spoil. There were many claimants more 
" deserving and importunate than myself; the board of trade could 
" not be restored ; and, while the list of places was curtailed, 
" the number of candidates was doubled. An easy dismission to 
" a secure seat at the board of customs or excise was promised 
" on the first vacancy : but the chance was distant and doubtful ; 
" nor could I solicit with much ardor an ignoble servitude, which 
" would have robbed me of the most valuable of my studious 
" hours : at the same time the tumult of London, and the attend- 
" ance on parliament, were grown more irksome ; and, without 
" some additional income, I could not long or prudently maintain 
" the style of expense to which I was accustomed. 

" From my early acquaintance with Lausanne I had always 
" cherished a secret wish, that the school of my youth might 
" become the retreat of my declining age. A moderate fortune 
" would secure the blessings of ease, leisure, and independence : 



LXIV SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" the country, the people, the manners, the language, were con- 
" genial to my taste ; and I might indulge the hope of passing 
" some years in the domestic society of a friend. Mr. Deyverdun 
" was now settled at home, in a pleasant habitation, the gift 
" of his deceased aunt : we had long been separated, we had 
" long been silent ; yet in my first letter I exposed, with the most 
" perfect confidence, my situation, my sentiments, and my designs. 
" His immediate answer was a warm and joyful acceptance : the 
" picture of our future life provoked my impatience ; and the 
" terms of arrangement were short and simple, as he possessed 
" the property, and I undertook the expense of our common house. 
" Before I could break my English chain, it was incumbent on me 
" to struggle with the feelings of my heart, the indolence of my 
" temper, and the opinion of the world, which unanimously con- 
" demned this voluntary banishment. In the disposal of my 
" effects, the library, a sacred deposit, was alone excepted : as my 
" postchaise moved over Westminster-bridge I bid a long farewell 
" to the x fumum et opes strepitumq ; Romce? My journey by the 
" direct road through France was not attended with any accident, 
" and I arrived at Lausanne nearly twenty years after my second 
" departure. Within less than three months the coalition struck 
" on some hidden rocks : had I remained on board, I should have 
" perished in the general shipwreck. 

" Since my establishment at Lausanne more than seven years 
" had elapsed ; and if every day has not been equally soft and 
" serene, not a day, not a moment, has occurred in which I have 
" repented of my choice. During my absence a long portion of 
" human life, many changes had happened : my elder acquaintance 
" had left the stage ; virgins were ripened into matrons, and 
" children were grown to the age of manhood. But the same 
" manners were transmitted from one generation to another ; my 
" friend alone was an inestimable treasure ; my name was not 
" totally forgotten, and all were ambitious to welcome the arrival 
" of a stranger and the return of a fellow citizen. The first winter 
" was given to a general embrace, without any nice discrimination 
" of persons and characters. After a more regular settlement, a 
" more accurate survey, I discovered three solid and permanent 
" benefits of my new situation, i. My personal freedom had been 
" somewhat impaired by the House of Commons and the Board 
" of Trade ; but I was now delivered from the chain of duty and 
" dependence, from the hopes and fears of political adventure : 
" my sober mind was no longer intoxicated by the fumes of party, 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LXV 

" and I rejoiced in my escape, as often as I read of the midnight 
" debates which preceded the dissolution of parliament. 2. My 
" English economy had been that of a solitary bachelor, who 
" might afford some occasional dinners. In Switzerland I enjoyed 
" at every meal, at every hour, the free and pleasant conversation 
u of the friend of my youth ; and my daily table was always 
" provided for the reception of one or two extraordinary guests. 
" Our importance in society is less a positive than a relative 
" weight : in London I was lost in the crowd ; I ranked with the first 
" families of Lausanne, and my style of prudent expense enabled 
" me to maintain a fair balance of reciprocal civilities.* 3. Instead 
" of a small house between a street and a stable-yard, I began to 

* Notwithstanding this picture of lairal felicity, it seems from the following 
extract from a letter to Lady Sheffield that Gibbon felt the same want that 
oppressed Adam in Paradise, and sighed for the companionship of one of 
Eve's fair daughters. " My present life," says the historian, describing his 
residence at Lausanne; " wants no foil, and shines by its own native light. 
" The chosen part of my library is now arrived, and arranged in a room 
" full as good as that in Bentinck-street, with this difference indeed, that 
" instead of looking on a stone court, twelve feet square, I command from 
" three windows of plate glass, an unbounded prospect of many a league of 
" vineyards, of fields, of wood, of lake, and of mountains ; a scene which 
" Lord Sheffield will tell you is superior to all you can imagine. The climate, 
" though severe in winter, has perfectly agreed with my constitution. An 
" excellent house, a good table, a pleasant garden, are no contemptible in- 
" gredients in human happiness. The general style of society hits my fancy. 
" With regard to my friend Deyverdun, I could not be much disappointed 
" after an intimacy of eight-and-twenty years. His heart and his head are 
" excellent ; he has the warmest attachment for me, he is satisfied that I 
" have the same for him : some slight imperfections must be mutually 
" supported ; two bachelors, who have lived so long alone and independent, 
" have their peculiar fancies and humors, and when the mask of ceremony 
" is laid aside, eveiy moment in a family life has not the sweetness of the 
" honey-moon, even between the husbands and wives who have the truest 
" and most tender regard for each other. Should you be very much sur- 
" prised to hear of my being married ? Amazing as it may seem, I do 
" assure you that the event is less improbable than it would have appeared 
" to myself a twelvemonth ago. Deyverden and I have often agreed in jest 
" and in earnest, that a house like ours would be regulated, and graced, and 
<s enlivened, by an agreeable female companion ; but each of us seems de- 
" sirous that his friend should sacrifice himself for the public good. Since 
" my residence here I have lived much in women's company ; and to your 
M credit be it spoken, I like you the better the more I see of you. Not that 
" I am in love with any particular person. I have discovered about half-a- 
" dozen wives who would please me in different ways, and by various merits. 
" One as a mistress ; a second, a lively entertaining acquaintance ; a third, a 
" sincere good-natured friend ; a fourth, who would represent with grace 
" and dignity at the head of my table and family ; a fifth, an excellent 
" economist and housekeeper ; and a sixth, a very useful nurse. Could I 
" find all these qualities united in a single person, I should dare to make 
" my addresses, and should deserve to be refused." 



LXVI SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR S LIFE. 

" occupy a spacious and convenient mansion, connected on the 
" north side with the city, and open on the south to a beautiful 
" and boundless horizon. A garden of four acres had been laid 
" out by the taste of Mr. Deyverdun : from the garden a rich 
" scenery of meadows and vineyards descends to the Leman 
" Lake, and the prospect, far beyond the Lake is crowned by the 
" stupendous mountains of Savoy. My books and my acquaint- 
" ance had been first united in London; but this happy position of 
" my library in town and country was finally reserved for Lausanne. 
" Possessed of every comfort in this triple alliance, I could not 
" be tempted to change my habitation with the changes ol the 
" seasons. 

" My friends had been kindly apprehensive that I should not 
" be able to exist in a Swiss town at the foot of the Alps, after 
" having so long conversed with the first men of the first cities of 
" the world. Such lofty connections may attract the curious, and 
" gratify the vain ; but I am too modest, or too proud, to rate my 
" value by that of my associates ; and whatsoever may be the 
" fame of learning or genius, experience has shown me that the 
" cheaper qualifications of politeness and good sense are of more 
" useful currency in the commerce of life. By many, conversa- 
" tion is esteemed as a theatre or a school : but, after the morning 
" has been occupied by the labors of the library, 1 wish to 
" unbend rather than to exercise my mind ; and in the interval 
11 between tea and supper I am far from disdaining the innocent 
" amusement of a game at cards. Lausanne is peopled by a 
" numerous gentry, whose companionable idleness is seldom 
" disturbed by the pursuits of avarice or ambition : the women, 
" though confined to a domestic education, are endowed for the 
" most part with more taste and knowledge than their husbands 
" and brothers : but the decent freedom of both sexes is equally 
" remote from the extremes of simplicity and refinement. I shall 
" add as a misfortune rather than a merit, that the situation and 
" beauty ot the Pays de Vaud, and the fashion of viewing the 
" mountains and glaciers, have opened us on all sides to the in- 
cursions of foreigners. The visits of Mr. and Madame Necker, 
11 of Prince Henry of Prussia, and of Mr. Fox, may form some 
" pleasing exceptions ; but, in general, Lausanne has appeared 
" most agreeable in my eyes, when we have been abandoned to 
" our own society. In his tour of Switzerland (September 1788) 
" Mr. Fox gave me two days of free and private society. He 
" seemed to feel and even to envy the happiness of my situation ; 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. LXVII 

11 while I admired the powers of a superior man, as they are 
" blended in his attractive character with the softness and sim- 
" plicity of a child. Perhaps no human being was ever more 
" perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or false- 
M hood. 

" My transmigration from London to Lausanne could not be 
" effected without interrupting the course of my historical labors. 
" The hurry of my departure, the joy of my arrival, the delay of 
" my tools, suspended their progress ; and a full twelvemonth was 
" lost before I could resume the thread of regular and daily indus- 
V try. The fourth volume was soon terminated, by an abstract 
" of the controversies of the Incarnation, which the learned Dr. 
" Prideaux was apprehensive of exposing to profane eyes. It had 
" been the original design of the learned Dean Prideaux to write 
" the history of the ruin of the Eastern Church. In this work it 
" would have been necessary, not only to unravel all those con- 
" troversies which the Christians made about the hypostatical 
" union, but also to unfold all the niceties and subtle notions 
" which each sect entertained concerning it. The pious historian 
" was apprehensive of exposing that incomprehensible mystery 
" to the cavils and objections of unbelievers ; and he durst not, 
" ■ seeing the nature of this book, venture it abroad in so wanton 
" ' and lewd an age.'* 

" In the fifth and sixth volumes the revolutions of the empire 
" and the world are most rapid, various, and instructive ; and the 
" Greek and Roman historians are checked by the hostile narra- 
" tives of the barbarians of the East and the West.f 

" It was not till after many designs, and many trials, that I 
" preferred, as I still prefer, the method of grouping my picture 
" by nations ; and the seeming neglect of chronological order is 
" surely compensated by the superior merits of interest and per- 
" spicuity. The style of the first volume is, in my opinion, 
" somewhat crude and elaborate ; in the second and third it is 
" ripened into ease, correctness, and numbers ; but in the three 
" last I may have been seduced by the facility of my pen : and the 
" constant habit of speaking one language and writing another 
" may have infused some mixture of Gallic idioms. Happily for 

"*See preface to the Life of Mahomet, p. 10, II." 

" fl have followed the judicious precept of the Abb£ de Mably, (Maniere 
" d'ecrire l'Histoire, p. lio,)who advises the historian not to dwell too 
" minutely on the decay of the eastern empire, but to consider the barbarian 
" conquerors as more worthy of his narrative. l Fas est et ab hoste doceri.' " 



LXVIII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" my eyes, I have always closed my studies with the day, and 
" commonly with the morning ; and a long, but temperate, labor 
" has been accomplished, without fatiguing either the mind or 
" body ; but when I computed the remainder of my time and my 
" task, it was apparent that, according to the season of publication, 
" the delay of a month would be productive of that of a year. I 
" was now straining for the goal, and in the last winter many 
" evenings were borrowed from the social pleasures of Lausanne. 
" I could now wish that a pause, an interval, had been allowed 
" for a serious revisal. 

" I have presumed to mark the moment of conception : I shall 
" now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on 
** the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787. between the 
" hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the 
" last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down 
" my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of 
" accacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, 
" and the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, 
" the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and 
" all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of 
"joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establish- 
" ment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober 
" melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had 
" taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, 
" and that whatsoever might be the future fate of my History, the 
" life of the historian must be short and precarious. I will add 
" two facts, which have seldom occurred in the composition of 
" six, or at least of five, quartos. 1. My first rough manuscript, 
" without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press. 
" 2. Not a sheet has been seen by any human eyes, excepting 
" those of the author and the printer : the faults and the merits are 
" exclusively my own. 

" After a quiet residence of four years, during which I had never 
" moved ten miles from Lausanne, it was not without some reluc- 
" tance and terror that I undertook, in a journey of two hundred 
" leagues, to cross the mountains and the sea. Yet this formidable 
" adventure was achieved without danger or fatigue ; and at the 
" end of a fortnight I found myself in Lord Sheffield's house and 
" library, safe, happy, and at home. During the whole time of 
" my residence in England I was entertained at Sheffield-Place 
" and in Downing Street by his hospitable kindness ; and the 
" most pleasant period was that which I passed in the domestic 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LXIX 

1 society of the family. In the large circle of the metropolis I 
' observed the country and the inhabitants with the knowledge, 
' and without the prejudices, of an Englishman ; but I rejoiced in 
' the apparent increase of wealth and prosperity, which might be 
1 fairly divided between the spirit of the nation and the wisdom 
1 of the minister. All party resentment was now lost in oblivion ; 
' since I was no man's rival, no man was my enemy. I felt the 
' dignity of independence, and as I asked no more, I was satisfied 
1 with the general civilities of the world. The house in London 
1 which I frequented with most pleasure and assiduity was that 
1 of Lord North. After the loss of power and of sight, he was 
' still happy in himself and his friends ; and my public tribute of 
' gratitude and esteem could no longer be suspected of any 
' interested motive. Before my departure from England, I was 
' present at the august spectacle of Mr. Hastings's trial in West- 
' minster Hall. It is not my province to absolve or condemn the 
' Governor of India ; but Mr. Sheridan's eloquence demanded 
1 my applause ; nor could I hear without emotion the personal 
' compliment which he paid me in the presence of the British 
' nation. 

" As the publication of my three last volumes was the principal 
[ object, so it was the first care of my English journey. The 
; previous arrangements with the bookseller and the printer were 
; settled in my passage through London, and the proofs, which 
[ I returned more correct, were transmitted every post from the 
: press to Sheffield-Place. The length of the operation, and the 
; leisure of the country, allowed some time to review my manu- 
script. Several rare and useful books, the Assises de Jerusalem, 
: Ramusius de Bello C. P*ro, Greek Acls of the Synod of Florence, 
Statuta Urbis Rom<z, &c, were procured, and introduced in 
; their proper places the supplements which they afforded. The 
; impression of the fourth volume had consumed three months. 
Our common interest required that we should move with a 
quicker pace ; and Mr. Strahan fulfilled his engagement, which 
1 few printers could sustain, of delivering every week three 
; thousand copies of nine sheets. The day of publication was, 
; however, delayed, that it might coincide with the fifty -first anni- 
: versary of my own birth-day ; the double festival was celebrated 
; by a cheerful literary dinner at Mr. CadelPs house ; and I seemed 
; to blush while they read an elegant compliment from Mr. Hayley, 
; whose poetical talents had more than once been employed in 
; the praise of his friend. Before Mr. Hayley inscribed with my 



LXX SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" name his epistles on history, I was not acquainted with that 
" amiable man and elegant poet. He afterwards thanked me in 
" verse for my second and third volumes ; and in the summer 
" of 1781, the Roman eagle* (a proud title) accepted the invitation 
" of the English sparrow, who chirped in the groves of Eartham, 
" near Chichester. As most of the former purchasers were nat- 
" urally desirous of completing their sets, the sale of the quarto 
" edition was quick and easy ; and an octavo size was printed, to 
" satisfy at a cheaper rate the public demand. The conclusion of 
" my work was generally read and variously judged. The style 
" has been exposed to much academical criticism ; a religious 
" clamor f was revived, and the reproach of indecency has been 
" loudly echoed by the rigid censors of morals. I never could 
" understand the clamor that has been raised against the inde- 
" cency of my three last volumes. 1. An equal degree of freedom 
" in the former part, especially in the first volume, had passed 
" without reproach. 2. I am justified in painting the manners of 
" the times ; the vices of Theodora form an essential feature in 
" the reign and character of Justinian. 3. My English text is 
" chaste, and all licentious passages are left in the obscurity of a 
" learned language. Le Latin dans ses mots brave V honnUete, 
" says the correct Boileau, in a country and idiom more scrupu- 
" lous than our own. Yet, upon the whole, the History of the 
" Decline and Fall seems to have struck root, both at home and 
" abroad, and may, perhaps, a hundred years hence still continue 

♦Alluding to a card of Invitation to Mr. Gibbon by Mr. Hayley, the 
opening lines of which are as follows : 

" An English sparrow, pert and free, 

" Who chirps beneath his native tree, 

" Hearing the Roman eagle 's near, 

" And feeling more respect than fear, 

" Thus, with united love and awe, 

" Invites him to his shed of straw." 
f This " religious clamor," was formerly considered an effective weapon 
for combatting historical facts and opposing the discoveries of science ; but 
experience has shown that its influence has been greatly overrated, and that, 
in reality, it produces no permanent results. 

" Gibbon's Decline and Fall" says Buckle, "has now been jealously 
' ' scrutinized by two generations of eager and unscrupulous opponents ; and 
'• I am only expressing the general opinion of competent judges when I say 
11 that by each successive scrutiny it has gained fresh reputation. Against 
" his celebrated fifteenth and sixteenth chapters all the devices of contro- 
" versy have been exhausted ; but the only result has been, that while the 
" fame of the historian is untarnished, the attacks of his enemies are falling 
" into complete oblivion. The work of Gibbon remains, but who is there 
" who feels any interest in what was written against him ? " — History of 
Civilization in England, vol. 1, page 420. — E. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LXXI 

" to be abused.* I am less flattered by Mr. Porson's high enco- 
" mium on the style of my history, than I am satisfied with his 
" honorable testimony to my attention, dilligence and accuracy ; 
" those humble virtues, which religious zeal has most audaciously 
" denied. The sweetness of his praise is tempered by a reason- 
" able mixture of acid. 

" The French, Italian, and German translations have been 
" executed with various success ; but instead of patronizing, I 
" should willingly suppress such imperfect copies, which injure 
* the character, while they propagate the name of the author. 
" The first volume had been feebly, though faithfully, translated 
" into French by M. Le Clerc de Septchenes, a young gentleman 
" of a studious character and liberal fortune. After his decease 
" the work was continued by two manufacturers of Paris, M. M. 
" Desmuniers and Cantwell. The superior merit of the inter- 
" preter, or his language, inclines me to prefer the Italian version ; 
" but I wish that it were in my power to read the German, which 
" is praised by the best judges. The Irish pirates are at once my 
" friends and my enemies. But I cannot be displeased with the 
" two numerous and correct impressions which have been pub- 
" lished for the use of the continent at Basil in Switzerland. The 
" conquests of our language and literature are not confined to 
" Europe alone, and a writer who succeeds in London, is speedily 
" read on the banks of the Delaware and the Ganges. 

" In the preface of the fourth volume, while I gloried in the 
" name of an Englishman, I announced my approaching return to 
" the neighborhood of the Lake of Lausanne. This last trial 
" confirmed my assurance that I had wisely chosen for my own 

* The silly abuse of the great historian by his clerical opponents, no doubt 
contributed greatly to the financial success of his History, upon its first pub- 
lication. Curiosity was aroused by the clamor of the zealots, and the 
heterodoxy of the author, which these fanatics took so much pains to adver- 
tise, was considered by sensible men in the fight of a recommendation, 
because it seemed to guarantee an impartial and truthful narrative, to which 
merit a history of paganism by a Christian writer could not aspire. After 
the lapse of a century and the overwhelming success of Gibbon's writings 
has been demonstrated, this vulgar abuse has almost ceased, and given place 
to regrets that while Mahometanism and paganism have been pictured in the 
most lively colors, "Christianity alone," to quote the words of Milman, 
"receives no embellishment from the magic of Gibbon's language." That 
is to say, these men of creeds and dogmas are now content to regret the 
passages their ecclesiastical predecessors formerly abused ; and it ' is even 
probable that, by the further increase of knowledge and the future pro- 
gress of reason, their more liberal successors may yet learn to commend 
the passages now so regretfully perused. — E. 



LXXII SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

" happiness ; nor did I once, in a year's visit, entertain a wish 
" of settling in my native country. Britain is the free and for- 
" tunate island; but where is the spot in which I could unite the 
" comforts and beauties of my establishment at Lausanne ? The 
" tumult of London astonished my eyes and ears ; the amusements 
" of public places were no longer adequate to the trouble ; the 
" clubs and assemblies were filled with new faces and young men ; 
" and our best society, our long and late dinners, would soon 
" have been prejudicial to my health. Without any share in the 
" political wheel, I must be idle and insignificant : yet the most 
" splendid temptations would not have enticed me to engage 
" a second time in the servitude of parliament or office. At 
" Tunbridge, some weeks after the publication of my History, I 
" reluctantly quitted Lord and Lady Sheffield, and, with a young 
" Swiss friend, whom I had introduced to the English world, 
" I pursued the road of Dover and Lausanne. My habitation was 
" embellished in my absence, and the last division of books, which 
" followed my steps, increased my chosen library to the number 
" of between six and seven thousand volumes. My seraglio was 
" ample, my choice was free, my appetite was keen. After a full 
" repast on Homer and Aristophanes, I involved myself in the 
" philosophic maze of the writings of Plato, of which the dramatic 
" is, perhaps, more interesting than the argumentative part : but 
" I stepped aside into every path of inquiry which reading or 
" reflection accidently opened. 

" Alas ! the joy of my return, and my studious ardor, were soon 
" damped by the melancholy state of my friend Mr. Deyverdun. 
" His health and spirits had long suffered a gradual decline, a 
" succession of apoplectic fits announced his dissolution ; and 
" before he expired, those who loved him could not wish for the 
" continuance of his life. The voice of reason might congratulate 
" his deliverance, but the feelings of nature and friendship could 
" be subdued only by time : his amiable character was still alive 
" in my remembrance ; each room, each walk, was imprinted 
" with our common footsteps ; and I should blush at my own phi- 
" losophy, if a long interval of study had not preceded and followed 
" the death of my friend." 

Gibbon was really a most kind-hearted and affectionate man, 
and entertained the tenderest feelings of attachment for his inti- 
mate friends. In his letter to Lord Sheffield, lamenting the death 
of his aunt, Mrs. Porton, he expresses sentiments of gratitude, 
love, and sorrow, which must meet the approval of every reader. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LXXIII 

" There are," he says, alluding to the death of this lady, " few 
■ events that could afflict me more deeply, and I have been ever 
" since in a state of mind more deserving of your pity than of 
11 your reproaches. I certainly am not ignorant that we have 
" nothing better to wish for ourselves than the fate of that best 
" humored woman, as you very justly style her ; a good under- 
" standing and an excellent heart, with health, spirits, and a 
" competency, to live in the midst of her friends till the age of 
" fourscore, and then to shut her eyes without pain or remorse. 
" Death can have deprived her only of some years of weakness, 
" perhaps of misery ; and for myself, it is surely less painful to 
" lose her at present, than to find her in my visit to England next 
" year sinking under the weight of age and infirmities, and per- 
" haps forgetful of herself and of the persons once the dearest to 
" her. All this is perfectly true : but all these refledions will not 
" dispel a thousand sad and tender remembrances that rush upon 
" my mind. To her care I am indebted in earliest infancy for the 
" preservation of my life and health. I was a puny child, neglected 
" by my mother, starved by my nurse, and of whose being very 
• little care or expectation was entertained ; without her maternal 
" vigilance I should either have been in my grave, or imperfectly 
" lived a crooked rickety monster, a burden to myself and others. 
" To her instructions I owe the first rudiments of knowledge, the 
" first exercise of reason, and a taste for books, which is still the 
" pleasure and glory of my life ; and though she taught me neither 
" language nor science, she was certainly the most useful preceptor 
" I ever had. As I grew up, an intercourse of thirty years 
" endeared her to me, as the faithful friend and the agreeable 
" companion. You have seen with what freedom and confidence 
" we lived together, and have often admired her character and 
" conversation, which could alike please the young and the old. 
" All this is now lost, finally, irrecoverably lost ! I will agree with 
" my Lady, that the immortality of the soul is at some times 
" a very comfortable doctrine. A thousand thanks to her for her 
" constant kind attention to that poor woman who is no more." 

" By his last will Mr. Deyverden left me the option of pur- 
" chasing his house and garden, or of possessing them during 
" my life, on the payment either of a stipulated price, or of an 
" easy retribution to his kinsman and heir. I should probably 
" have been tempted by the daemon of property, if some legal 
"difficulties had not been started against my title: a contest 



LXXIV SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" would have been vexatious, doubtful, and invidious ; and the 
" heir most gratefully subscribed an agreement, which rendered 
" my life-possession more perfect, and his future condition more 
" advantageous. 

" The certainty of my tenure has allowed me to lay out a con- 
" siderable sum in improvements and alterations : they have been 
" executed with skill and taste ; and few men of letters, perhaps, 
" in Europe, are so desirably lodged as myself. But I feel, and 
" with the decline of years I shall more painfully feel, that I am 
" alone in paradise. 

" Within the last two or three years our tranquillity has been 
" clouded by the disorders of France : many families at Lausanne 
" were alarmed and affected by the terrors of an impending 
" bankruptcy ; but the revolution, or rather the dissolution of the 
" kingdom has been heard and felt in the adjacent lands. 

" I beg leave to subscribe my assent to Mr. Burke's creed on 
" the revolution of France.* I admire his eloquence, I approve his 
" politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can almost excuse his rever- 
" ence for church establishments. I have sometimes thought of 
" writing a dialogue of the dead, in which Lucian, Erasmus and 
" Voltaire should mutually acknowledge the danger of exposing 
" an old superstition to the contempt of the blind and fanatic 
" multitude. 

" A swarm of emigrants of both sexes, who escaped from the 
" public ruin, has been attracted by the vicinity, the manners, and 
" the language of Lausanne ; and our narrow habitations in town 
" and country are now occupied by the first names and titles of 

* The admiration of Gibbon for Burke, the hostility of Burke to Paine, 
and the similar effect produced by the writings of Paine and Gibbon on re- 
ligious belief, form a curious subject for reflection. Paine assailed Christianity 
with the weapons of argument and reason. Gibbon, by impartially telling 
the truth, in effect attacked Christianity from the historical standpoint ; 
and as his History is universally read, while Paine's writings are restricted 
in circulation, it is probable that Gibbon has done far more than Paine to 
unsettle faith in revealed religion. Yet while these writers thus seem to 
have substantially agreed on religious subjects, they differed widely in 
their political views. Paine was a democrat, and wrote the Rights of 
Man in reply to Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution. Gibbon 
endorsed the arguments of Burke, and really dreaded the advance of demo- 
cratic ideas. His retreat at Lausanne was invaded by the aristocratic refugees, 
who fled before the storm of the revolution which their own vices and op- 
pression had incited ; and although our author had chronicled the rise 
and fall of empires, and was familiar with the history of former revolutions, 
yet he strangely failed to realize the significance of the revolution that was 
transpiring around him, or to foresee the beneficent results that have fol- 
lowed that grand uprising of the people of France. — E. 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. LXXV 

" the departed monarchy. These noble fugitives are entitled to 
" our pity ; they may claim our esteem, but they cannot, in the 
" present state of mind and fortune, much contribute to our amuse- 
" ment. Instead of looking down as calm and idle spectators on 
" the theatre of Europe, our domestic harmony is somewhat 
" embittered by the infusion of party spirit; our ladies and gentle- 
" men assume the character of self-taught politicians ; and the 
" sober dictates of wisdom and experience are silenced by the 
" clamor of the triumphant democrates. The fanatic missionaries 
" of sedition have scattered the seeds of discontent in our cities 
" and villages, which had flourished above two hundred and fifty 
u years without fearing the approach of war, or feeling the weight 
" of government. Many individuals, and some communities, 
" appear to be infested with the Gallic frenzy, the wild theories 
" of equal and boundless freedom ; but I trust that the body of the 
" people will be faithful to their sovereign and to themselves ; and 
" I am satisfied that the failure or success of a revolt would equally 
" terminate in the ruin of the country. While the aristocracy of 
" Bern protects the happiness, it is superfluous to enquire whether 
" it be founded in the rights of man : the economy of the state is 
" liberally supplied without the aid of taxes ; and the magistrates 
" must reign with prudence and equity, since they are unarmed in 
" the midst of an armed nation. 

" The revenue of Bern, excepting same small duties, is derived 
" from church lands, tithes, feudal rights, and interest of money. 
" The republic has nearly ^500,000 sterling in the English funds, 
" and the full amount of their treasure is unknown to the citizens 
" themselves. For myself (may the omen be averted) I can only 
" declare, that the first stroke of a rebel drum would be the signal 
" of my immediate departure. 

" When I contemplate the common lot of mortality, I must 
" acknowledge that I have drawn a high prize in the lottery of 
" life. The far greater part of the globe is overspread with bar- 
" barism or slavery : in the civilized world, the most numerous 
" class is condemned to ignorance and poverty ; and the double 
" fortune of my birth in a free and enlightened country, in an 
" honorable and wealthy family, is the lucky chance of an unit 
" against millions. The general probability is about three to one, 
" that a new-born infant will not live to complete his fiftieth year. 
" I have now passed that age, and may fairly estimate the present 
" value of my existence in the three-fold division of mind, body, 
* and estate. 



LXXVI SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" i. The first and indispensable requisite of happiness is a clear 
" conscience, unsullied by the reproach or remembrance of an 
" unworthy action. 

" Hie murus aheneus esto, 

" Nil conscire sibi, nulla pallescere culpa. 
" I am endowed with a cheerful temper, a moderate sensibility, t 
u and a natural disposition to repose rather than to activity : some 
" mischievous appetites and habits have perhaps been corrected 
" by philosophy or time. The love of study, a passion which 
" derives fresh vigor from enjoyment, supplies each day, each hour, 
" with a perpetual source of independent and rational pleasure ; 
" and I am not sensible of any decay of the mental faculties. The 
"original soil has been highly improved by cultivation; but it 
" may be questioned, whether some flowers of fancy, some grate- 
" ful errors, have not been eradicated with the weeds of prejudice. 
" 2. Since I have escaped from the long perils of my childhood, 
11 the serious advice of a physician has seldom been requisite. 
" ' The madness of superfluous health' I have never known ; but 
" my tender constitution has been fortified by time, and the in- 
" estimable gift of the sound and peaceful slumbers of infancy 
" may be imputed both to the mind and body. 3. I have already 
" described the merits of my society and situation ; but these 
" enjoyments would be tasteless or bitter if their possession were 
" not assured by an annual and adequate supply. According to 
" the scale of Switzerland, I am a rich man ; and I am indeed 
" rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense 
" is equal to my wishes. My friend Lord Sheffield has kindly 
" relieved me from the cares to which my taste and temper are 
" most adverse : shall I add, that since the failure of my first wishes, 
" I have never entertained any serious thoughts of a matrimonial 
" connection? 

" I am disgusted with the affectation of men of letters, who 
" complain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow ; 
" and that their fame (which sometimes is no insupportable weight) 
" affords a poor compensation for envy, censure, and persecution* 
" My own experience, at least, has taught me a very different 
" lesson : twenty happy years have been animated by the labor 
" of my History : and its success has given me a name, a rank, a 

" * Mr. d'Alembert relates, that as he was walking in the gardens of Sans 
" Souci with the King of Prussia, Frederic said to him, ' Do you see that 
" ' old woman, a poor weeder, asleep on that sunny bank ? she is probably 
"' a more happy being than either of us.' The king and the philosopher 
" may speak for themselves ; for my part I do not envy the old woman." 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. LXXVII 

" character, in the world, to which I should not otherwise have 
" been entitled. The freedom of my writings has indeed provoked 
" an implacable tribe ; but as I was safe from the stings, I was soon 
" accustomed to the buzzing of the hornets : my nerves are not 
" tremblingly alive, and my literary temper is so happily framed, , 
" that I am less sensible of pain than of pleasure. The rational 
" pride of an author may be offended, rather than nattered, by 
" vague indiscriminate praise ; but he cannot, he should not, be 
c * indifferent to the fair testimonies of private and public esteem. 
" Even his moral sympathy may be gratified by the idea, that 
" now, in the present hour, he is imparting some degree of amuse- 
" ment or knowledge to his friends in a distant land : that one 
" day his mind will be familiar to the grandchildren of those who 
" are yet unborn. I cannot boast of the friendship or favor of 
" princes ; the patronage of English literature has long since been 
" devolved on our booksellers, and the measure of their liberality 
" is the least ambiguous test of our common success. Perhaps 
" the golden mediocrity of my fortune has contributed to fortify 
" my application. 

" The present is a fleeting moment, the past is no more; and 
" our prospect of futurity is dark and doubtful. This day may 
"possibly be my last : but the laws of probability, so true in gen- 
" eral, so fallacious in particular, still allow about fifteen years. 
" I shall soon enter into the period which, as the most agreeable 
" of his long life, was selected by the judgment and experience of 
" the sage Fontenelle. His choice is approved by the eloquent his- 
" torian of nature, [Buffon,]who fixes our moral happiness to the 
" mature season in which our passions are supposed to be calmed, 
" our duties fulfilled, our ambition satisfied, our fame and fortune 
" established on a solid basis. In private conversation, that great 
" and amiable man added the weight of his own experience ; and 
" this autumnal felicity might be exemplified in the lives of Voltaire, 
" Hume, and many other men of letters. I am far more inclined v 
" to embrace than to dispute this comfortable doctrine. I willp 
" not suppose any premature decay of the mind or body : but I 
" must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of 
" time, and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner 
" shade the evening of life." 

On April 27th, 1793, Mr. Gibbon received the news at Lausanne 
of the death of Lady Sheffield, and immediately determined to 
visit his old friend Lord Sheffield, thinking his presence might 
prove a consolation. 



LXXVIII SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" I must ever regard it," says Lord Sheffield, "as the most 
" endearing proof of his sensibility, and of his possessing the 
" true spirit of friendship, that after having relinquished the 
" thought of his intended visit, he hastened to England, in spite 
" increasing impediments, to soothe me by the most generous 
" sympathy, and to alleviate my domestic affliction ; neither his 
" great corpulency, nor his extraordinary bodily infirmities, nor 
" any other consideration, could prevent him a moment from re- 
" solving on an undertaking that might have deterred the most 
" active young man. He, almost immediately, with alertness by 
" no means natural to him, undertook a great circuitous journey, 
" along the frontiers of an enemy, worse than savage, within the 
" sound of their cannon, within the range of the light troops of 
" the different armies, and through roads ruined by the enormous 
" machinery of foar. 

" The readiness with which he engaged in this kind office of 
" friendship, at a time when a selfish spirit might have pleaded a 
" thousand reasons for declining so hazardous a journey, con- 
" spired, with the peculiar charms of his society, to render his 
" arrival a cordial to my mind. I had the satisfaction of finding 
" that his own delicate and precarious health had not suffered in 
" the service of his friend. He arrived in the beginning of June 
" at my house in Downing-Street, safe and in good health ; and 
" after we had passed about a month together in London, we 
" settled at Sheffield-Place for the summer, where his wit, learning, 
" and cheerful politeness delighted a great variety of characters. 

" Although he was inclined to represent his health as better 
" than it really was, his habitual dislike to motion appeared to 
" increase ; his inaptness to exercise confined him to the library 
" and dining-room, and there he joined my friend Mr. Frederick 
" North, in pleasant arguments against exercise in general. He 
" ridiculed the unsettled and restless disposition, that summer, 
" the most uncomfortable, as he said, of all seasons, generally 
" gives to those who have the use of their limbs. Such arguments 
" were little required to keep society within doors, when his com- 
" pany was only there to be enjoyed ; for neither the fineness of the 
" season, nor the most promising parties of pleasure, could tempt 
" the company of either sex to desert him. 

" Those who have enjoyed the society of Mr. Gibbon will agree 
" with me, that his conversation was still more captivating than 
" his writings. Perhaps no man ever divided time more fairly 
" between literary labor and social enjoyment ; and hence, prob- 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S" LIFE. LXXIX 

" ably, he derived his peculiar excellence of making his very 
" extensive knowledge contribute, in the highest degree, to the 
" use or pleasure of those with whom he conversed. He united, 
" in the happiest manner imaginable, two characters which are 
" not often found in the same person, the profound scholar and 
" the fascinating companion. 

" His letters in general bear a strong resemblance to the style 
" and turn of his conversation ; the characteristics of which were 
" vivacity, elegance, and precision, with knowledge astonishingly 
" extensive and correct. He never ceased to be instructive and 
" entertaining ; and in general there was a vein of pleasantry in his 
" conversation which prevented its becoming languid, even during 
" a residence of many months with a family in the country. 

" It has been supposed that he always arranged what he in- 
" tended to say, before he spoke ; his quickness in conversation 
" contradicts this notion : but it is very true, that before he sat 
" down to write a note or letter, he completely arranged in his 
" mind what he meant to express. He pursued the same method 
" in respect to other composition ; and occasionally would walk 
" several times about his apartment before he had rounded a 
" period to his taste. He has pleasantly remarked to me, that it 
" sometimes cost him many a turn before he could throw a senti- 
" ment into a form that gratified his own criticism. 

" It would be superfluous to attempt a very minute delineation 
" of a character which is so distinctly marked in the Memoirs. He 
" has described himself without reserve, and with perfect sincerity. 
" The Letters, and especially the extracts from the Journal, which 
" could not have been written with any purpose of being seen, 
" will make the reader perfectly acquainted with the man. 

" Excepting a visit to Lord Egremont and Mr. Hayley, whom 
" he very particularly esteemed, Mr. Gibbon was not absent from 
" Sheffield-Place till the beginning of October, when we were 
" reluctantly obliged to part with him, that he might perform his 
" engagement to Mrs. Gibbon at Bath, the widow of his father, 
" who had early deserved, and invariably retained, his affection. 
" From Bath he proceeded to Lord Spenser's at Althrop, a family 
" which he always met with uncommon satisfaction. He contin- 
" ued in good health during the summer, and in excellent spirits 
" (I never knew him enjoy better) ; and when he went from 
" Sheffield -Place, little did I imagine it would be the last time I 
" should have the inexpressible pleasure of seeing him there in 
" full possession of health. 



LXXX SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. 

" The following short letters, though not important in them- 
" selves, will fill up this part of the narrative better, and more 
" agreeably, than any thing I can substitute in their place. 

" Edward Gibbon, Esq., to the Right Hon. Lord Sheffield. 

St. James Street, Nov. nth, 1793. 

" I must at length withdraw the veil before my state of health, 
" tho' the naked truth may alarm you more than a fit of the gout. 
" Have you never observed, through my inexpressibles, a large 
" prominency, which, as it was not at all painful, and very little 
" troublesome, I had strangely neglected for many years ? But 
" since my departure from Sheffield-Place it has increased, (most 
" stupendously,) is increasing and ought to be diminished. Yes- 
" terday I sent for Farquhar, who is allowed to be a very skillful 
" surgeon. After viewing and palping, he very seriously desired 
" to call in assistance and has examined it again to-day with 
" Mr. Cline, a surgeon, as he says, of the first eminence. They both 
" pronounce it a hydrocele, (a collection of water,) which must be 
" let out by the operation of tapping ; but from its magnitude and 
" long neglect, they think it a most extraordinary 7 case, and wish 
" to have another surgeon, Dr. Bayley, present. If the business 
" should go off smoothly, I shall be delivered from my burden, 
" (it is almost as big as a small child,) and walk about in four or 
" five days with a truss. But the medical gentlemen, who never 
" speak quite plain, insinuate to me the possibility of an inflam- 
" mation, of fever, &c. I am not appalled at the thoughts of the 
" operation, which is fixed for Wednesday next, twelve o'clock; 
" but it has occurred to me, that you might wish to be present 
" before and afterwards till the crisis was past ; and to give you 
" that opportunity, I shall solicit a delay till Thursday, or even 
" Friday. Ever yours." 

" Immediately on receiving this last letter," says Lord Sheffield, 
" I went from Brighthelmstone to London, and was agreeably 
" surprised to find that Mr. Gibbon had dined at Lord Lucan's. 
u Those who have seen him within the last eight or ten years, 
" must be surprised that he could doubt whether his disorder was 
" apparent. When he returned to England in 1787, I was greatly 
" alarmed by a prodigious increase, which resulted, I supposed, 
" from a rupture. I did not understand why he, who had talked 
" with me on every other subject relative to himself and his affairs 
" without reserve, should never in any shape hint at a malady so 
" troublesome : but on speaking to his valet de chambre, he told 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LXXXI 

" me, Mr. Gibbon could not bear the least allusion to the subject, 
" and never would suffer him to notice it. I consulted some med- 
" ical persons, who supposing it to be a rupture, were of opinion 
" that nothing could be done, and said that he surely must have 
" had advice, and of course had taken all necessary precautions. 
" He now talked freely with me about his disorder ; which, he 
" said, began in the year 1761 : that he then consulted Mr. Hawkins 
" the surgeon, who did not decide whether it was the beginning 
" of a rupture, or an hydrocele ; but he desired to see Mr. Gibbon 
" again w T hen he came to town. Mr. Gibbon not feeling any pain 
" nor suffering any inconvenience, as he said, never returned to 
" Mr. Hawkins ; and although the disorder continued to increase 
" gradually, and of late years very much indeed, he never men- 
" tioned it to any person, however incredible it may appear, from 
" 1761 to November 1793. I tQ ld him, that I had always supposed 
" there was no doubt of its being a rupture ; his answer was, that 
" he never thought so, and that he, and the surgeons who attended 
" him, were of opinion that it was an hydrocele. It is now certain 
" that it was originally a rupture, and that an hydrocele had lately 
" taken place in the same part ; and it is remarkable, that his legs, 
" which had been swelled about the ankle, particularly one of 
" them, since he had the erysipelas in 1790, recovered their former 
" shape as soon as the water appeared in another part, which did 
" not happen till between the time he left Sheffield Place, in the 
" beginning of October, and his arrival at Althorpe, towards the 
" latter part of that month. On the Thursday following the date 
" of his last letter, Mr. Gibbon was tapped for the first time : four 
" quarts of a transparent watery fluid were discharged by that 
" operation. Neither inflammation nor fever ensued : the tumor 
" was diminished to nearly half its size ; the remaining part was a 
" soft irregular mass. I had been with him two days before, 
" and I continued with him above a week after the first tapping, 
" during which time he enjoyed his usual spirits ; and the three 
" medical gentlemen who attended him will recollect, his pleas- 
" antry, even during the operation. He was abroad again in a few 
" days, but the water collecting very fast, it was agreed that a sec- 
" ond puncture should be made a fortnight after the first. Knowing 
" that I should be wanted at a meeting in the country, he pressed 
" me to attend it, and promised that soon after the second opera- 
" tion was performed he would follow me to Sheffield Place ; but 
" before he arrived I received the following letter ; 



LXXXII SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

" Mr. Gibbon to Lord Sheffield at Brighton. 

" St. James's Street, Nov. 25th, 1793. 

" Though Farquhar has promised to write you aline, I conceive 
" you may not be sorry to hear directly from me. The operation 
" of yesterday was much longer, more searching, and more painful 
" than the former ; but it has eased and lightened me to a much 
" greater degree. [Three quarts of the same fluid as before were 
" discharged.] No inflammation, no fever, a delicious night, leave 
" to go abroad to-morrow, and to go out of town when I please, 
" en attendant the future measures of a radical cure. If you hold 
" your intention of returning next Saturday to Sheffield-place, 
" I shall probably join you about the Tuesday following, after 
" having passed two nights at Beckenham. Adieu ; Ever yours." 

" Mr. Gibbon " says Lord Sheffield " generally took the oppor- 
" tunity of passing a night or two with his friend Lord Auckland, 
" at Eden-Farm, (ten miles from London,) on his passage to Shef- 
" field-Place ; and notwithstanding his indisposition, he had lately 
" made an excursion thither from London ; when he was much 
" pleased by meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury, of whom he 
" expressed an high opinion. He returned to London, to dine 
" with Lord Loughborough, to meet Mr. Burke, Mr. Windham, 
" and particularly Mr. Pitt, with whom he was not acquainted ; 
" and in his last journey to Sussex, he revisited Eden-Farm, and 
" was much gratified by the opportunity of again seeing, during a 
" whole day, Mr. Pitt, who passed the night there. From Lord 
" Auckland's, Mr. Gibbon proceeded to Sheffield-Place ; and his 
" discourse was never more brilliant, nor more entertaining, than 
" on his arrival. The parallel he drew, and the comparisons he 
" made, between the leading men of this country, were sketched 
" in his best manner, and were infinitely interesting. However, 
" this last visit to Sheffield-Place became far different from any 
" he had ever made before. That ready, cheerful, various, and 
" illuminating conversation, which we had before admired in him, 
" was not always to be found in the library or the dining-room. 
" He moved with difficulty, and retired from company sooner than 
" he had been used to do. On the twenty-third of December, his 
" appetite began to fail him. He observed to me, that it was a 
" very bad sign with him when he could not eat his breakfast, 
" which he had done at all times very heartily ; and this seems to 
" have been the strongest expression of apprehension that he was 
" ever observed to utter. A considerable degree of fever now 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LXXXIII 

" made its appearance. Inflammation arose from the weight and 
" bulk of the tumor. Water again collected very fast, and when 
" the fever went off, he never entirely recovered his appetite even 
" for breakfast. I became very uneasy indeed at his situation 
" towards the end of the month, and thought it necessary to advise 
" him to set out for London. He had before settled his plan to 
" arrive there about the middle of January. I had company in the 
" house, and we expected one of his particular friends ; but he was 
" obliged to sacrifice all social pleasure to the immediate attention 
" which his health required. He went to London on the seventh 
" of January, and the next day I received the following billet ; the 
" last he ever wrote : 

" Edward Gibbon, Esq., to Lord Sheffield. 

" St. James's Street, four o ^ clock, Tuesday. 

" This date says every thing. I was almost killed between 
" Sheffield-Place and East Grinsted, by hard, frozen, long, and 
" cross ruts, that would disgrace the approach of an Indian wig- 
" warn. The rest was something less painful ; and I reached this 
" place half-dead, but not seriously feverish, or ill. I found a 
" dinner invitation from Lord Lucan ; but what are dinners to 
" me ? I wish they did not know of my departure. I catch the 
" flying post. What an effort ! Adieu, till Thursday or Friday." 

" By his own desire, I did not follow him till Thursday the ninth. 
" I then found him far from well. The tumor more distended 
" than before, inflamed, and ulcerated in several places. Remedies 
" were applied to abate the inflammation ; but it was not thought 
" proper to puncture the tumor for a third time, till Monday the 
" thirteenth of January, when no less than six quarts of fluid were 
" discharged. He seemed much relieved by the evacuation. His 
" spirits continued good. He talked, as usual, of passing his time 
" at houses which he had often frequented with great pleasure, 
" the Duke of Devonshire's, Mr. Craufurd's, Lord Spenser's, Lord 
" Lucan's, Sir Ralph Payne's, and Mr. Batt's ; and when I told him 
" that I should not return to the country, as I had intended, he 
" pressed me to go ; knowing I had an engagement there on public 
" business, he said, ' you may be back on Saturday, and I intend 
" 'to go on Thursday to Devonshire House.' I had not any ap- 
" prehension that his life was in danger, although I began to fear 
" that he might not be restored to a comfortable state, and that 
" motion would be very troublesome to him ; but he talked of a 
" radical cure. He said, that it was fortunate the disorder had 



LXXXIV SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

" shown itself while he was in England, where he might procure 
" the best assistance ; and if a radical cure could not be obtained 
" before his return to Lausanne, there was an able surgeon at 
" Geneva, who could come to tap him when it should be necessary. 

" On Tuesday the fourteenth, when the risk of inflammation and 
" fever from the last operation was supposed to be past, as the 
" medical gentlemen who attended him expressed no fears for 
" his life, I went that afternoon part of the way to Sussex, and 
" the following day reached Sheffield-Place. The next morning, 
" the sixteenth, I received by the post a good account of Mr. 
" Gibbon, which mentioned also that he hourly gained strength. 
" In the evening came a letter by express, dated noon that day, 
" which acquainted me that Mr. Gibbon had had a violent attack 
" the preceding night, and that it was not probable he should live 
" till I could come to him. I reached his lodgings in St. James's 
" Street about midnight, and learned that my friend had expired 
" a quarter before one o'clock that day, the 16th of January, 1794. 

" After I left him on Tuesday afternoon the fourteenth, he saw 
" some company, Lady Lucan and Lady Spenser, and thought 
" himself well enough at night to omit the opium draught, which 
" he had been used to take for some time. He slept very indiffer- 
" ently ; before nine the next morning he rose, but could not eat 
" his breakfast. However, he appeared tolerably well, yet com- 
" plained at times of a pain in his stomach. At one o'clock he 
" received a visit of an hour from Madame de Sylva, and at three, 
" his friend, Mr. Craufurd, of Auchinames, (whom he always 
" mentioned with particular regard,) called, and stayed with him 
" till past five o'clock. They talked, as usual, on various subjects ; 
" and twenty hours before his death, Mr. Gibbon happened to fall 
" into a conversation, not uncommon with him, on the probable 
" duration of his life. He said, that he thought himself a good 
" life for ten, twelve, or perhaps twenty years. About six, he ate 
" the wing of a chicken, and drank three glasses of Madeira. 
" After dinner he became very uneasy and impatient ; complained 
" a good deal, and appeared so weak, that his servant was alarmed. 
" Mr. Gibbon had sent to his friend and relation, Mr. Robert 
" Darell, whose house was not far distant, desiring to see him, and 
" adding, that he had something particular to say. But, unfor- 
" tunately, this desired interview never took place. 

" During the evening he complained much of his stomach, and 
" of a disposition to vomit. Soon after nine, he took his opium 
" draught, and went to bed. About ten, he complained of much 



SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. LXXXV 

" pain, and desired that warm napkins might be applied to his 
" stomach. He almost incessantly expressed a sense of pain till 
" about four o'clock in the morning, when he said he found his 
" stomach much easier. About seven the servant asked whether 
" he should send for Mr. Farquhar ? he answered, no ; that he was 
" as well as he had been the day before. At about half-past eight, 
" he got out of bed, and said he was 'plus adroit' than he had 
" been for three months past, and got into bed again, without 
" assistance, better than usual. About nine, he said that he would 
" rise. The servant, however, persuaded him to remain in bed till 
" Mr. Farquhar, who was expected at eleven, should come. Till 
" about that hour he spoke with great facility. Mr. Farquhar came 
" at the time appointed, and he was then visibly dying. When the 
" valet de chambre returned, after attending Mr. Farquhar out of 
" the room, Mr. Gibbon said, 'Pourquoi est ce que vons me quittez ? ' 
" This was about half-past eleven. At twelve, he drank some 
" brandy and water from a tea-pot, and desired his favorite servant 
" to stay with him. These were the last words he pronounced 
" articulately. To the last he preserved his senses ; and when he 
" could no longer speak, his servant having asked a question, he 
" made a sign, to show that he understood him. He was quite 
" tranquil, and did not stir; his eyes half shut. About a quarter 
" before one, he ceased to breathe. 

" The valet de chambre observed, that Mr. Gibbon did not, at 
" any time, show the least sign of alarm, or apprehension of death ; 
" and it does not appear that he thought himself in danger, unless 
" his desire to speak to Mr. Darell may be considered in that light. 
" Perhaps I dwell too long on these minute and melancholy 
" circumstances. Yet the close of such a life can hardly fail to 
" interest every reader ; and I know that the public has received 
" a different and erroneous account of my friend's last hours. 

" I can never cease to feel regret that I was not by his side at 
11 this awful period : a regret so strong, that I can express it only 
" by borrowing (as the eloquent Mr. Mason has done on a similar * 
" occasion) the forcible language of Tacitus : Mihi prczter 
" acerbitatem amici erepti, auget mcestitiam quod assidere 
"valetudini, fovere deficientem, satiari vultu, complexu non 
" contigit. It is some consolation to me, that I have not, like 
" Tacitus, by a long absence, anticipated the loss of my friend 
" several years before his decease. Although I had not the 
" mournful gratification of being near him on the day he expired, 



LXXXVI SKETCH OF THE AUTHORS LIFE. 

" yet, during his illness, I had not failed to attend him, with that 
" assiduity which his genius, his virtues, and, above all, our long, 
" uninterrupted, and happy friendship demanded." 
Mr. Gibbon's Will is dated October i, 1791, and is as follows: 
" I constitute and appoint the Right Honorable John Lord 
" Sheffield, Edward Darell, Esq., and John Thomas Batt, Esq., to 
" be the Executors of this my last Will and Testament; and as the 
'• execution of this trust will not be attended with much difficulty 
" or trouble, I shall indulge these gentlemen, in the pleasure of 
" this last disinterested service, without wronging my feelings, or 
" oppressing my heir, by too light or too weighty a testimony of 
" my gratitude. My obligations to the long and active friendship 
11 of Lord Sheffield, I could never sufficiently repay. 

" He then observes, that the Right Hon. Lady Eliot, of Port 
" Eliot, is his nearest relation on the father's side; but that her 
" three sons are in such prosperous circumstances, that he may 
" well be excused for making the two children of his late uncle, 
" Sir Stanier Porten, his heirs ; they being in a very different 
" situation. He bequeaths annuities to two old servants; three 
" thousand pounds, and his furniture, plate, &c, at Lausanne, to 
" Mr. Wilhelm de Severy; one hundred guineas to the poor of 
" Lausanne, and fifty guineas each to the following persons: Lady 
" Sheffield and daughters, Maria and Louisa, Madame and 
" Mademoiselle de Severy, the Count deSchomberg, Mademoiselle 
" la Chanoinesse de Polier, and M. le Ministre Le Vade, for the pur- 
" chase of some token which may remind them of a sincere friend." 



Lord Byron has honored both Gibbon and Voltaire with a 
verse in Childe Harold. 

"Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes 
"Of names which unto you bequeathed a name." 

Of Gibbon he writes : 

" Deep and slow, exhausting thought, 

" And hiving wisdom with each studious year, 

11 In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, 

"And shaped his weapon with an edge severe, 

" Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer ; 

"The lord of irony — that master-spell, 

"Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, 

"And doomed him to the zealot's ready Hell, 

" Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well." 

The impressive words which Gibbon used in describing the 
last hours of David Hume, may be justly applied to the closing 
scenes of his own life: 

" HE DIED THE DEATH OF A PHILOSOPHER ! " 



EPITAPH OF EDWARD GIBBON. 

The Remains of Mr. Gibbon were deposited in Lord Sheffield 's Family 
Burial Place, in Fletching, Sussex ; whereon is inscribed the following 
Epitaph, written at his Lordship' 's request by a distinguished scholar, 
the Rev. Dr. Parr : — 

EDVARDUS GIBBON 

CRITICUS ACRI INGENIO ET MULTIPLICI DOCTRINA ORNATUS 

IDEMQUE HISTORICORUM QUI FORTUNAM 

IMPERII ROMANI 

VEL LABENTIS ET INCLINATI VEL EVERSI ET FUNDITUS DELETI 

LITTERIS MANDAVERINT 

OMNIUM FACILE PRINCEPS 

CUJUS IN MORIBUS ERAT MODERATIO ANIMI 

CUM LIBERALI QUADAM SPECIE CONJUNCTA 

IN SERMON? 

MULTA GRAVITATI COMITAS SUAVITER ADSPERSA 

IN SCRIPTIS 

COPIOSUM SPLENDIDUM 

CONCINNUM ORBE VERBORUM 

ET SUMMO ARTIFICIO DISTINCTUM 

ORATIONIS GENUS 

RECONDITE EXQUISIT.EQUE SENTENTI^ 

ET IN MONUMENTIS RERUM POLITICARUM OBSERVANDIS 

ACUTA ET PERSPICAX PRUDENTIA 

VIXIT ANNOS LVI MENS. VII DIES XXVIII 

DECESSIT XVII CAL. FEB. ANNO SACRO 

MDCCLXXXXIV 

ET IN HOC MAUSOLEO SEPULTUS EST 

EX VOLUNTATE JOHANNIS DOMINI SHEFFIELD 

QUI AMICO BENE MERENTI ET CONVICTORI HUMANISSIMO 

H. TAB. P. C. 




EDWARD GIBBON. 
The above engraving is from a silhouette cut by Mrs. Brown in 1794. It 



rep- 



resents Mr. Gibbon in a characteristic attitude, engaged in conversation, with a 
snuffbox in his hand ; "and is," says Lord Sheffield, "as complete a likeness as 
to person, face and figure, as can be conceived.'' 



CONTENTS 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE m-xvi 

LIFE OF GIBBON xvii-lxxxvii 

I. 
UNIVERSAL SPIRIT OF TOLERATION. 

A. D. PAGE. 

Spirit of Toleration 97 

Of the People 98 

Of Philosophers 100 

Of the Magistrates 101 

In the Provinces 103 

At Rome 103 

II. 



THE PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND THE SENTI- 
MENTS, MANNERS, NUMBERS, AND CONDITION OF THE 
PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS. 

Importance of the Inquiry 105 

Its Difficulties 106 

Five Causes of the Growth of Christianity 107 

I. The First Cause. Zeal of the Jews 108 

Its gradual Increase m 

Their Religion better suited to Defence than to Conquest 112 

More liberal Zeal of Christianity 114 

Obstinacy and Reasons of the believing Jews 115 

The Nazarene Church of Jerusalem u 7 

The Ebionites 118 

The Gnostics 120 

Their Sects, Progress, and Influence 123 

The Demons considered as the Gods of Antiquity 128 

Abhorrence of the Christians for Idolatry 129 

Ceremonies 129 

Arts 130 

Festivals 132 

Zeal for Christianity 133 

II. The Second Cause. The Doctrine of the Immortality of the 

Soul among the Philosophers 134 

Among the Pagans of Greece and Rome 135 

Among the Barbarians and the Jews 136 

. Among the Christians 140 

Approaching End of the World 140 

Doctrine of the Millennium 141 

Conflagration of Rome and of the World 143 

The Pagans devoted to Eternal Punishment 144 

Were often Converted by their Fears 147 

III. The Third Cause. Miraculous Powers of the Primitive Church. 148 

Their Truth contested 151 

Our Perplexity in defining the Miraculous Period 151 

Use of the Primitive Miracles 153 

(87) 



LXXXVIII CONTENTS. 



A. D. PAGE. 

IV. The Fourth Cause. Virtues of the first Christians 154 

Effects of their Repentance ^ 

Care of their Reputation j^ 

Morality of the Fathers Ie> j 

Principles of Human Nature j\j 

The primitive Christians condemn Pleasure and Luxury 158 

Their Sentiments concerning Marriage and Chastity 160 

Their Aversion to the Business of War and Government 162 

V. The Fifth Cause. The Christians active in the Government 

of the Church ^4 

Its primitive Freedom and Equality ^5 

Institution of Bishops as Presidents of the College of Preshyters 167 

Provincial Councils 169 

Union of the Church I7 o 

Progress of Episcopal Authority j-j Q 

Pre-eminence of the Metropolitan Churches 171 

Ambition of the Roman Pontiff 172 

Laity and Clergy 173 

Oblations and Revenue of the Church 174 

Distribution of the Revenue 176 

Excommunication 178 

Public Penance 179 

The Dignity of Episcopal Government 180 

Recapitulation of the Five Causes 182 

Weakness of Polytheism 182 

The Skepticism of the Pagan World proved favorable to the new 

Religion 183 

As well as the Peace and Union of the Roman Empire 185 

Historical View of the Progress of Christianity 186 

In the East 187 

The Church of Antioch 188 

In Egypt 189 

In Rome 190 

In Africa and the Western Provinces ." 191 

Beyond the Limits of the Roman Empire 193 

General Proportion of Christians a7id Pagans 194 

Whether the first Christians were mean and ignorant 195 

Some Exceptions with regard to Learning 196 

With regard to Rank and Fortune 196 

Christianity most favorably received by the Poor and Simple 197 

1 Rejected by some eminent Men of the first and second Centuries 198 

, Their Neglect of Prophecy 199 

Their Neglect of Miracles 200 

General Silence concerning the Darkness of the Passion 200 

III. 

THE CONDUCT OF THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT TOWARDS THE 
CHRISTIANS, FROM THE REIGN OF NERO TO THAT OF 
CONSTANTINE. 

Christianity persecuted by the Roman Emperors 203 

Inquiry into their Motives 205 

Rebellious Spirit of the Jews 206 

Toleration of the Jewish religion 207 

The Jews were a People which followed, the Christians a Sect which 

deserted, the Religion of their Fathers 208 

Christianity accused of Atheism, and mistaken by the People and 

Philosophers 209 

The Union and Assemblies of the Christians considered as a dangerous 

Conspiracy 212 

Their Manners calumniated 213 

Their imprudent Defence 215 

Idea of the Conduct of the Emperors towards the Christians 217 

They neglected the Christians as a Sect of Jews 218 



CONTENTS. LXXXIX 

A. D. PAGE. 

The Fife of Rome under the Reign of Nero 220 

Cruel Punishment of the Christians as the Incendiaries of the City.. 221 
Remarks on the Passage of Tacitus relative to the Persecution of the 

Christians by Nero 223 

Oppression of the Jews and Christians by Domitian 227 

Execution of Clemens the Consul 229 

Ignorance of Pliny concerning the Christians 230 

Trajan and his Successors establish a legal Mode of proceeding against 

them 231 

Popular Clamors 233 

Trials of the Christians 234 

Humanity of the Roman Magistrates 236 

Inconsiderable Number of Martyrs 237 

Example of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage 238 

His Danger and Flight 239 

257 His Banishment 240 

His Condemnation 241 

His Martyrdom 242 

Various Incitements to Martyrdom 243 

Ardor of the First Christians 245 

Gradual Relaxation 248 

Three Methods of escaping Martyrdom 248 

Alternatives of Severity and Toleration 251 

The Ten Persecutions 251 

Supposed Edicts of Tiberius and Marcus Antoninus 251 

180. State of the Christians in the Reigns of Commodus and Severus 253 

211 — 249. Of the Successors of Severus 255 

244. Of Maximin, Philip and Decius 257 

252 — 260. Of Valerian, Gallienus and his Successors 259 

260. Paul of Samosata, his Manners 259 

270. He is degraded from the See of Antioch 260 

274. The Sentence is executed by Aurelian 262 

284 — 303. Peace and Prosperity of the Church under Diocletian 262 

Progress of Zeal and Superstition among the Pagans 263 

Maximian and Galerius punish a few Christian Soldiers 265 

Galerius prevails on Diocletian to begin a general Persecution 267 

303. Demolition of the Church of Nicomedia 269 

The first Edict against the Christians 270 

Zeal and Punishment of a Christian 271 

Fire of the Palace of Nicomedia imputed to the Christians 271 

Execution of the first Edict 273 

Demolition of the Churches 274 

Subsequent Edicts 275 

303—311. General Idea of the Persecution 276 

In the Western Provinces, under Constantius and Constantine.. 276 

In Italy and Africa, under Maximian and Severus 277 

Under Maxentius 278 

In Illyricum and the East, under Galerius and Maximian .... 280 

311. Galerius publishes an Edict of Toleration 282 

Peace of the Church 282 

Maximin prepares to renew the Persecution 283 

313. End of the Persecutions 285 

Probable Account of the Sufferings of the Martyrs and Confessors. .. 285 
Number of Martyrs 288 



Conclusion. 



291 



IV. 



THE MOTIVES, PROGRESS, AND EFFECTS OF THE CONVERSION 
OF CONSTANTINE. — LEGAL ESTABLISHMENT AND CONSTI- 
TUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN, OR CATHOLIC, CHURCH. 

306—337. Date of the Conversion of Constantine 293 

His Pagan Superstition 297 

306—312. He protects the Christians of Gaul 297 

313- Edict of Milan 298 



XC CONTENTS. 

A. D. PAGE. 

Use and Beauty of the Christian Morality 300 

Theory and Practice of passive Obedience 301 

Divine Right of Constantine 302 

324. General Edict of Toleration 303 

Loyalty and Zeal of the Christian Party 304 

Expectation and Belief of a Miracle 305 

I. The Labarum, or Standard of the Cross 306 

II. The Dream of Constantine 308 

III. Appearance of a Cross in the Sky 310 

The Conversion of Constantine might be sincere 313 

The fourth Eclogue of Virgil 315 

Devotion and Privileges of Constantine 317 

Delay of his Baptism till the Approach of Death 31S 

Propagation of Christianity 320 

312—438. Change of the national Religion 324 

Distinction of the spiritual and temporal Powers 324 

State of the Bishops under the Christian Emperors 326 

I. Election of Bishops 327 

II. Ordination of the Clergy 329 

III. Property .'. 331 

IV. Civil Jurisdiction 334 

V. Spiritual Censures 335 

VI. Freedom of public Preaching 337 

VII. Privilege of legislative Assemblies 339 

V. 

PERSECUTION OF HERESY. — THE SCHISM OF THE DONATISTS. — 
THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. — ATHANASIUS. — DISTRACTED 
STATE OF THE CHURCH AND EMPIRE UNDER CONSTANTINE 
AND HIS SONS. — TOLERATION OF PAGANISM. 

312. African Controversy 344 

315. Schism of the Donatists 345 

The Trinitarian Controversy 347 

A. c. 

360. The System of Plato 347 

The Logos 347 

300. Taught in the School of Alexandria 349 

Before Christ 351 

A. D. 

97. Revealed by the Apostle St. John 353 

The Ebionites and Docetes 355 

Mysterious Nature of the Trinity 357 

Zeal of the Christians 359 

Authority of the Church 361 

Factions 361 

318. Heterodox Opinions of Arius 362 

Three Systems of the Trinity 363 

I. Arianism 363 

II. Tritheism 364 

III. Sabellianism 364 

325. Council of Nice 365 

; The Homoousion 366 

Arian Creeds 368 

Arian Sects 369 

Faith of the Western, or Latin, Church 371 

560. Council of Rimini 372 

Conduct of the Emperors in the Arian Controversv 373 

324. Indifference of Constantine 374 

325- His Zeal 375 

32S— 357. He persecutes the Arian and the Orthodox Party 376,377 

337—36i. Constantius favors the Arians 378 

Arian Councils 380 

Character and Adventures of Athanasius 382 

330. Persecution against Athanasius 385 

336. His first Exile 387 



CONTENTS. XCI 

A. D. PAGE. 

338. His Restoration. , 388 

341. His Second Exile 389 

349. His Restoration 391 

351. Resentment of Constantius 392 

353— 355.— Councils of Aries and Milan 393 

355. Condemnation of Athanasius 395 

Exiles 396 

356. Third Expulsion of Athanasius from Alexandria 397 

His Behavior 401 

356 — 362. His Retreat 401 

Arian Bishops 405 

Divisions 405 

I. Rome 406 

II. Constantinople 408 

Cruelty of the Arians 411 

345, &c. The Revolt and Fury of the Donatist CircQmcellions 412 

Their religious Suicides .' .... 415 

312—361. General Character of the Christian Sects 415 

Toleration of Paganism by Constantine 417 

By his Sons 419 

VI. 

THE RELIGION OF JULIAN. — UNIVERSAL TOLERATION. — HE AT- 
TEMPTS TO RESTORE AND REFORM THE PAGAN WORSHIP. — 
TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM. — HIS ARTFUL 
PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. — MUTUAL ZEAL AND 
INJUSTICE. 

Religion of Julian .*. 423 

351. His Education and Apostasy 425 

He embraces the Mythology of Paganism 428 

The Allegories 430 

Theological System of Julian 431 

Fanaticism of the Philosophers 433 

Initiation and Fanaticism of Julian .-. 434 

His religious Dissimulation 436 

He writes against Christianity 438 

361. Universal Toleration 439 

361—363. Zeal and Devotion of Julian in the Restoration of Paganism 441 

Reformation of Paganism 443 

The Philosophers 445 

Conversions 447 

The Jews 449 

Description of Jerusalem 450 

Pilgrimages 451 

363. Julian attempts to rebuild the Temple 452 

The Enterprise is defeated 454 

Perhaps by a preternatural Event 455 

Partiality of Julian 457 

He prohibits the Christians from teaching Schools 459 

Disgrace and Oppression of the Christians = 461 

They are condemned to restore the Pagan Temples 462 

The Temple and sacred Grove of Daphne 464 

Neglect and Profanation of Daphne 465 

362. Removal of the dead Bodies, and Conflagration of the Temple 466 

Julian shuts the Cathedral of Antioch 467 

George of Cappadocia oppresses Alexandria and Egypt 468,469 

361. He is massacred by the People 469 

He is worshiped as a Saint and Martyr 47° 

362. Restoration of Athanasius " 47* 

He is persecuted and expelled by Julian 472 

361—363. Zeal and imprudence of the Christians 474 

Julian is mortally wounded 477 

363. Death of Julian 478 



XCII CONTENTS. 

VII. 

THE GOVERNMENT AND DEATH OF JOVIAN. — CIVIL AND ECCLESI- 
ASTICAL ADMINISTRATION. 
A. D. PAGE. 

363. State of the Church 4 8i 

Jovian proclaims universal Toleration 484 

373. Severe Inquisition into the Crime of Magic at Rome and Antioch 485 

364 — 375. The Cruelty of Valentinian and Valens 488 

Valentinian maintains religious Toleration 491 

367 — 378. Valens professes Arianism, and persecutes the Catholics 492 

373. Death of Athanasius 494 

Just Idea of the Persecution of Valens 494 

370. Valentinian restrains the Avarice of the Clergy 496 

366— 384.— Ambition and Luxury of Damasus, Bishop of Rome 498 

VIII. 

DEATH OF GRATrAN.— RUIN OF ARIANISM.— ST. AMBROSE.— CHAR- 
ACTER, ADMINISTRATION, AND PENANCE OF THEODOSIUS. 

380. Baptism and Orthodox Edicts of Theodosius 501 

340—380. Arianism of Constantinople 503 

378. Gregory Nazianzen accepts the Mission of Constantinople 504, 506 

380. Ruin of Arianism at Constantinople 507 

381. Ruin of Arianism in the East 508 

The Council of Constantinople 509 

Retreat of Gregory Nazianzen .. 511 

380—394. Edicts of Theodosius against the Heretics . 512 

385. Execution of Priscillian and his Associates 514 

374—397- Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan 517 

385. His successful Opposition to the Empress Justina 518 

380. Influence and Conduct of Ambrose 523 

390. Penance of Theodosius 524 

IX. 

FINAL DESTRUCTION OF PAGANISM. — INTRODUCTION OF THE 
• WORSHIP OF SAINTS AND RELICS AMONG THE CHRISTIANS. 

378—395- The Destruction of the Pagan Religion 527 

State of Paganism at Rome 528 

384. Petition of the Senate for the Altar of Victory 531 

388. Con version of Rome 533 

381. Destruction of the Temples in the Provinces 536 

The TemDle of Serapis at Alexandria 540 

389. Its final Destruction 541 

390. The Pagan Religion is prohibited 545 

Oppressed 547 

390 — 420. Finally extinquished 549 

The Worship of the Christian Martyrs 552 

General Reflections '. .. 554 

I. Fabulous Martyrs and Relics 554 

II. Miracles 555 

III. Revival of Polytheism 556 

IV. Introduction of Pagan Ceremonies 558 

X. 

ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND EFFECTS OF THE MONASTIC LIFE. — 
CONVERSION OF THE BARBARIANS TO CHRISTIANITY AND 
ARIANISM. — PERSECUTION OF THE VANDALS IN AFRICA. — 
EXTINCTION OF ARIANISM AMONG THE BARBARIANS. 

I. Institution of the Monastic Life 562 

Origin of the Monks 562 

305. Antony, and the Monks of Egvpt 564 

34i« Propagation of the Monastic Life at Rome 567 

321. Hilarion in Palestine 567 



CONTENTS. XCIII 

A. D. PAGE. 

360. Basil in Pontus. 567 

370. Martin in Gaul . 568 

Causes of the rapid Progress of the Monastic Life 569 

Obedience of the Monks 571 

Their Dress and Habitations 573 

Their Diet 574 

Their manual Labor 575 

Their Riches 576 

Their Solitude 577 

Their Devotion and Visions 57S 

The Coenobites and Auachorets 579 

395 — 451. Simeon Stylites 580 

Miracles and Worship of the Monks 582 

Superstition of the Age 582 

II. 'Conversion of the Barbarians 5S3 

360, &c. Ulphilas Apostle of the Goths 584 

400, &c. The Goths, Vandals, Burgundians, &c, embrace Christianity 586 

Motives of their Faith 586 

Effects of their Conversion 588 

They are involved in the Arian Heresy . . 589 

General Toleration 590 

Arian Persecution of the Vandals 591 

429—477. Genseric 591 

477. Hunneric 591 

484. Gundamund , 592 

496. Thrasimund 592 

523. Hilderic 592 

530. Gelimer 592 

A general View of the Persecution in Africa 593 

Catholic Frauds 597 

Miracles 600 

500 — 700. The Ruin of Arianism among the Barbarians 602 

577— 5S4. Revolt and Martyrdom of Hermenegild in Spain 602 

586 — 589. Conversion of Recared and the Visigoths of Spain 603 

6oo, &c. Conversion of the Lombards of Italy 605 

612—712. Persecution of the Jews in Spain 605 

Conclusion - 607 

XI. 

ABOLITION OF THE SCHOOLS OF ATHENS, AND THE CONSULSHIP 
OF ROME. 

The Schools of Athens 609 

They are suppressed by Justinian 614 

Proclus 614 

485—529. His Successors 615 

The last of the Philosophers 616 

541. The Roman Consulship extinguished by Justinian 616 

XII. 

LEARNING OF THE ARABS. 

754 — 813. Introduction of Learning among the Arabians 619 

Their Real Progress in the Sciences 622 

Want of Erudition, Taste, and Freedom 625 

XIII. 

THEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNA- 
TION. — THE HUMAN AND DIVINE NATURE OF CHRIST. — EN- 
MITY OF THE PATRIARCHS OF ALEXANDRIA AND CONSTANTI- 
NOPLE. — ST. CYRIL AND NESTORIUS. — THIRD GENERAL 
COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. — HERESY OF EUTYCHES. — FOURTH 
GENERAL COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. — CIVIL AND ECCLESIAS- 
TICAL DISCORD. — INTOLERANCE OF JUSTINIAN. — THE THREE 



XCIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTERS. — THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY. — STATE OF 
THE ORIENTAL SECTS. — I. THE NESTORIANS. — II. THE JACOB- 
ITES. — III. THE MARONITES. — IV. THE ARMENIANS. — V. THE 
COPTS AND ABYSSINIANS. 

A. D. PAGE. 

The Incarnation of Christ 627 

I. A pure Man to the Ebionites 628 

His Birth an d Elevation 629 

II. A pure God to the Docetes 634 

His incorruptible Body 636 

III. Double Nature of Cerinthus 637 

IV. Divine Incarnation of Apollinaris 639 

V. Orthodox Consent and verbal Disputes 64J 

412 — 444. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria 643 

413,414,415. His Tyranny 644 

428. Nestorius. Patriarch of Constantinople 646 

429—431. His Heresy , 648 

431. First Council of Ephesus 650 

Condemnation of Nestorius 652 

Opposition of the Orientals 652 

431—435- Victory of Cyril 654 

43.5. Exile of Nestorius 656 

448. Heresy of Eutyches 658 

449. Second Council of Ephesus 659 

451. Council of Chalcedon 661 

Faith of Chalcedon 663 

451—482. Discord of the East 665 

482. The Henoticon of Zeno 666 

508—518. The Trisagion, and religious War, till the Death of Anastasius .. 668 

514. First religious War 670 

519 — 565. Theological Character and Government of Justinian 671 

His Persecution of Heretics 672, 673 

Of Pagans 673 

Of Jews 674 

Of Samaritans 674 

His Orthodoxy 675 

53-2—698. The Three Chapters 676 

553. Vth General Council ; lid of Constantinople 677 

564. Heresy of Justinian 678 

629. The Monothelite Controversy 679 

639. The Ecthesis of Heraclius 680 

648. The Type of Constans 680 

680—681. Vlth General Council : lid of Constantinople 681 

Union of the Greek and Latin Churches 682 

Perpetual Separation of the Oriental Sects 683 

I. The Nestorians 691 

500. Sole Masters of Persia 693 

500 — 1200. Their Missions in Tartary, India, China, &c 694 

883. The Christians of St. Thomas in India 696 

II. The Jacobites 699 

III. The Maronites 702 

IV. The Armenians 704 

V. The Copts or Egyptians 706 

537—568. The Patriarch Theodosius 706 

538. Paul 707 

551. Apollinaris 707 

580. Eulogius 708 

609. John 708 

Their Separation and Decay 708 

625 — 661. Benjamin, the Jacobite Patriarch 709 

VI. The Abyssinians and Nubians 710 

530. Church of Abyssinia 712 

1525 — 1550. The Portuguese in Abyssinia 713 

1557. Mission of the Jesuits 714 

1626. Conversion of the Emperor 715 

1632. Final Expulsion of the Jesuits 716 



CONTEXTS. XCV 

XIV. 

INTRODUCTION, WORSHIP, AND PERSECUTION OF IMAGES. — RE- 
VOLT OF ITALY AND ROME. — TEMPORAL DOMINION OF THE 
POPES. — ESTABLISHMENT OF IMAGES. 

A. D. PAGE. 

Introduction of Images into the Christian Church.. 717 

Their Worship 719 

The Image of Edessa 721 

Its Copies 724 

Opposition to Image- Worship 725 

726— S40. Leo the Iconoclast, and his Successors 726 

754. Their Svnod of Constantinople 72S 

Their Creed 728 

726—775. Their Persecution of the Images and Monks 729 

State of Italy 731 

727. Epistles of Gregory II. to the Emperor 733 

728. Revolt of Italy 735 

Republic of Rome 73S 

Forgery of the Donation of Constantine 740 

780. Restoration of Images in the East by the Empress Irene 742 

787. Vllth General Council ; lid of Nice 743 

842. Final Establishment of Images by the Empress Theodora 744 

794. Reluctance of the Franks and of Charlemagne 745 

774 — 800. Final Separation of the Popes from the Eastern Empire 746 

800. Coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of Rome and of the West... 747 

70S— 814. Reign and Character of Charlemagne 749 

800—1060. Authority of the Emperors in the Elections of the Popes 751 

Disorders 752 

1073. Reformation and Claims of the Church 754 

XV. 

ORIGIN AND DOCTRINE OF THE PAULICIANS.— THEIR PERSECU- 
TION BY THE GREEK EMPERORS. — REVOLT IN ARMENIA, &C. 
— TRANSPLANTATION INTO THRACE. — PROPAGATION IN THE 
WEST. — THE SEEDS, CHARACTER, AND CONSEQUENCES OF 
THE REFORMATION. 

Supine Superstition of the Greek Church 755 

660. Origin of the Paulicians or Disciples of St. Paul 757 

Their Bible 75S 

The Simplicity of their Belief and Worship 758 

They hold the two principles of the Magians and Manichseans 760 

The Establishment of the Paulicians in Armenia, Pontus, &c 761 

Persecution of the Greek Emperors 762 

845—880. Revolt of the Paulicians 763 

They fortify Tephrice 764 

And pillage Asia Minor 765 

Their Decline , 766 

Their Transplantation from Armenia to Thrace 766 

Their Introduction into Italy and France 768 

1200. Persecution of the Albigeois 770 

Character and Consequences of the Reformation 770 

XVI. 

COUNCIL OF THE GREEKS AND LATINS. 

1438 — 1439. Council at Ferrara and Florence 775 

1 34i— I35I- The Divine Light on Mount Thabor 777 

Heresy of the Quietists 778 



A VINDICATION OF SOME PASSAGES IN THE FIFTEENTH AND 
SIXTEENTH CHAPTERS OF GIBBON'S HISTORY. 




ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

Portrait of Gibbon Frontispiece 

Ruins of the Coliseum m 

Nox xvn 

Neptune and Amphitrite xvn 

Silhouette of Edward Gibbon lxxxvii 

Venus conducted by Iris 96 

Roma 97 

Wolf of the Capitol 97 

Jupiter 105 

Geese of the Capitol 105 

Council of the Gods 203 

Oceanus 203 

Apollo 293 

Hermes presenting a soul to Hades 

and Persephone 293 

The Labarum 306 

Mercury 341 

The Parcae or Fates. . .' 341 

Helios, or the Sun 388 

Fanaticism and Superstition 400 

Juno 422 

Cybele, the Mother of the Gods 423 

Jupiter Pluvius 423 

Diana of the Ephesians 481 

Fortuna 481 

Saturn 501 

The Great Red Dragon 501 

Laocoon 526 

Serapis 527 

Ixion 527 

Victory 532 

Centaur, Mercury, ^Esculapius, 

Hygeia 561 

Hector and Andromache 561 



PAGE. 

Vesta,— the goddess of Fire 608 

The Death of Hercules 609 

Clio, Thalia, Terpsichore, Euterpe, 

Polymnia 609 

Sleep escaping from Jupiter 618 

Prometheus 619 

Calliope, Erato, Urana, Melpomene. 619 

Bacchus 627 

Venus Marina, Triton 627 

Codex Alexandrinus 684 

" Sinaiticus 685 

" Claromontanus 686 

" Purpureus 687 

" Bezae 688 

" Ephraemi 688 

' ' Vaticanus 6S9 

" Laudianus 690 

" Basilensis 690 

" Ruber 690 

" Monacensis 690 

Protoclus 716 

Satan 717 

Mithras 717 

Isis 754 

Minerva 755 

Triton and Nereids 755 

Silence 774 

Venus, goddess of love and beauty. 775 

The Trinity 775 

Neptune and Rhea — the Saturnalia 

of the Golden Age 779 

Descent of Discord, . . . Vi7idication iii 

Cyclops vi 

Oath of Fidelity " 7 




ROMA. 

" The Niobe of nations !***** 

" Childless and crownless in her voiceless woe." — Byron. 

ROME was personified as a goddess, whose image often appeared upon coins 
. and medals ; and almost every river, mountain and stream was symbolized 
as a god, of whom some fabulous tale was related. Roma was honored by the 
Romans from the time of the emperor Hadrian, (a. d. 117,) with temples, sacrifices, 
and annual festivals. The above engraving, from a painting formerly belonging 
to the Barberini family, is probably a correct representation of the goddess. 

This Pagan conceit of peopling groves, rivers and forests with a community of 
gods and godesses is not generally endorsed at the present day, for the human mind 
is slowly progressing beyond the realms of myth and fable ; but many religionists 
still credit these ancient tales, and firmly believe in the reality of immaterial forms 
and material spirits. Like the old Roman idolaters, they claim guardian angels 
by whom they are protected, and fear evil spirits by whom they are tormented. 
The N. Y. Catholic Review of Oct. 22, 1881, says : 

" What a beautiful devotion is that of the angels, especially the guardian angels. 
And what doctrine is more clearly revealed in Holy Scripture than that of our 
intimate relations to the angels and their ministration to men in the affairs of 
this world ? The Old and New Testaments are both full of the most striking 
instances of the ministry of angels. According to St. Augustine, 'the blessed 
'spirits preside over every animate and inanimate thing in the visible world. 
' The stars and the firmament have their angels. The fire, the air and the water 
'have their angels, kingdoms have their angels, as is seen in the Scriptures. 
' Towns and cities have their angels ; altars, churches, even particular families 



" ' have their angels.' ' Thus,' as Mr. Boudon says, ' the world is full of angels 
" 'and it seems that the sweetness of Divine Providence renders it necessary ; 
" ' for if, as some say, there be in the air so great a number of evil spirits that if 
" ' they were permitted to assume bodies they would obscure the light of the sun, 
" ' how could men be safe from their malicious acts unless protected by angels?' " 

Such implicit faith in the angelic hierarchy was never excelled by "heathen " 
idolaters ; and the almost forgotten fauns and fairies — the demons, genii, and 
sprites of ancient Paganism — correspond to the guardian angels and evil spirits 
of modern Catholicism. Dr. Newman quotes from Peril of Idolatry as follows : 

" Terentius Varro showeth that there were three hundred Jupiters in his time : 
" there were no fewer Veneres and Dianae : we had no fewer Christophers, Mary 
" Magdalens, and other saints. CEnomaus and Hesiodus show that in their time 
" there were thirty thousand gods. I think we had no fewer saints, to whom we 
" gave the honor due to God. And they have not only spoiled the true living God 
" of His due honor by such devices as the Gentile idolaters have done before 
" them, but the sea and waters have as well special saints with them, as the Gen- 
'• tiles had thegods Neptune, Triton, Nereus, Castor and Pollux, Venus, and such 
" other: in whose places become St. Christopher, St. Clement, and divers other. 
' ' and specially our Lady, to whom shipmen sing, 'Ave maris stella.' Neither hath 
" the tire escaped their idolatrous inventions. For, instead of Vulcan and Vesta, 
" the Gentiles' gods of the fire, our men have placed St. Agatha, and make litters 
" on her day to quench tire with. Every artificer and profession hath his special 
" saint, as a peculiar god. As for example, scholars have St. Nicholas and St. 
" Gregory ; painters, St. Luke ; neither lack soldiers their Mars, nor lovers their 
'" Venus amongst Christians " 

" Catholicism," says Ingersoll, " administered on the estate of Paganism, and 
" appropriated most of the property to its own use." This fact may satisfactorily 
explain the remarkable resemblance between the faith of the Romish Church and 
the belief of Pagan Rome — between the mythology of the past and the theology 
of the present. 

" The religion of Christ " says Eusebe Salverte, "succeeded a religion rich in 
" pomp and emblems ; and it feared to repulse by too rigid a simplicity, men ac- 
" customed to see and to touch what they believed in and worshiped. Hence, as 
" it was difficult to destroy and utterly to proscribe the former objects of venera- 
" tion, the Christians often preferred appropriating them to their own faith. 
" More than one temple was changed into a church ; more than the name of one 
" god was honored as the name of a saint ; and an immense number of images 
" and legends passed without difficulty into the new faith, and were preserved 
'" by the ancient respect of the new believers." — Philosophy of Magic, vol. ii,p. 249. 
" Paganism," says Emilio Castelar, " has been transformed, but has not been 
" destroyed. The months of the year and the days of the week preserve the num- 
" hers of the ancient divinities, of the ancient Caesars, of the ancient Roman 
" numeration. The two solstices of summer and winter we still celebrate with 
" festivals analogous to the classic festivals. Adonis is horn, dies, rises again, 
" when the corn is sown shoots, or is in ear. The feast of Candlemas, dedicated 
" with many tapers to the Virgin, like the festivals of Lupercal, is consecrated 
" to light. The Romans wave torches under the government of the Popes, just 
" as the Pagans waved them under the dominion of the Caesars, and chanted 
" hymns to the light, which have changed their form, but the essence of which 
" is unaltered." — Old Rome and New Italy, p. 170. 

" When we see.' says Dr. Inman, 'the same ideas promulgated as divine truth 
" on the ancient banks of the Ganges, and the modern shores of the Mediterra- 
" nean, we are constrained to admit that they have something common in their 
" source ; " and when we observe the accordance and harmony between ancient 
and modern myths and mysteries, we readiiy perceive how little originality our 
modern faith contains ; for there is not a rite, ceremony or belief we now practice 
or profess, that cannot be traced to its origin in Chaldean idolatry — in Assyrian. 
Egyptian or Roman Mythology. 

The significant command given by Jehovah to the Jews : " Take heed that 
•' thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their 
'• gods ? " (Deut. xii, 30,) should be literally observed by Christians, if they wish 
to maintain their cherished faith unaltered and unimproved by intelligent doubt 
and scientific investigation.— E. 




(Wolf of the Capitol.*) 



History of Christianity, 



i. 

UNIVERSAL SPIRIT OF TOLERATION.f 

THE firm edifice of Roman power was raised and 
preserved by the wisdom of ages. The obedient 
provinces of Trajan and the Antonines were united 
by laws, and adorned by arts. They might occasionally 
sutler from the partial abuse of delegated authority ; but the 
general principle of government was wise, simple, and 
beneficent. They enjoyed the religion of their ancestors, 
whilst in civil honors and advantages they were exalted, by 
just degrees, to an equality with their conquerors. 

The policy of the emperors and the senate, as 
far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded to^ration. 
by the reflections of the enlightened, and the 
habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The 

*Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were the sons of Rhea Silvia and 
Mars. Silvia was the daughter of Numitor and a vestal virgin. For violating her 
vows of chastity she and her twin offspring were condemned to be drowned in 
the Tiber. The cradle in which the children were exposed being stranded, they 
were found and suckled by a she-wolf, which carried them to her den, where they 
were ultimately discovered by Faustalus, the king's shepherd. — E. 

t From Chap. II. of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the -Roman 
Empire. In addition to the full notes of Gibbon the notes of Milman, Wenck, 
Guizot, and the " English Churchman," (Editor of Bohn's Edition of Gibbon's 
Rome,) are also given in full, to enable the reader to judge of the merit of all the 
arguments advanced. They will sometimes be found to differ with Mr. Gibbon, 
and not unfrequently with each other. The notes added by the publisher are 
signed " E." (97) 



9 8 



THE PEOPLE. 



various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman 
world, were all considered by the people as equally true ; 
by the philosopher, as equally false ; and by the magistrate, 
as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only 
mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. 

The superstition of the people was not embit- 
eop e. tere( j k v an y mixture of theological rancor ; nor 
was it confined by the chains of any speculative system. 
The devout polytheist, though fondly attached to his 
national rites, admitted with implicit faith the different reli- 
gions of the earth. 1 Fear, gratitude, and curiosity, a dream 
or an omen, a singular disorder, or a distant journey, per- 

i There is not any writer who describes, in so lively a manner as Herodotus, the 
true genius of polytheism. The best commentary may be found in Air. Hume's 
Natural History of Religion ; and the best contrast in Bossuet's Universal History. 
Soma obscure traces of an intolerant spirit appear in the conduct of the Egyptians 
(see Juvenal, Sat. 15), and the Christians, as well as Jews, who lived under the 
Roman empire, formed a very important exception ; so important, indeed, that the 
discussion will require a distinct chapter of this work.* 

* M. Constant in his very learned and eloquent work, " Sur la Religion" with 
two additional volumes, " Du Polytheisme Romain," has considered the whole 
history of polytheism in a tone of philosophy, which, without subscribing to all his 
opinions, we may be permitted to admire. " The boasted tolerance of polytheism 
did not rest upon the respect due from society to the freedom of individual opinion. 
The polytheistic nations, tolerant as they were towards each other, as separate 
states, were not the less ignorant of the eternal principle, the only basis of en- 
lightened toleration, that every one has a right to worship God in the manner 
which seems to him the best. Citizens, on the contrary, were bound to conform 
to the religion of the state; they had not the liberty to adopt a foreign religion, 
though that religion might be legally recognized in their own city, for the strangers 
who were its votaries." — Sur la Religion, v. 184. Du Polyth. Rom. iii, 308. At 
this time, the growing religious indifference, and the general administration of the 
empire by Romans, who, being strangers, would do no more than protect, not 
enlist themselves in the cause of the local superstitions, had introduced great 
laxity. But intolerance was clearly the theory both of the Greek and Roman law. 
The subject is more fully considered in another place. — MiLMAN.f 

Milman admits the tolerance of the Romans for the religion of the nations they 
conquered, yet he asserts that intolerance was the theory of the Greek and Roman 
law. He cites no proof in support of his assertion, and gives no names of persons 
who were punished for forsaking the religion of their fathers. When the emperor 
Julian re-established the Pagan religion, he did not persecute his Christian subjects, 
but tolerated their religion, although its most eminent professers had murdered his 
nearest relatives. The Inquisition, the logical result of intolerance, was established 
by Christians, not by Pagans. On Nov. 14, 1881, Senor Castelar delivered at Madrid, 
in the Cortes, an eloquent and impressive address. He adjured the government 
of Spain to assist Italy in upholding the separation of the temporal from the spiritual 
power. He approved the recent circular of the Minister of Public Instruction, 
authorizing the appointment of free-thinkers to professional chairs, and he also 
approved the principles of self-government in the Universities, and recognition 
of the rights of science. "Science and learning," said he, "must be free from 
" State and Church tyranny. Learned men must soar freely in pursuit of truth, be- 
"yond the reach of fanaticism and despotism." Thus we see advocated in the 
most Catholic nation of Christendom, a return to the principles of free toleration, 
practiced two thousand years ago by the old Pagans of Rome. — E. 

f Was there no mixture of religious persecution, in the oppressions which drove 
the Israelites out of Egypt? — Eng. Churchman. 

The Israelites were enslaved, and naturally desired freedom. They were not 
driven out of Egypt, but ran away ; and the Egyptians used every effort" to recover 
their lost "chattels." — E. 



THE PEOPLE. 99 

petuaily disposed him to multiply the articles of his belief, 
and to enlarge the list of his protectors. The thin texture 
of the Pagan mythology was interwoven with various but 
not discordant materials. As soon as it was allowed that 
sages and heroes, who had lived or who had died for the 
benefit of their country, were exalted to a state of power 
and immortality, it was universally confessed that they de- 
served, if not the adoration, at least the reverence, of all 
mankind. The deities of a thousand groves and a thousand 
streams possessed in peace their local and respective in- 
fluence ; nor could the Roman who deprecated the wrath 
of the Tiber, deride the Egyptian who presented his offering 
to the beneficent genius of the Nile. The visible powers 
of nature, the planets, and the elements, were the same 
throughout the universe. The invisible governors of the 
moral world were inevitably cast in a similar mould of 
fiction and allegory. Every virtue, and even vice, acquired 
its divine representative ; every art and profession its patron, 
whose attributes, in the most distant ages and countries, 
were uniformly derived from the character of their peculiar 
votaries. A republic of gods of such opposite tempers and 
interests required, in every system, the moderating hand of 
a supreme magistrate, who, by the progress of knowledge 
and flattery, was gradually invested with the sublime per- 
fections of an eternal parent, and an omnipotent monarch. 2 
Such was the mild spirit of antiquity, that the nations were 
less attentive to the difference, than to the resemblance, of 
their religious worship. The Greek, the Roman, and the 
Barbarian, as they met before their respective altars, easily 
persuaded themselves, that under various names, and with 
various ceremonies, they adored the same deities. 3 The 

2 The rights, powers, and pretensions of the sovereign of Olympus are very 
clearly described in the fifteenth book of the Iliad; in the Greek original, I mean ; 
for Mr. Pope, without perceiving it, has improved the theology of Homer.* 

3 See, for instance, Caesar de Bell. Gall, vi, 17. Within a century or two, the 
Gauls themselves applied to their gods the names of Mercury, Mars, Apollo, &c.f 

*The conception of an eternal and almighty Godhead, overruling all others, was 
not gradually introduced as knowledge advanced or flattery suggested. It was 
rather the early fundamental principle of natural and revealed religion, which 
polytheism could not entirely suppress. Compare " Pfanneri Systema Theologies 
Gentilis Purioris," cap. 2, 11, 13. — Wenck. 

There is a curious coincidence between Gibbon's explanation and those of the 
newly-recovered De Republica of Cicero, though the argument is rather the 
converse, lib. i. c. 36. " Sive haec ad utiiitatem vitas constituta sint a principibus 
" rerum publicarum, ut rex putaretur unus esse in ccelo, qui nutu, ut ait Homerus, 
" totum Olympum converteret, idemque et rex et pater haberetur omnium." — M. 

t The barbarian did not of his own accord believe this. To render their 
Conquered foes more docile the Romans, like the Greeks before them, persuaded 



IOO THE PHILOSOPHERS. 

elegant mythology of Homer gave a beautiful, and almost 
a regular form, to the polytheism of the ancient world. 

The philosophers of Greece deduced their 
philosophers. mora ^ s fr° m the nature of man, rather than from 
' that of God. They meditated however on the 
divine nature, as a very curious and important speculation ; 
and in the profound inquiry, they displayed the strength and 
weakness of the human understanding. 4 Of the four most 
celebrated schools, the Stoics and the Platonists endeavored 
to reconcile the jarring interests of reason and piety. They s 
have left us the most sublime proofs of the existence and 
perfections of the first cause ; but as it was impossible for 
them to conceive the creation of matter, the workman in 
the Stoic philosophy was not sufficiently distinguished 
from the work ; whilst, on the contrary, the spiritual god 
of Plato and his disciples resembled an idea rather than a 
substance. The opinions of the Academics and Epicureans 
were of a less religious cast ; but whilst the modest science 
of the former induced them to doubt, the positive ignorance 
of the latter urged them to deny, the providence of a 
supreme ruler. The spirit of inquiry, prompted by emula- 
tion, and supported by freedom, had divided the public 
teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending seels ; 
but the ingenious youth, who, from every part, resorted to 
Athens, and the other seats of learning in the Roman 
empire, were alike instructed, in every school, to reject and 
to despise the religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was 
it possible that a philosopher should accept, as divine truths, 
the idle tales of the poets, and the incoherent traditions of 
antiquity ; or, that he should adore, as gods, those imperfect 
beings whom he must have despised as men ! Against such 
unworthy adversaries, Cicero condescended to employ the 
arms of reason and eloquence ; but the satire of Lucian was 
a much more adequate, as well as more efficacious weapon. 
We may be well assured, that a writer conversant with the 
world, would never have ventured to expose the gods of his 

4 The admirable work of Cicero, de Natura Deorum, is the best clue we have to 
guide us through the dark and profound abyss. He represents with candor, and 
confutes with subtlety, the opinions of the philosophers. 



their new subjects that they all worshiped the same deities. It was thus that the 
God of War, the Goddess of Love, and the rest, soon assumed the forms of Mars, 
Venus, and other heathen divinities ; and for this reason little positive information, 
as to the original worship among these people, can be obtained from the many 
images of their idols which have been dug up. Almost all o» them are conformed 
to Roman notions. — Wenck. 



THE MAGISTRATES. IOI 

country to public ridicule, had they not already been the 
objects of secret contempt among the polished and en- 
lightened orders of society. 5 

Notwithstanding the fashionable irreligion which pre- 
vailed in the age of the Antonines, both the interests of the 
priests, and the credulity of the people, were sufficiently 
respected. In their writings and conversation, the philoso- 
phers of antiquity asserted the independent dignity of 
reason ; but they resigned their actions to the commands 
of law and of custom. Viewing, with a smile of pity and 
indulgence, the various errors of the vulgar, they diligently 
practised the ceremonies of their fathers, devoutly frequented 
the temples of the gods, and sometimes condescending to 
act a part on the theatre of superstition, they concealed the 
sentiments of an atheist under the sacerdotal robes. 
Reasoners of such a temper were scarcely inclined to 
wrangle about their respective modes of faith, or of worship. 
It was indifferent to them what shape the -folly of the multi- 
tude might choose to assume ; and they approached, with 
the same inward contempt, and the same external reverence, 
the altars of the Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline 
Jupiter. 8 

It is not easy to conceive from what motives 
a spirit of persecution could introduce itself into ma g[ s Jrates. 
the Roman councils. The magistrates could not 
be actuated by a blind though honest bigotry, since the 
magistrates were themselves philosophers ; and the school 
of Athens had given laws to the senate. They could not be 
impelled by ambition or avarice, as the temporal and ecclesi- 
astical powers were united in the same hands.* The pontiffs 
were chosen among the most illustrious of the senators ; 
and the office of supreme pontiff was constantly exercised 
by the emperors themselves. They knew and valued the 
advantages of religion, as it is connected with civil govern- 

s I do not pretend to assert, that, in this irreligious age, the natural terrors of 
superstition, dreams, omens, apparitions, &c, had lost their efficacy. 

6 Socrates, Epicurus, Cicero, and Plutarch, always inculcated a decent reverence 
for the religion of their own country and of mankind. The devotion of Epicurus 
was assiduous and exemplary. Diogen. Laert. x, 10. 

* Did the various ministering orders derive no pecuniary advantage from the 
sacrificial rites in which they officiated ? Was Alexander the coppersmith the 
only maker of images who profited by the employment? Were no temples but 
those of Delphi, Ephesus, and Comana enriched by pious worshipers ? Did oracles 
and augurs receive no payment for their answers to the credulity or policy that 
consulted them? The Pontitex Maximus may have known no avarice himself; 
but he was urged on by the Flamen dialis and his subordinates, whose gains were 
in danger. — Eng. Ch. 



102 THE MAGISTRATES. 

ment. They encouraged the public festivals which humanize 
the manners of the people. They managed the arts of 
divination,* as a convenient instrument of policy ; and they 
respected, as the firmest bond of society, the useful persua- 
sion that, either in this, or in a future life, the crime of 
perjury is most assuredly punished by the avenging gods. 7 
But whilst they acknowledged the general advantages of 
religion, they were convinced that the various modes of 
worship contributed alike to the same salutary purposes : 
and that, in every country, the form of superstition, which 
had received the sanction of time and experience, was the 

i Polybius, I. 6, c. 53 54- Juvenal, Sat. xiii, laments, that in his time this appre- 
hension had lost much of its effect. 



* The art of divination became of great interest to the Romans, and of great 
profit to the priests. "Augury, or the power of foretelling future events," says 
Cicero, " is the greatest and most excellent thing in the republic, and naturally 
" allied to authority." "Greater is he that prophesieth than.he that speaketh 
" with tongues," says St. Paul, / Cor. xiv, 3, 5. " He that prophesieth, speaketh 
" unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort." The most ancient of 
the oracles was that of Jupiter at Dodona, the most renowned was that at Delphi, 
which was enriched by costly gifts. When a person consulted the oracle, the first 
duty consisted in a present or sacrifice. The place where the ambiguous answer 
was given, was called Pythium, and the priestess who attended it was called 
Pythia. She was seated on the sacred golden tripod, dedicated to Apollo by the 
seven wise men of Greece. The three legs of the tripod were supposed to have a 
threefold reference to the past, the present and the future, and the enigmatical 
answers, generally delivered in hexameter verse, would apply to any result that 
might happen. When a definite reply was given, the priests had previously in- 
formed themselves of the circumstances. This oracle became silent soon after the 
death of the emperor Julian. 

The pretended revelation of the future mediately, or by means of some system or 
art of divination was effected in various ways by persons who claimed to be under 
divine inspiration. The business of prophesying had become so universal and so 
remunerative, that names were coined and introduced into the language to dis- 
tinguish each particular method of augury. We copy from Eschenburg's Classical 
Literature and Roget's Thesaurus of Words, some of the more common terms 
employed, as a curious illustration of bygone superstitions. 

Divination by oracles, Theomancy ; by the Bible, Bibliomancy ; by ghosts, Psy- 
chomancy ; by spirits seen in a magic lens, Christallomantia ; by shadows or manes, 
Sciomancy; by appearances in the air, Aeromancy, Chaomancy; by meteors, 
Meteoromancy ; by winds, Austromancy ; by sacrificial appearances, Aruspicy (or 
Haruspicy), Hieromancy, Hieroscopy ; by the entrails of animals sacrificed, Hier- 
omancy ; by the entrails of a human sacrifice, Anthropomancy • by the entrails of 
fishes, Ichthyomancy ; by sacrtficialfire,P\rormncy ; by red hot iron, Sideromancy ; 
by smoke from the altar, Capnomancy ; by mice, Myomancy ; by birds, Ornitho- 
mancy ; by a cock picking up grains, Alectryomancy (or Alectoromancy) ; by fishes, 
Ophiomancy ; by herbs, Botanomancy ; by water, Hydromancy ; by fountains, 
Pegomancy ; by a wand , Rhabdomancy ; by dough of cakes, Crithomancy ; by meal, 
Aieuromancy, Alphitomancy ; by salt, Halomancy; by dice, Cleromancy; by 
arrows, Belomancy : by a balanced hatchet, Axinomancy ; by a balanced sieve, 
Coscinomancy ; by a suspended ring, Dactyliomancy ; by dots made at random on 
paper, Geomancy ; by precious stones, Lithomancy ; by pebbles, Pessomancy; by 
pebbles drawn from a heap, Psephomancy ; by mirrors, Catoptromancy ; ly writings 
in ashes, Tephramancy ; by dreams, Oneiromancy ; by the hand, Palmistry, Chiro- 
mancy ; by nails reflecting the sun's rays, Onychomancy ; by numbers, Arithmancy ; 
by drawing lots, Sortilege ; by passages in books, Stichomancy ; by the letters form- 
ing the name of the person, Onomancy, or Nomancv ; by the features, Anthropos- 
copy; by the mode of laughing, Geloscopy ; by ventriloquism, Gastromancy ; by 
walking in a circle, Gvromancy ; by dropping melted wax into water, Ceromancy; 
of currents, Bletonism. — E. 



THE PROVINCES. IO3 



In the 



best adapted to the climate and to its inhabitants. Avarice 
and taste very frequently despoiled the vanquish- 
ed nations of the elegant statues of their gods, 
and the rich ornaments of their temples ; s but, 
in the exercise of the religion which they derived from their 
ancestors, they uniformly experienced the indulgence, and 
even protection, of the Roman conquerors. The province 
of Gaul seems, and indeed only seems, an exception to this 
universal toleration. Under the specious pretext of abolish- 
ing human sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius 
suppressed the dangerous power of the Druids ; 9 but the 
priests themselves, their gods, and their altars, subsisted in 
peaceful obscurity till the final destruction of Paganism. 10 

Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was . Rome 
incessantly filled with subjects and strangers 
from every part of the world, 11 who all introduced and en- 
joyed the favorite superstitions of their native country. 12 
Every city in the empire was justified in maintaining the 
purity of its ancient ceremonies ; and the Roman senate, 
using the common privilege, sometimes interposed to check 
this inundation of foreign rites. The Egyptian superstition, 
of all the most contemptible and abject, was frequently 
prohibited; the temples of Serapis and Isis demolished, 
and their Worshipers banished from Rome and Italy. 15 

8 See the fate of Syracuse, Tarentum, Ambracia, Corinth, &c, the conduct of 
Verres, in Cicero {Actio ii. Oral. 4,) and the usual practice of govenors, in the 
Eighth Satire of Juvenal. 

9 Sueton. in Claud. — Plin. His. Nat. xxx, 1. 

10 Pelloutier, Histoire des Celtes, torn. vi,p. 230 — 252. 

u Seneca, Consolat. ad Helviam, p. 74. Edit. Lips. 

12 Dionysius Halicarn. Antiquitat. Roman I. ii. [vol. i. p. 275, edit. Reiske.] 

13 In the year ot Rome 701, the temple of Isis and Serapis was demolished by the 
order of the senate, {Dion Cassius. 1. xl, p. 252,) and even by the hands of the 
consul. {Valerius Maximus, I. j.)f After the death of Caesar, it was restored at 
the public expense. {Dio?i. I. xlvii, p. 50/.) When Augustus was in Egypt, he 
revered the majesty of Serapis, {Dion. I. Ii, p. 647,) but in the Pomaerium of Rome, 
and a mile round it, he prohibited the worship of the Egyptian gods. {Dion. I. liii, 
p. 679, I. liv, p. 735.) They remained, however, very fashionable under his reign 
{Ovid, de Art. Amand. I. 1), and that of his successor, till the justice of Tiberius 
was provoked to some a<5ts of severity. (See Tacit. Annal.ii , 83 ; Joseph. Antiquit. 
I. xviii, c. 3.)% 

fTwo events, one of which occurred one hundred and sixty-six years before the 
other, are here confounded by Gibbon and made as one. The temples of Isis and 
Serapis were ordered by the senate to be destroyed, a. u. c. 535. But no workmen 
being willing to begin the process of pulling them down, the Consul, L. JEmilius 
Paulus, taking a h atchet in his hand, struck the first blow. ( Valerius Max. I. c. 3.) 
Gibbon connects this with the second demolition which took place a. u. c. 701. — W. 

% See in the pictures from the walls of Pompeii the representation of an Isiac 
temple and worship. Vestiges of Egyptian worship have been traced in Gaul, 
and, I am informed, recently in Britain, in excavations at York. — Milman. 



104 ROME. 

But the zeal of fanaticism prevailed over the cold and feeble 
efforts of policy.* The exiles returned, the proselytes 
multiplied, the temples were restored with increasing 
splendor, and Isis and Serapis at length assumed their 
place among the Roman deities. 14 Nor was this indulgence 
a departure from the old maxims of government. In the 
purest ages of the commonwealth, Cybele and ^Esculapius 
had been invited by solemn embassies, 15 and it was custom- 
ary to tempt the protectors of besieged cities, by the promise 
of more distinguished honors than they possessed in their 
native country. 16 Rome gradually became the common 
temple of her subjects ;f and the freedom of the city was 
bestowed on all the gods of mankind. 17 

it Tertullian in Apologetic, c. 6, p. 74, edit. Haver camp. I am inclined to attribute 
their establishment to the devotion of the Flavian family. 
i-"> See Livy, I. xi and xxix. 

16 Macrob. Saturnalia, I. Hi, c. p. He gives us a form of evocation. 
H Minutius Felix in Octavio, p. 54. Arnobius, I. vi, p. 115. 



* M. de Pauw maintains {Recherches snr les Egyptiens et les Chinois, torn. 1, 
p. 36, f.) from a passage in Dion Cassius (p. 196,) that the jealousy of the Roman 
priests, who saw foreign gods eclipsing theirs, was the only cause for which the 
Egyptian worship was suppressed. But this is not said by Dion. This jealousy 
may, however, have operated, in conjunction with the principal motive, which was 
the shameless impurity of the worship, as attested by all writers. — Wenck. 

t Vet the worship of foreign gods at Rome was only guaranteed to the natives 
of those countries from whence they came. The Romans administered the priestly 
offices only to the gods of their fathers. Gibbon, throughout the whole preceding 
sketch of the opinions of the Romans and their subjects, has shown through what 
causes they were free from religious hatred and its consequences. But, on the 
other hand, the internal state of these religions, the infidelity and hypocrisy of the 
upper orders, the indifference towards all religion, in even the better part of the 
common people, during the last days of the republic, and under the Caesars, and 
under the corrupting principles of the philosophers, had exercised a very pernici- 
ous influence on the manners, and even on the constitution. — Wenck. 

The tolerance for all religions at Pagan Rome, apparentlv so annoving to Wenck, 
cannot be controverted by special pleading, nor bv assertions made without proof. 
When the Christian religion became established, intolerance became the watch- 
word of the Church of Rome, and it was the corruption of this church that aroused 
the spirit of Protestantism. Savonarola, a Catholic, was burned by Catholics, in 
the year 1498, because he wished to purifv the Christian church. John Huss, a 
Protestant, met a similar fate in 1416; and we are indebted to the Protestant 
reformers, Uke Luther and Calvin, who fearlessly braved persecution and even 
death in defence of their principles, for much of the religious liberty we now enjoy. 
Intolerance, which is instinctively opposed by everv generous mind, has been de- 
nounced by many eloquent members of the clerical profession Savs Bishop 
Watson, in his celebrated "Charge to the Clergy :" " There was a time'when our 
tt ancestors were Pagans ; there was another period during which they were 

I Papists; and if the doctrine of some men — that no change ought ever to be 
' ft admitted in the tenets of a church established by law — had been adhered to by 

1 them, we, their posterity, might at this day have been occupied with the Druid's 
" in cutting mistletoe, or with the Catholics in transubstantiating flour and water 
" into the substance of God ! " '-'Orthodoxy itself," says Rev. Robert Taylor, 
speaking of free toleration, in Diegesis, p. 14., " will no longer suggest its resistance 
" to the onlv faithful and rational account of the matter so eloquently given us by 
"Gibbon."— E. 




JUPITER 



THE PAGAN GODS. 

The Greeks and Romans believed their gods were endowed with immortal youth, 
clothed with supernal beauty, and inspired with divine wisdom, and that they con- 
trolled the destinies of the human race. These gods were, however, themselves 
governed by an eternal and immutable principle called Fate or Necessity. They 
were larger than men, for size was formerly considered a beauty both in men and 
women, and therefore an attribute of divinity. A fluid named " Ichor" supplied 
the place of blood in their veins. Their food was called "Ambrosia," and their 
drink " Nectar." The beautiful Hebe (youth) presented the viands at their meals, 
and while these immortals ate their celestial food, Apollo struck his golden lyre, 
and the nine muses, (Clio, Euterpe, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, 
Calliope, Urania, and Thalia), sang responsive strains. 

As gods are always made in the image of men, these gods were endowed with 
human desires and human frailties. They loved, hated, agreed, quarreled, fought, 
and became reconciled like ordinary saints and sinners. " The Sons of God 
saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and begat a race of giants," who 
inherited the good and bad qualities of their parents. Interbreeding between gods 
and men, between mortals and immortals, between the genus Homo and the genus 
Dt-us, which is vouched for by the most popular religions, is strangely omitted 
from works of natural history. The god Jupiter, who should have set a better 
example to mankind, surreptitiously left his wife and family on the serene heights 
of Mount Olympus, and invaded the home of a Spartan citizen. By transforming 
himself into a swan he overcame the reserve of Leda, a respectable married 
woman, the wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta. Castor, Pollux, and the beautiful 
Helena were born, and a divorce suit should have followed this divine and 
human transgression. A similar event is recorded in the Christian scriptures, 
which bears a family resemblance to the Grecian myth, and suggests a 
common origin. Joseph was troubled in his mind, and dreamed a holy spirit in 
the form of a dove was the father of his unborn child. The first narrative is 
now an exploded Pagan superstition. The second is the foundation of the 
dominant religion of the world ! Let us hope the revolving ages will yet witness 
a sublimer faith and a purer creed. 

The Egyptians, to perpetuate their mythology, construaed their records in 
enduring granite ; yet after the lapse of forty centuries the world has forgotten 
the builders and their creeds. The pyramids remain, but the purpose of their 
construction can only be conjectured, and the mystery of the Sphinx remains 
unsolved. The shrines of Isis and Osiris are forsaken and desolate. The Medes and 
Persians ordained their " immutable " statutes in vain. In vain the Assyrians pro- 
claimed their solemn rites. Mylitta's temple at Babylon is overthrown. Dagon the 
Phoenician god, has fallen. The altar of Moloch — besmeared with human blood — 
ereaed by Solomon in Jerusalem, has vanished like a hideous dream. The 
temple of Jupiter Ammon at Libya is in ruins. The oracles of the Greeks 
proclaim no more the mandates of the gods. The Scandinavian dreads not the 
power of the stern god Thor or the invincible Odin. The religion of the Magi, 
of the great Zoroaster, or Dodonean Jove has felt the corroding tooth of time. 
The Olympic games in Elis are forgotten, and their glories survive but as an 
echo of departed greatness. The colossal statue of Zeus by Phidias in the 
Olympieum has crumbled into dust ; and can we believe that time has decreed a 
nobler fate for modern faith?— a kindlier destiny for modern superstition ? 

Lord Byron sings in Childe Harold: 

" Even Gods must yield— religions take their turn : 
" 'Twas Jove's— 'tis Mahomet's— and other creeds 
" Will rise with other years, 'till man shall learn 
ti " Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds : 
' Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds."— E. 




(Geese of the Capitol 



II. 



THE PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND THE 
SENTIMENTS, MANNERS, NUMBERS, AND CONDITION OF 
THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS.f 

A CANDID but rational inquiry into the Importance 
progress and establishment of Christian- of the 
. ity may be considered as a very essential lnc i uir y- 
part of the history of the Roman empire. J While that great 
body was invaded by open violence, or undermined by 
slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated 
itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscuri- 
ty, derived new vigor from opposition, and finally erected 
the triumphant banner of the cross on the ruins of the Capitol. 
Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to the period 
or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a revolution of 
thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is still professed 
by the nations of Europe, — the most distinguished portion 
of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By 
the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely 

* Three hundred and ninety years before the Christian era the Gauls, under 
Brennus, besieged Rome. A daring party of these barbarians undertook at night 
to climb the steep rock of the Capitoline on the river side. The guards slept, not 
even a watch-dog bayed, and the foremost of the party had nearly reached the 
top when certain sacred geese in the temple of Juno, which stood near, began to 
cackle aloud and flap their wings. This tumult aroused the Romans, who repelled 
the invaders, and thus Rome was saved. — E. 

f Chap. XV. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. — E. 

J In spite of my resolution, Lardner led me to look through the famous fifteenth 
and sixteenth chapters of Gibbon. I could not lay them down without finishing 
them. The causes assigned in the fifteenth chapter, for the diffusion of Christian- 
ity, must, no doubt, have contributed to it materially ; but I doubt whether he saw 
them all. Perhaps those which he enumerates are among the most obvious. They 
might all be safely adopted by a Christian writer, with some change in the language 
and manner. Mackintosh; see Life, i. p. 244. — Milman. (105) 



106 SECONDARY CAUSES. 

diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa : 
and by the means of their colonies has been firmly estab- 
lished from Canada to Chili in a world unknown to the 
ancients. 

But this inquiry, however useful or entertain- 
its difficulties, ing, is attended with two peculiar difficulties.* 
The scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesias- 
tical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that 
hangs over the first age of the church. The great law of 
impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the imperfections 
of the uninspired teachers and believers of the gospel ; and, 
to a careless observer, their faults may seem to cast a shade 
on the faith which they professed. But the scandal of the 
pious Christian and the fallacious triumph of the Infidel, 
should cease as soon as they recollect not only by whom, but 
likewise to whom, the Divine Revelation was given. The 
theologian may indulge in the pleasing task of describing 
Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her 
native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed upon 
the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture 
of error and corruption, which she contracted in a long 
residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race 
of beings.f 

* After he had published this part of his work, Gibbon became aware of a third 
difficulty attending such an inquiry. (See his Memoirs, p. 230.) The prejudice 
which at first existed against these chapters is now abated. The milder tone, in 
which the errors of Gibbon are noticed by such translators as M. Guizot and such 
editors as Dean Milman, attests the improved feeling of the age ; while successive 
editions continue to prove the popularity and standard value of the work. — Eng. 
Churchman. 

After the clerical abuse so long showered upon Gibbon's writings, it is refreshing 
to see evidences of this " milder tone " which " attests the improved feeling of the 
age." — E. 

fThe art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impressions produced by these two 
memorable chapters, consists in confounding together, in one undistinguishable 
mass, the origin and apostolic propagation of the Christian religion with its later 
progress. The main question, the divine origin of the religion, is dexterously 
eluded or speciously conceded ; his plan enables him to commence his account, in 
most parts, below the apostolic times ; and it is only by the strength of the dark 
coloring with which he has brought out the faiiings and the follies of succeeding 
ages, that a shadow of doubt and suspicion is thrown back on the primitive period 
of Christianity. Divest this whole passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the 
subsequent tone of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a Christian 
history, written in the most Christian spirit of candor. — Milman*. 

Gibbon was a historian, not a theologian, and left to others the discussion of the- 
ological questions. He employed his great talents in writing an impartial history 
of the human origin of the Christian religion; but as this origin is involved in 
doubt and obscurity, he was compelled to admit at the commencement of his work 
that, "the scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable 
" us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church." The 
" art of Gibbon," to which Milman objects, consists in telling the exact and simple 
truth ; and "the unfair impressions produced by these two memorable chapters " 
upon the minds of certain over-zealous theologians, arises from their aversion to 
Gibbon's impartial narrative, which exposes, to use Milman's own words, " the 
" melancholy and humiliating views of the early progress of Christianity."— E. 



PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. ioy 

Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire 
by what means the Christian faith obtained so F "5 c t he Ses 
remarkable a victory over the established re- growth of 
ligions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious ns iamty ' 
but satisfactory answer may be returned ; that it was owing 
to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to 
the ruling providence of its great Author. But as truth 
and reason seldom find so favorable a reception in the 
world, and as the wisdom of Providence frequently conde- 
scends to use the passions of the human heart, and the 
general circumstances of mankind as instruments to exe- 
cute its purpose ; we may still be permitted, though with 
becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the first, 
but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of 
the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was 
most effectually favored and assisted by the live follow- 
ing causes: I. The inflexible, and, if we may use the 
expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it 
is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the 
narrow and unsocial spirit, which, instead of inviting, had 
deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses.* 
II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every ad- 
ditional circumstance which could give weight and effi- 
cacy to that important truth. III. The miraculous powers 
ascribed to the primitive church. IV. The pure and austere 
morals of the Christians. V. The union and discipline of the 
Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent 
and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire.f 

* Though we are thus far agreed with respect to the inflexibility and intolerance 
of Christian zeal, yet, as to the principle from which it was derived, we are, ioto 
ccelo, divided in opinion. You deduce it from the Jewish religion ; I would refer 
it to a more adequate and a more obvious source, a full persuasion of the truth 
of Christianity. Watson, Letters to Gibbon, i. 9. — Milman. 

Injustice to Bishop Watson, we quote from his letter another paragraph, which 
explains and qualifies the above extract made by Milman, whose zeal, if not his 
candor and sincerity, was always apparent "when religion demanded his services," 
as the " English Churchman " truly remarks. 

" I-mean not to produce these instances of apostolic zeal as direct proofs of the 
" truth of Christianity : for every religion, nay, every absurd sect of every religion, 
" has had its zealots, who have not scrupled to maintain their principles at the ex- 
" pense of their lives : and we ought no more to infer the truth of Christianity from 
" the mere zeal of its propagators, than the truth of Mahornetanism from that of a 
" Turk. When a man suffers himself to be covered with infamy, pillaged of his 
" property, and di'agged at last to the block or the stake, rather than give up his 
;t opinion, the proper inference is, not that his opinion is true, but that he believes 
" it to be true; and a question of serious discussion immediately presents itself, — 
" Upon what foundation has he built his belief? " — E. 

t There is a sixth cause, to which the others owed their efficacy. This was the 
want of a better religion, then beginning to be widely felt in the Greek and Roman 
world. They were outgrowing their polytheism; beginning to be ashamed of 
what Gibbon too flatteringly calls their " elegant mythology.'' From the days of 



I08 ZEAL OF THE JEWS. 

^ ., First. We have already described the religious 

The First , r . / . . 1 « >°»«- 

Cause. harmony of the ancient world, and the facility 

Zeal of the ^ v ith which the most different and even hostile 
s * nations embraced, or at least respected, each 
other's superstitions.* A single people refused to join inj 
the common intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who 

Thales to those of Cicero, philosophers had been vaguely striving to devise a more 
rational theology. Though unsuccessful in this, they had diffused around them a 
general dissatisfaction with the popular worship. To this feeling the first 
Macedonian rulers of Egypt, unwittingly perhaps, gave an energetic vivacity, by 
their active patronage of learning, and ingrafted on this a knowledge of the 
Mosaic religion, by means of the numerous Jews whom they planted and patron- 
ized in Alexandria and Cyrene, and by the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures 
into Greek. Throughout the East, but more especially in Egypt and Syria, great 
numbers were thus prepared to abandon heathenism and embrace a spiritual 
faith. — English Churchman. 

* This facility did not always prevent that intolerance which seems inherent in 
the spirit of religion whenever it is clothed with power. To separate ecclesiastical 
from civil authority appears to be the only means of preserving at once religion 
and toleration, but this idea is very modern. Passion blending itself with opinion, 
often rendered the Pagans intolerant or persecuting, — the Persians, the Egyptians, 
the Greeks, and even the Romans, may be brought in proof of this. 

ist. The Persians. — Cambyses, the conqueror of Egypt, condemned the magis- 
trates of Memphis to death, because they had rendered divine honors to their god, 
Apis ; he caused the god to be dragged through the streets, struck him with his 
dagger, commanded the priests to be beaten with rods, and that all the Egyptians 
who should be found celebrating the feast of Apis, should be put to the sword, and 
he burnt all the statues of their gods. Not content with this intolerance, he sent 
an army to reduce the Ammonians to servitude, and to burn the temple where 
Jupiter delivered his oracles. (See Herodotus, book iii. c. 25, 27, 28, 29, 37,— Trans, 
of M. Larcher, vol. iii. p. 22, 24, 25, 33.) Xerxes, during his invasion into Greece, 
acted on the same principle. He demolished all the temples of Greece and 01 
Ionia, except that of Ephesus. (See Pausanias, book vii, p. 533, and book x. p. 887. 
Strabo, book xiv. p. 941.) 

2d. The Egyptians. — Thev believed themselves polluted whenever thev had 
drank from the same cup, or eaten at the same table with a man of a belief different 
from their own. "Whoever had designedly killed any sacred animal, was punished 
" with death, but if any one had killed, even unintentionally, a cat or an ibis, he 
" could not escape the severest punishment ; the people dragged him to punish- 
" ment and cruelly treated him, often without waiting till judgment had been pro- 
" nouncedupon him. Even at the time when their king, Ptolemy, was not as yet the 
" declared friend of the Roman people, and when he paid his court with all possible 
" care to strangers coming from Italy, a Roman having killed a cat, the people 
" rushed to his house, and neither the entreaties of the nobles, whom the king had 
"sent to them, nor the terror of the Roman name, were sufficiently powerful to 
" rescue the man from punishment, though he had committed the crime involun- 
" tarily." Diod. Sic. i. 83. Juvenal, in his TJiirteenth Satire, describes the sanguin- 
ary conflict between the inhabitants of Ombos and of Tentyra, from religious 
animosity. The fury was carried so far, that the conquerors tore and devoured 
the quivering limbs of the conquered. 

Ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra, summus utrinque 
Inde furor vulgo, quod numina vicinorum 
Odit uterque locus ; quum solos credat habendos 
Esse Deos quos ipse colit. Sat. xv, v. 85. 

3d. The Greeks. — " Let us not here," savs the Abb" Guenee, "refer to the 
" cities of Peloponnesus and their severity against atheism ; the Ephesians pros- 
" ecuting Heraclitus for impiety ; the Greeks armed one against the other by reli- 
" gious zeal, in the Amphictyonic war. Let us say nothing either of the frightful 
" cruelties inflicted by three "successors of Alexander upon the Jews, to force them 
" to abandon their religion, nor of Antiochus expelling the philosophers from his 
" states. Let us not seek our proofs of intolerance so far off. Athens, the polite and 
" learned Athens, will supply us with sufficient examples. Every citizen made a 
" public and solemn vow to conform to the religion of his country", to defend it. and 
"to cause it to be respected. An express law severelv punished all discourses 
" against the gods ; and a rigid degree ordered the denunciation of all who should 
" deny their existence. * * * The practice was in unison with the severity of the 



THEIR UNSOCIAL SPIRIT. IO9 

under the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, had lan- 
guished for many ages the most despised portion of their 
slaves, * emerged from obscurity under the successors of 

1 Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque, et Persas Oriens fuit, despectissima pars 
servientium. Tacit. Hist. v. 8. Herodotus, who visited Asia whilst it obeyed the 
last of those empires, slightly mentions the Syrians of Palestine, who, according 
to their own confession, had received from Egypt the rite of circumcision. See 1. 
ii. c. 104. 

" law. The proceedings commenced against Protagoras ; a price set upon the head 
" of Diagoras ; the danger of Alcibiades ; Aristotle obliged to fly ; Stilpo banished ; 
" Anaxagoras hardly escaping death ; Pericles himself, after all his services to his 
" country, and all the glory he had acquired, compelled to appear before the 
" tribunals and make his defence ; * * a priestess executed for having introduced 
" strange gods; Socrates condemned and drinking the hemlock, because he was 
" accused of not recognizing those of his country, &c. ; these facts attest too loudly, 
" to be called in question, the religious intolerance of the most humane and en- 
" lightened people in Greece." Lettres de quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 221. 
(Compare Bentley on Freethinking, from which much of this is derived. — M.) 

4th. The Romans. — The laws of Rome were not less express and severe. The 
intolerance of foreign religions reaches, with the Romans, as high as the laws of 
the twelve tables ; the prohibitions were afterwards renewed at different times. 
Intolerance did not discontinue under the emperors ; witness the counsel of 
Maecenas to Augustus. This counsel is so remarkable, that I think it right to in- 
sert it entire. " Honor the gods yourself," says Maecenas to Augustus, " in every 
" way according to the usage of your ancestors, and compel {avdyKaC,e) others to 
" worship them. Hate and punish those who introduce strange gods {roijg 61 <5/) 
' tjevi&VTag fucet /cat K.61a&), not only for the sake of the gods (he who despises 
" them will respect no one), but because those who introduce new gods engage a 
" multitude of persons in foreign laws and customs. From hence arise unions 
" bound by oaths, and confederacies, and associations, things dangerous to a 
" monarchy." Dion Cass. I. ii, c. j6. (But, though some may differ from it, see 
Gibbon's just observation on this passage in Dion Cassius, ch. xvi, note 117 ; im- 
pugned, indeed, by M. Guizot, note in loc. — M.) 

Even the laws which the philosophers of Athens and of Rome wrote for their 
imaginary republics are intolerant. Plato does not leave to his citizens freedom of 
religious worship: and Cicero expressly prohibits them from having other gods than 
those of the state. Lettres de quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 226. — Guizot. 

According to M. Guizot's just remarks, religious intolerance will always ally 
itself with the passions of men, however different those passions may be. In the 
instances quoted above, with the Persians it was the pride of despotism ; to con- 
quer the gods of a country was the last mark of subjugation. With the Egyptians, 
it was the gross Fetichism of the superstitious populace, and the local jealousy of 
neighboring towns. In Greece, persecution was in general connected with political 
partv ; in Rome, with the stern supremacy of the law and the interests of the state. 
Gibbon has been mistaken in attributing' to the tolerant spirit of Paganism that 
which arose out of the peculiar circumstances of the times. _ 1st. The decay of the 
old Polytheism, through the progress of reason and intelligence, and the preva- 
lence of philosophical opinions among the higher orders. 2d. The Roman character, 
in which the political always predominated over the religious part. The Romans 
were contented with having bowed the world to a uniformity of subjection to their 
power, and cared not for establishing the (to them) less important uniformity cf 
religion. — Milman. 

M. Guizot maintains here, that " intolerance seems to be inherent in the religious 
spirit, when armed with power :" and at some length adduces authorities, to show 
that persecution was practiced by the Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. 
Some of these are very questionable, as proofs of his assertion ; and the " fearful 
cruelties," attributed to the "successors of Alexander, to make the Jews forsake 
their religion," are an entire perversion of the facts related by Josephus._ The 
general position might have been better attested ; but it will be found, that religious 
opinions never have been visited by pains and penalties, except to protect the 
wealth and emolument of the persecutors. — Eng. Churchman. 

Both the above editors substantially confirm Gibbon's statements concerning 
religious toleration, and Guizot shows that "intolerance seems inherent in the 
" spirit of religion whenever it is clothed with power." Freedom is best preserved 
by a total separation of ecclesiastical authority from political affairs.— E. 



IIO THE JEWS. 

Alexander ; and as they multiplied to a surprising degree 
in the East, and afterwards in the West, they soon excited 
the curiosity and wonder of other nations. 2 The sullen 
obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites and 
unsocial manners, seemed to mark them out as a distinct 
species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly dis- 
guised, their implacable hatred to the rest of human-kind. 3 
Neither the violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, 
nor the example of the circumjacent nations, could ever 
persuade the Jews to associate with the institutions of 
Moses the elegant mythology of the Greeks. 4 According 
to the maxims of universal toleration, the Romans protected 

2 Diodorus Siculus, 1. xl. Dion Casshis, I. xxxvii. p. 121. Tacit. Hist. v. I — 9. 
Justin, xxxvi. 2, 3. 

3 Tradidit arcano qusecunque volumine Moses, 
Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti, 
Quaesitum ad fontem solos deducere verpos. 
The letter of this law is not to be found in the present volume of Moses. But the 
wise, the humane Maimonides openly teaches that if an idolator fall into the water, 
a Tew ought not to save him from instant death. See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, 
l.vi. c. 28.* 

4 A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort of occasional conformity, 
derived from Herod, by whose example and authority they had been seduced, the 
name of Herodians. But their numbers were so inconsiderable, and their duration 
so short, that Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice. See Prideaux's 
Connection, vol. ii. p. 2S5.f 

* It is diametrically opposed to its spirit and to its letter ; see, among other 
passages, Dent. x. 18, 19, (God) " loveth the stranger in giving him food and rai- 
" ment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger : for ye were strangers in the land of 
" Egypt." Comp. Lev. xxiii. 25. Juvenal is a satirist, whose strong expressions 
can hardly be received as historic evidence ; and he wrote after the horrible cruel- 
ties of the Romans, which, during and after the war, might give some cause for 
the complete isolation of the Jew from the rest of the world. The Jew was a bigot, 
but his religion was not the only source of his bigotry. After how many centuries 
of mutual wrong and hatred, which had still further estranged the Jew from man- 
kind, did Maimonides write? — Milman. 

Maimonides ( Tractat. de Idololat. v. 34, vi. 38, x. 69") undoubtedly states the severe 
construction against idolators. which interpreters of the Hebrew Scriptures put on 
such passages, as : " thou shalt utterly destroy them," &c. : and, among other in- 
stances, cites that which Gibbon has quoted from Basnage. But he neither 
" teaches," nor inculcates the observance of them as a duty. To have done so, 
would have been altogether inconsistent with the general character of his writings 
and his whole course of action. His More Nevochim {Dnclor Dubitanthmt) is con- 
sidered to be the most rational book that ever came from the pen of a Rabbi, and 
excited among the bigots of his nation, such fierce animosity against him, that they 
inscribed their sentence ot excommunication even on his tomb. In his post as 
chief physician to Saladin. it was his employment to save the lives of the men of 
many faiths whom that liberal prince had collected in his court at Cairo, and whom 
the Jews regarded as idolators and heathens. By all these his death was lamented. 
In the page preceding that which he quoted, Gibbon might have seen the real 
value, not only of such denunciations and antipathies, but also of more positive 
injunctions ; for Basnage there says, that, according to the opinion of Eleazar, Jews 
might even so far break the second commandment, as to make graven images and 
ornaments for heathen temples, "pourvu q/i'on soit bienpaye." Hist, des Juifs, 
torn, vi, partie 2, p. 617. — Eng. Churchman. 

f The Herodians were probably more of a political party than a religious sect, 
though Gibbon is most likely right as to their occasional conformity. See Hist, 
of the yews, ii. 108. — Milman. 



THEIR PREJUDICES. Ill 

a superstition which they despised. 3 The polite Augustus 
condescended to give orders that sacrifices should be 
offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem; 6 
while the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should 
have paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, 
would have been an object of abhorrence to himself and to 
his brethren. But the moderation of the conquerors was 
insufficient to appease the jealous prejudices of their sub- 
jects, who were alarmed and scandalized at the ensigns of 
paganism, which necessarily introduced themselves into a 
Roman province. 7 The mad attempt of Caligula to place 
his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem, was defeated by 
the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded death 
much less than such an idolatrous profanation. 8 Their 
'attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detesta- 
tion of foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, 
as it was contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the 
strength, and sometimes with the fury, of a torrent. 

This inflexible perserverance, which appeared 
so odious or so ridiculous to the ancient world, ^l^gf 1 
assumes a more awful character, since Provi- 
dence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious history 
of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous 
attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among 
the Jews who lived under the second temple, becomes 
still more surprising, if it is compared with the stubborn 
incredulity of their forefathers. When the law was given 
in thunder from Mount Sinai ; when the tides of the ocean, 
and the course of the planets were suspended for the 
convenience of the Israelites ; and when temporal rewards 

6 Cicero pro Flacco, c. 28.* 

ePhilo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a perpetual sacrifice. Yet 
he approved of the neglect which his grandson Caius expressed towards the 
temple of Jerusalem. See Stieton. in August, c. 93, and Casaubon's notes on that 
passage. 

1 See, in particular, Josephi Antiquitat. xvii. 6 ; xviii. 3 ; and de Bell. Judaic. 
i. 33, and ii. 9, edit. Havercamp.t 

sjussi a Caio Caesare, efngiem ejus in templo locare, arma potius sumpsere. 
Tacit. Hist. v. 9. Philo and Josephus give a very circumstantial, but a very 
rhetorical, account of this transaction, which exceedingly perplexed the governor 
of Syria. At the first mention of this idolatrous proposal, King Agrippa fainted 
away; and did not recover his senses until the third day. (Hist, of yews, ii. 
1S1, &c.) 



* The edicts of Julius Caesar, and of some of the cities in Asia Minor (Krebs. 
Decret. pro Judcsis), in favor of the nation in general, or of the Asiatic Jews, speak 
a different language. — Milman. 

fThis was during the government of Pontius Pilate. (Hist, of yews, ii. 156.) 
Probably in part to avoid this collision, the Roman governor, in general, resided 
at Caesarea. — Milman. 



112 UNBELIEF OF THE FIRST JEWS. 

and punishments were the immediate consequences of 
their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into 
rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King, 
placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, 
and imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised 
in the tents of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phoenicia. 9 
As the protection of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn 
from the ungrateful race, their faith acquired a proportion- 
able degree of vigor and purity. The contemporaries of 
Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless indifference 
the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of every 
calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the 
Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of 
idolatry; and in contradiction to every known principle of 
the human mind, that singular people seems to have yielded 
a stronger and more ready assent to the traditions of their 
remote ancestors, than to the evidence of their own senses. 10 
_. . ,. . The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for 

Their religion , r J , . & . . ■, r 

better suited defence, but it was never designed ior conquest; 
t0 to conquest!" and it: seems probable that the number of pros- 
elytes was never much superior to that of 
apostates. The divine promises were originally made, 
and the distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined 
to a single family. When the posterity of Abraham had 
multiplied like the sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose 

9 For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian deities, it may be observed 
that Milton has comprised in one hundred and thirty very beautiful' lines the two 
large and learned syntagmas which Selden had composed on that abstruse subject. 

10 "How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they 
" believe me, for all the signs which I have shown among them ? " (Numbers xiv. 
ii. i It would be easy, but it would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the 
Deity from the whole tenor of the Mosaic history.* 

* Among a rude and barbarous people, religious impressions are easily made, 
and are as soon effaced. The ignorance which multiplies imaginary wonders, 
would weaken or destroy the effect of real miracle. At the period of the Jewish 
history, referred to in the passage from Numbers, their fears predominated over 
their faith, — the fears of an unwarlike people, just rescued from debasing slavery, 
and commanded to attack a fierce, a well-armed, a gigantic, and a far more 
numerous race, the inhabitants of Canaan. As to the frequent apostasy of the 
Jews, their religion was beyond their state of civilization. Xor is it uncommon 
for a people to cling with passionate attachment to that of which, at first, they 
could not appreciate the value. Patriotism and national pride will contend, even 
to death, for political rights which have been forced upon a reluctant people. The 
Christian may at least retort, with justice, that the great sign of his religion, the 
resurrection of Jesus, was most ardently believed, and most resolutely asserted by 
the eye-witnesses of the fact.— Milmax. 

Gibbon quotes Moses to show that the Jews did not believe in Jehovah, even 
when receiving his laws and commandments. Mil man asserts that the early 
Christians did believe in the resurrection of Jesus at the time of its occurrence. 
But what possible connection has their belief in this dogma with the skepticism of 
the Jews in regard to Jehovah? — E. 



JEWISH PROSELYTES. II3 

mouth they received a system of laws and ceremonies, 
declared himself the proper, and as it were the national 
God of Israel; and, with the most jealous care, separated 
his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The con- 
quest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so 
many wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, 
that the victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable 
hostility with all their neighbors. They had been com- 
manded to extirpate some of the most idolatrous tribes, and 
the execution of the Divine will had seldom been retarded 
by the weakness of humanity. With the other nations they 
were forbidden to contract any marriages or alliances ; and 
the prohibition of receiving them into the congregation, 
which in some cases was perpetual, almost always extended 
to the third, to the seventh, or even to the tenth generation. 
The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the faith of 
Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law, 
nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a 
voluntary duty. In the admission of new citizens, that 
unsocial people was actuated by the selfish vanity of the 
Greeks, rather than by the generous policy of Rome. The 
descendants of Abraham were flattered by the opinion that 
they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were 
apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance, 
by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth. A 
larger acquaintance with mankind extended their knowl- 
edge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the 
God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more 
indebted to the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the 
active zeal of his own missionaries. 11 The religion of 
Moses seems to be instituted for a particular country as 
well as for a single nation; and if a strict obedience had 
been paid to the order, that every male, three times in the 
year, should present himself before the Lord Jehovah, it 
would have been impossible that the Jews could ever have 
spread themselves beyond the narrow limits of the promised 
land. 12 That obstacle was indeed removed by the destruc- 
tion of the temple of Jerusalem ; but the most considerable 
part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction ; 
and the pagans, who had long wondered at the strange 

11 All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been very ably treated by Basnage, 
Hist, des yuifs, 1, vi. c. 6, 7. 

in See Exod, xxxiv. 23, Deut. xvi. 16, the commentators, and a very sensible 
note in the Universal History, vol. \, p. 603, edit, fol. 



114 CHRISTIANITY NOT EXCLUSIVE. 

report of an empty sanctuary, 13 were at a loss to discover 
what could be the object, or what could be the instruments, 
of a worship which was destitute of temples and of altars, of 
priests and of sacrifices. Yet even in their fallen state, the 
Jews, still asserting their lofty and exclusive privileges, 
shunned, instead of courting, the society of strangers. 
They still insisted with inflexible rigor on those parts of the 
law which it was in their power to practice. Their peculiar 
distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though 
burdensome observances, were so many objects of disgust 
and aversion for the other nations, to whose habits and 
prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The painful 
and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable of 
repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue. 14 
Under these circumstances, Christianity offered 
More I'of" 11 itself to the world, armed with the strength of 
Christianity, the Mosaic law, and delivered from the weight 
of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth of re- 
ligion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in 
the new as in the ancient system ; and whatever was now 
revealed to mankind concerning the nature and designs of 
the Supreme Being, was fitted to increase their reverence 
for that mysterious doctrine. The divine authority of Moses 
and the prophets was admitted, and even established, as the 
firmest basis of Christianity. From the beginning of the 
world, an uninterrupted series of predictions had announced 
and prepared the long expected coming of the Messiah, 
who, in compliance with the gross apprehensions of the 
Jews, had been more frequently represented under the 
character of a king and conqueror, than under that of a 
prophet, a martyr, and the Son of God. By his expiatory 
sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were at once 
consummated and abolished. The ceremonial law, which 
consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure 
and spiritual worship, equally adapted to all climates, as well 
as to every condition of mankind ; and for the initiation of 
blood was substituted a more harmless initiation of water. 
The promise of divine favor, instead of being partially con- 

13 When Pompey, using or abusing the right of conquest, entered into the Holy 
of Holies, it was observed with amazement, " Nulla intus Deum effigie, vacuatri 
" sedem et inania arcana." Tacit. Hist. v. 9. It was a popular saying, with re- 
gard to the Jews, "Nil praeter nubes et cceli numen adorant." 

14 A second kind of circumcision was inflicted on a Samaritan or Egyptian 
proselyte. The sullen indifference of the Talmudists, with respect to the con- 
version of strangers, may be seen in Basnage, Histoirs des Juifs, 1. vi. c. 6. 



ZEAL OF THE CHRISTIANS. 115 

fined to the posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed 
to the freeman and the slave, to the Greek and to the bar- 
barian, the Jew and to the Gentile. Every privilege that 
could raise the proselyte from earth to heaven, that could 
exalt his devotion, secure his happiness, or even gratify that 
secret pride, which, under the semblance of devotion, insinu- 
ates itself into the human heart, was still reserved for the 
members of the Christian Church ; but at the same time all 
mankind was permitted, and even solicited, to accept the 
glorious distinction, which was not only proffered as a favor, 
but imposed as an obligation. It became the most sacred 
duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and 
relations the inestimable blessings which he had received, 
and to warn them against a refusal that would be severely 
punished as a criminal disobedience to the will of a benevo- 
lent but all-powerful Deity. 

The enfranchisement of the Church from the obstinacy 
bonds of the synagogue, was a work however of and o f e t ^ s e ons 
some time and of some difficulty. The Jewish believing 
converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the charac- Jews - 
ter of the Messiah, foretold by their ancient oracles, respected 
him as a prophetic teacher of virtue and religion ; but they 
obstinately adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and 
were desirous of imposing them on the Gentiles, who con- 
tinually augmented the number of believers. These Judaizing 
Christians seem to have argued with some degree of plausi- 
bility from the divine origin of the Mosaic law, and from the 
immutable perfections of its great Author. They affirmed 
that if the Being, who is the same through all eternity, had 
designed to abolish those sacred rites which had served 
to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them would 
have been no less clear and solemn than their first promul- 
gation ; that, instead of those frequent declarations which 
either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic religion, 
it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme 
intended to last only till the coming of the Messiah, who 
should instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and 
of worship ; 15 that the Messiah himself, and his disciples who 
conversed with him on earth, instead of authorizing by their 
example the most minute observances of the Mosaic 

" These arguments were urged with great ingenuity by the Jew Orobio, and 
refuted with equal ingenuity and candor by the Christian Limborch. See the 
Aiinca Collatio (it well deserves that name), or account of the dispute between 
them. 



Il6 OBJECTIONS OF THE JEWS. 

law, 16 would have published to the world the abolition of those 
useless and obsolete ceremonies, without suffering Christian- 
ity to remain during so many years obscurely confounded 
among the sects of the Jewish church.* Arguments like 
these appear to have been used in the defence of the expiring 
cause of the Mosaic law ; but the industry of our learned 
divines has abundantly explained the ambiguous language 
of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous conduct of the 

16 Jesus . . . circumcisus erat ; cibis utebatur Judaicis ; vestitu simili ; purgatos 
scabie mittebat ad sacerdotes ; Paschata et alios dies festos religios f - observabat ; 
Si quos sanavit sabbatho, ostendit non tantum ex lege, sed et exeeptis sententiis, 
talia opera sabbatho non interdicta. Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christiana?, 1. 
v. c. 7. A little afterwards (c. 12) he expatiates on the condescension of the apostles. 

*J. E. Ritchie, in a recent work, The Religious Life of London, speaks as follows 
of the Jews of the present day : " We have seen a Prime Minister of England of 
"Jewish origin. Jews are in all respects on an equality with Christians; in art, 
'* and literature, and science, and the acquirement of wealth, they have displayed 
" a genius equal to our own. In practical piety — in the benevolence which teaches 
" the rich to give of their goods to the poor, they are infinitely our superiors. * * * 
" The children are educated in a way of which Christians' have no idea. The 
"Jewish free school in Brick Lane, [London,] with its three thousand children, is 
" a sight to see. There is, besides, an infant school equally flourishing, and no 
" poor Jew is relieved unless he sends his children to school. In the visiting of 
" the sick, in the care of the poor, all take their share. I believe a synagogue is a 
" little commonwealth in which tbe rich help the poor, most frequently by way of 
" small loans, and in which the strong take care of the weak. In these works of 
" beneficence all take their share, the humblest as well as those of more exalted 
" rank. The Jewish M. P. takes his place at the Board of Guardians. The Jewish 
" Countess will not only give of her wealth, but will leave her stately home and 
" seek out the abode of sorrow and distress. Charity is inculcated in the Talmud 
" as the first of duties ; and, if heaven is won by good works, the Jews are safe 
"and sure. As a theology, Judaism seems ritualism in excelsis. The Jewish 
" faith is contained in the Creed and the Shemang. Of the two, the latter is the 
" more important. It is a declaration of the unity of God, the first utterance of the 
" child, the last of the devout Jew as the watchers stand by his bedside, at the 
" head of which is the Shechinah, or Divine presence, and at the foot of which, 
'• with outstretched wing, waiting for the last breath, hovers the angel of death. 
" The Creed, which every Jew ought to believe and rehearse daily, but which they 
" treat as Churchmen do their Thirty-nine Articles, is as follows : — (1.) I believe, 
" with a perfect faith, that God (blessed be His name !) is the Creator and Governor 
" of all created beings, and that He alone has made, does make, and ever will 
" make, every production. (2.) I believe, with a perfect faith, that God (blessed 
" be His name !) is one God, and that there is no unity whatever like unto Him, 
" and that He alone is our God, who was, is, and will be eternally. (3.) I believe, 
" with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His name !) is not corporeal, nor 
" is He subject to any of those changes that are incidental to matter, and that He 
" has no similitude whatever. (4 ) I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator 
" (blessed be His name !) is both the first and last of all things. (5.) I believe, with 
" a perfect faith, that to the Creator (blessed be His name !) yea, to Him only, it is 
" proper to address our prayers, and that it is not proper lo pray to any other being. 
" (6.) I believe, with a perfect faith, that all the words of the prophets are true. 
" (7.) I believe, with a perfect faith, that the prophecy of Moses our instructor (may 
" his soul rest in peace !) was true, and that he excelled all the sages that preceded 
" him or they who may succeed him. (8.) I believe, with a perfect faith, that the 
" law which we have now in our possession is the same law which was given to 
" Moses by our instructor. (9 ) I believe., with a perfect faith, that this law will 
" never be changed, that the Creator (blessed be His name ! ) will never give us any 
" other law. (10.) I believe, with a perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His 
'" name !) knoweth all the actions and thoughts of mankind, as it is said, 'He 
'' ' fashioneth their hearts, and knoweth all their works.' (n.) I believe, with a 
" perfect faith, that the Creator (blessed be His name !) rewards those who observe 
" His commandments, and punishes those who transgress them. (12.) The Jew be- 
" lieves in the coming of the Messiah; and (13), in the resurrection of the dead." — E. 



CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 1 17 

apostolic teachers. It was proper gradually to unfold the 
system of the gospel, and to pronounce, with the utmost 
caution and tenderness, a sentence of condemnation so repug- 
nant to the inclination and prejudices of the believing Jews. 

The history of the church of Jerusalem affords i 

a lively proof of the necessity of those precau- NaS-ene 
tions, and of the deep impression which the church of 
Jewish religion had made on the minds of its jerusaem - 
sectaries. The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all 
circumcised Jews ; and the congregation over which they 
presided united the law of Moses with the doctrine of 
Christ. 17 It was natural that the primitive tradition of a 
church which was founded only forty years after the death 
of Christ, and was governed almost as many years under 
the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received 
as the standard of orthodoxy. 18 The distant churches very 
frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable 
parent, and relieved her distresses by a liberal contribution 
of alms. But when numerous and opulent societies were 
established in the great cities of the empire, in Antioch, 
Alexandria, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, the reverence 
which Jerusalem had inspired in all the Christian colonies 
insensibly diminished. The Jewish converts, or, as they 
were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who had laid the 
foundations of the church, soon found themselves over- 
whelmed by the increasing multitudes that from all the 
various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner 
of Christ; and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of 
their peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight 
of the Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more 
scrupulous brethren the same toleration which at first they 
had humbly solicited for their own practice. The ruin of 
the temple, of the city, and of the public religion of the 
Jews, was severely felt by the Nazarenes ; as in their man- 
ners, though not in their faith, they maintained so intimate , 
a connection with their impious countrymen, whose misfor- ' 
tunes were attributed by the Pagans to the contempt, and 

1 ■ Paene omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione credebant. Sulpichis 
Severus, ii 31. See Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. 1. iv. c. 5. 

18 Mosheim de Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum Magnum, p. 153. In this 
masterly performance, which I shall often have occasion to quote, he enters 
much more fully into the state of the primitive church, than he has an opportunity 
of doing in his General History* 

* The church at Antioch was founded much earlier. A5ls xi. 20 ; xiii. 1. — Eng. 
Churchman. 



Il8 THE NAZARENES. 

more justly ascribed by the Christians to the wrath, of the 
Supreme Deity. The Nazarenes retired from the ruins of 
Jerusalem* to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan, 
where that ancient church languished above sixty years in 
solitude and obscurity. 19 They still enjoyed the comfort 
of making frequent and devout visits to the Holy City, and 
the hope of being one day restored to those seats which 
both nature and religion taught them to love as well as to 
revere. But at length, under the reign of Hadrian, the 
desperate fanaticism of the Jews filled up the measure of 
their calamities ; and the Romans, exasperated by their re- 
peated rebellions, exercised the rights of victory with un- 
usual rigor. The emperor founded, under the name of 
^Elia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, 20 to which he 
gave the privileges of a colony ; and denouncing the 
severest penalties against any of the Jewish people who 
should dare to approach its precincts, he fixed a vigilant 
garrison of a Roman cohort to enforce the execution of his 
orders. The Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the 
common proscription, and the force of truth was on this 
occasion assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. 
They elected Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race 
of the Gentiles, and most probably a native either of Italy 
or of some of the Latin provinces.! At his persuasion the 
most considerable part of the congregation renounced the 
Mosaic law, in the practice of which they had preserved 
above a century. By this sacrifice of their habits and pre- 
judices they purchased a free admission into the colony of 
Hadrian, and more firmly cemented their union with the 
Catholic church. 21 

When the name and honors of the church of 

Ebionftes. Jerusalem had been restored to Mount Sion, the 

crimes of heresy and schism were imputed to the 

19 Eusebius I. iii. c. 5, Le Clerc, Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 605. During this occasional 
absence, the bishop and church of Pella still retained the title of Jerusalem. In 
the same manner, the Roman pontiffs resided seventy years at Avignon ; and the 
patriarchs of Alexandria have long since transferred their episcopal seat to Cairo. 

20 Dion Cassius, 1. lxix. The exile of the Jewish nation from Jerusalem is attested 
by Aristo of Pella {apud Euseb. 1. iv. c. 6), and is mentioned by several ecclesiastical 
writers ; though some of them too hastily extend this interdiction to the whole 
country of Palestine. 

21 Etisebius, 1. vi c 6. Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. By comparing their unsatis- 
factory accounts, Mosheim (p. 327, &c.) has drawn cut a very distinct representa- 
tion of the circumstances and motives of this revolution. 



* This is incorrect : all the traditions concur in placing the abandonment of the 
city by the Christians, not only before it was in ruins, but before the siege had 
commenced. Euseb. loc. cit., and Le Clerc. — Milman. 

t Marcus was a Greek prelate. See Doederlein. de Comment Ebionoeis, p. 10, — G. 



THE EBIONITES. II9 

obscure remnant of the Nazarenes which refused to ac- 
company their Latin bishop. They still preserved their 
former habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages 
adjacent to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church 
in the city of Bercea, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in 
Syria. 22 The name of Nazarenes was deemed too honorable - 1 
for those Christian Jews, and they soon received, from the 
supposed poverty of their understanding, as well as of their 
condition, the contemptuous epithet of Ebionites. 23 In a few 
years after the return of the church of Jerusalem, it became 
a matter of doubt and controversy, whether a man who 
sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah, but who still 
continued to observe the law of Moses, could possibly 
hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr 
inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative ; and 
though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffi- 
dence, he ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect 
Christian, if he were content to practice the Mosaic cere- 
monies, without pretending to assert their general use or 
necessity. But when Justin was pressed to declare the 
sentiment of the church, he confessed that there were very 
many among the orthodox Christians, who not only excluded 

22 Le Clerc (Hist. Ecclesiast. pp. 477, 535) seems to have collected from Eusebius, 
Jerome, Epiphanius, and other writers, all the principal circumstances that relate 
to the Nazarenes or Ebionites. The nature of their opinions soon divided them 
into a stricter and a milder se6l ; and there is some reason to conjecture, that the 
family of Jesus Christ remained members, at least, of the latter and more moderate 
party. 

23 Some writers have been pleased to create an Ebion, the imaginary author of 
their sect and name. But we can more safely rely on the learned Eusebius than 
on the vehement Tertullian, or the credulous' Epiphanius. According to Le Clerc, 
the Hebrew word Ebjonim may be translated into Latin by that of Pauperes. See 
Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477.* 

*The opinion of Le Clerc is generally admitted; but Neander has suggested 
Some good reasons for supposing that this term only applied to poverty of con- 
dition. The obscure history of their tenets and divisions, is clearly and rationally 
traced in his History of the Church, vol. i. part ii. p. 612, &c, Germ. edit. — Milman. 

" Ebionites." — The name of Ebionites was of earlier date. The first Christians 
of Jerusalem were called ebionites, on account of the poverty to which they were 
reduced by their deeds of benevolence. (See the Acts of the Apostles, c. 4. v. 34: 
and c. 11. v. 30. the Epistle to the Galatians, c. 2. v. 10. Romans, c. 15. v. 26.) This 
name was also given to those Jewish christians who still retained their Judaizing 
opinions, and lived at Pella; they were finally accused of denying the divinity of 
Jesus Christ, and as such excluded from the church. The Socinians who have 
recently denied this doclrine, have availed themselves of the example of the 
Ebionites, to prove that the primitive Christians held to the same opinions which 
they profess on this subject. Artemon among others, has developed this argument 
in ail its force ; Dcederlein and other modern theologians have proved that the 
Ebionites were falsely accused in this respecL {Comment aires de Ebionoeis, 1770, 
'i 1 — 8.) — Guizot. 

The passages in scripture quoted above contain no proofs of the early Christians 
in Jerusalem having been called Ebionites, nor do they indicate such poverty as 
would have warranted the appellation. — 'English Churchman. 



120 THE GNOSTICS. 

their Judaizing brethren from the hope of salvation, but who 
declined any intercourse with them in the common offices of 
friendship, hospitality, and social life. 24 The more rigorous 
opinion prevailed, as it was natural to expect., over the 
milder ; and an eternal bar of separation was fixed between 
the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The unfortunate 
Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates, and from 
the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to assume 
a more decided character ; and although some traces of that 
obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century, 
they insensibly melted away, either into the church or the 
synagogue. 25 

While the orthodox church preserved a just 
The Gnostics, medium between excessive veneration and im- 
proper contempt for the law of Moses, the various 
heretics deviated into equal but opposite extremes of error 
and extravagance. From the acknowledged truth of the 
Jewish religion, the Ebionites had concluded that it could 
never be abolished. From its supposed imperfections, the 
Gnostics as hastily inferred that it never was instituted by 
the wisdom of the Deity. There are some objections against 
the authority of Moses and the prophets which too readily 
present themselves to the skeptical mind ; though they can 

21 See the very curious dialogue of Justin Martyr with the Jew Tryphon.* The 
conference between them was held at Ephesus, in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and 
about twenty years after the return of the church of Pella to Jerusalem. For this 
date consult the accurate note of Tillemont, Memoir es Ecclesiastiques, torn. ii. p. 511. 

£5 Of all the systems of Christianity, that of Abyssinia is the only one which still 
adheres to the Mosaic rites. (Geddes's Church History of Ethiopia, and Disser- 
tations de La Grand sur la Relation du P. Lobo.) The eunuch of the queen Candace 
might suggest some suspicions; but as we are assured {Socrates, i. 19. Sozomen, 
ii. 24. Ludolphus, p. 281) that the Ethiopians were not converted till the fourth 
century, it is more reasonable to believe that they respected the Sabbath, and dis- 
tinguished the forbidden meats, in imitation of the Jews, who, in a very early 
period, were seated on both sides of the P.ed Sea. Circumcision had been practised 
by the most ancient ^Ethiopians, from motives of health and cleanliness, which 
seem to be explained in the Recherches Philosophiqu.es sur les Americains, torn, 
ii- P- "7- 

*Justin Martyr made an important distinction, which Gibbon has left unnoticed. 
The first Jew-Christians were called Ebionites, and had retired to Pella. Those 
who were persuaded by their bishop, Marcus, to abandon, at least partially, the 
Mosaic law and return to Jerusalem, took the name of Nazarenes ; those who per- 
sisted in their Judaism retained that of Ebionites. These last alone are rejected 
by the church, and severely reprehended by Justin Martyr. He is more ienient 
towards the Nazarenes, who, though still observing themselves some parts of the 
Mosaic law, did not compel pagan converts to conform to it ; while the Ebionites, 
properly so called, desired to enforce their compliance. This appears to have been 
the principal distinction between the two sects. Doederlein, p. 25. — Guizot. 

In all this we see that there was a considerable difference between early Jew 
and Greek Christianity. The " Greek prelate " Marcus prevailed on some to 
adopt the latter, while the others, who continued recusant, were disowned by the 
two religions between which they stood, and gradually disappeared. This explains 
Justin Martyr's severity. — English Churchman. 



SKEPTICISM OF THE GNOSTICS. 121 

only be derived from our ignorance of remote antiquity, and 
from our incapacity to form an adequate judgment of the 
divine economy. These objections were eagerly embraced 
and as petulantly urged by the vain science of the Gnostics. 26 
As those heretics were, for the most part, averse to the 
pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the polygamy 
of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio 
of Solomon. The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the 
extirpation of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss 
how to reconcile with the common notions of humanity and 
justice.* But when they recollected the sanguinary list of 
murders, of executions, and of massacres, which stain almost 
every page of the Jewish annals,f they acknowledged that 
the barbarians of Palestine had exercised as much com- 
passion towards their idolatrous enemies, as they had ever 

2i Beausobre, Histoire du Manichiisme, 1. i. c. 3, has stated their objections, 
particularly those of Faustus, the adversary of Augustin, with the most learned 
impartiality. 

* On the " war law " of the Jews, see Hist, of yews, i. 137. — Milman. 

■j-The Jews have been persecuted and despised by all nations and all seels. The 
Mahometans trace their origin to Abraham, whom they revere : the Christians 
base their hope of salvation upon the promises made to the seed of the same 
Chaldean patriarch; yet, while Christians and Mahometans can agree on no 
other subject, they willingly unite in persecuting Abraham's descendants, — the 
" chosen people." It is true the Jews were an ignorant, brutal and idolatrous 
nation, and perhaps merited a portion of the suffering they were forced to en- 
dure ; but the better class of the Hebrews were superior to many of the early 
Christians, and probably not much inferior to the Pagans. It must at least be 
said to their credit, that they never mutilated their persons, like the Christian 
fanatics, who made " themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake," as 
taught to believers, in Matt. xix. 12. As a stream never rises above its source, 
we should not expect to find the early Jews paragons of morality. Their founder, 
Abraham, surrendered his wife Sarah to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who " entreated 
" Abraham well for her sake, and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and 
" men servants and maid servants, and she asses and camels." (Gen. xii. 15- 16.) 
Like the goddess Hebe, Madame S. seemed endowed with immortal youth, for at 
ninety years of age, when most sensualists become prudish and pious, she was still 
gay and charming. The lustful Abimelech, king of Gerar, was the next victim to 
this aged beauty's charms, and the pious and thrifty Abraham received in com- 
pensation one thousand pieces of silver and further important additions to his 
live stock. (Gen. xx. 2, 14, 16.) King David, (who was the ancestor of Joseph, 
the husband of Mary,) debauched Bath-sheba, the legal wife of Uriah, the 
Hittite, and when this wanton informed him that she had conceived, he conspired 
against her husband's life. (II. Sam. xi. 2-17.) The Lord sent Nathan, the 
prophet, to rebuke this villainy, which duty he eloquently performed. (II. Sam. xii. 
1-7.) He afterwards, however, anointed Solomon, the offspring of sin and shame, 
as king of Israel. This worthy surrounded himself with a seraglio of three 
hundred concubines and seven hundred wives and princesses. He became an 
idolator, worshiping " Ashtoreth," the goddess of the Zidonians, " Milcom," the 
abomination of the Ammonites, "Chemosh," the abomination of Moab, and 
''Moleeh," the abomination of the children of Ammon. (I. Kings xi. 3-7.) He 
taught that all was vanity, and " that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth 
'' beasts ; even one thing befalleth them : as the one dieth, so dieth the other ; yea, 
? they have all one breath ; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast. All 
" go unto one place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." (Eccles. iii. 
19, 20.) In view of the above facts, we ask, were not the Gnostics justified for their 
" morose arraignment of the polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, 
" and the seraglio of Solomon ?" — E. 



122 DISBELIEF OF THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT. 

shown to their friends or countrymen. 27 Passing" from the 
sectaries of the law to the law itself, they asserted that it was 
impossible that a religion which consisted only of bloody 
sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well 
as punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, 
could inspire the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity 
of passion. The Mosaic account of the creation and fall of 
man was treated with profane derision by the Gnostics, who 
would not listen with patience to the repose of the Deity 
after six days' labor, to the rib of Adam, the garden of Eden, 
the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking serpent, the 
forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against 
human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors. 28 
The God of Israel was impiously represented by the Gnostics 
as a being liable to passion and to error, capricious in his 
favor, implacable in his resentment, meanly jealous of his 
superstitious worship, and confining his partial providence 
to a single people, and to this transitory life. In such a 
character they could discover none of the features of the 
wise and omnipotent Father of the universe. 29 They allowed 
that the religion of the Jews was somewhat less criminal than 
the idolatry of the Gentiles : but it was their fundamental 
doctrine that the Christ whom they adored as the first and 
brightest emanation of the Deity appeared upon earth to 
rescue mankind from their various errors, and to reveal a 

2" Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu : adversus omnes alios 
hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4. Surely Tacitus had seen the Jews with too 
favorable an eye.t The perusal of Josephus must have destroyed the antithesis. 

•-'- Dr. Burnet Archceologia. 1. ii. c. 7) has discussed the first chapters of Genesis 
with too much wit and freedom. \ 

w The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the Creator, as a Being of a mixed 
nature between God and the Daemon. Others confounded him with the evil 
principle. Consult the second century of the general history of Mosheim, which 
gives a very distinct, though concise, account of their strange opinions on this 
subject. 

f Few writers have suspected Tacitus of partiality towards the Jews. The whole 
latter history of the Jews illustrates as well their strong feelings of humanitv to 
their brethren, as their hostility to the rest of mankind. The character and the 
position of Josephus with the Roman authorities, must be kept in mind during the 
perusal of his History. Perhaps he has not exaggerated the ferocity and fanaticism 
of the Jews at that time ; but insurrectionary warfare is not the best school for the 
humaner virtues, and much must be allowed for the grinding tyranny of the later 
Roman governors. See Hist, of Jen,' s. ii. 254. — Mjlman. 

\ Dr. Burnet apologized for the levity with which he had conducted some of his 
arguments, by the excuse that he wrote in a learned language for scholars alone, 
not for the vulgar. Whatever may be thought of his success in tracing an Eastern 
allegory in the first chapters in Genesis, his other works prove him to have been 
a man of great genius and of sincere piety. — Milman. 

A "recent work on this subject, entitled Some Mistakes of Moses, has met with a 
favorable reception. The author, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, like the Rev. Dr. 
Burnet, is also "a man of great genius" if not "of sincere piety." — E. 



IMPRUDENT ADMISSIONS OF THE FATHERS. 1 23 

nezv system of truth and perfection. The most learned 
of the fathers, by a^ very singular condescension, have 
imprudently admitted the sophistry of the Gnostics.* 
Acknowledging that the literal sense is repugnant to every 
principle of faith as well as reason, they deem themselves 
secure and invulnerable behind the ample veil of allegory, 
which they carefully spread over every tender part of the 
Mosaic dispensation. E0 "r 

It has been remarked with more ingenuity 
than truth that the virgin purity of the church Their seas, 
was never violated by schism or heresy before pr jjSSnce? 
the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one 
hundred years after the death of Christ. 31 We may observe 
with much more propriety, that, during that period, the 
disciples of the Messiah were indulged in a freer latitude, 
both of faith and practice, than has ever been allowed ir 
succeeding ages. As the terms of communion were insen- 
sibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority of the prevailing 
party was exercised with increasing severity, many of its 
most respectable adherents, who were called upon to re- 
nounce, were provoked to assert their private opinions, to 
pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and 
openly to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity 
of the church. The Gnostics were distinguished as the most 

30 See Beausobre. Hist, du Manicheisme, 1. i. c. 4. Origen and St. Augustin were 
among the allegorists. 

31 Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. 1. iii. 32, iv. 22. Clemens Alexandrin. Stromat. vii. 17.J 



*The Gnostics, and the historian who has stated these plausible objections with 
so much force as almost to make them his own, would have shown a more con- 
siderate and not less reasonable philosophy, if they had considered the religion of 
Moses with reference to the age in which it was promulgated ; if they had done 
justice to its sublime as well as its more imperfect views of the divine nature ; the 
humane and civilizing provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as those adapted for 
an infant and barbarous people. See Hist, of yews, i. 36, 37, &c. — Milman. 

t In a few terse sentences Gibbon has here clearly and accurately outlined the 
Mosaic theology, while huge tomes of most unsatisfactory criticism have been pro- 
duced on the same subject by inferior writers. It was this grand faculty, of clearly 
comprehending his subject and graphically stating its salient points in the fewest 
possible words, that has made Gibbon's History so unpalatable to the sectarians 
and so popular with the public. His opponents may perchance discover an error 
in a date, or a possible mistake in transcribing a quotation, but these trivial 
objections seem peurile and insignificant when opposed to his masterly and eloquent 
statement of facts. In despair the sagacious Paley exclaims, when striving to 
combat Gibbon, " Who can refute a sneer? " But in fact a sneer, which may con- 
vict a fraud or expose an error, falls harmless and impotent when confronted 
with the simple majesty of truth. — E. 

t The assertion of Hegesippus is not so positive : it is sufficient to read the whole 
passage in Eusebius, to see that the former part is modified by the latter. Hege- 
sippus adds, that up to this period the church had remained pure and immaculate 
as a virgin. Those who labored to corrupt the doctrines of the gospel worked as 
yet in obscurity. — Guizot. 



124 CONFLICTING SECTS. 

polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy of the Chris- 
tian name ; and that general appellation, which expressed a 
superiority of knowledge, was either assumed by their own 
pride, or ironically bestowed by the envy of their adversa- 
ries. They were almost without exception of the race of the 
Gentiles, and their principal founders seem to have been 
natives of Syria or Egypt, where the warmth of the climate 
disposes both the mind and the body to indolent and con- 
templative devotion. The Gnostics blended with the faith 
of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which they de- 
rived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion 
of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence 
of two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invis- 
ible world. 32 As soon as they launched out into that vast 
abyss, they delivered themselves to the guidance of a dis- 
ordered imagination ; and as the paths of error are various 
and infinite, the Gnostics were imperceptibly divided into 
more than fifty particular sects, 33 of whom the most celebrated 
appear to have been the Basilidians, the Valentinians, the 
Marcionites, and, in a still later period, the Manichaeans. 
Each of these seels could boast of its bishops and congrega- 
tions, of its doctors and martyrs ; ** and, instead of the four 
Gospels adopted by the church, f the heretics produced a 

32 In the account of the Gnostics of the second and third centuries, Mosheim is 
ingenious and candid; Le Clerc dull, but exact; Beausobre almost always an 
apologist ; and it is much to be feared that the primitive fathers are very frequently 
calumniators.* 

ss See the catalogues of Irenaeus and Epiphanius. It must indeed be allowed 
that those writers were inclined to multiply the number of sects which opposed the 
unity of the church. 

zi'Eusebius, 1. iv. c. 15. Sozomen, 1. ii. c. 32. See in Bayle, in the article of 
Marcion, a curious detail of a dispute on that subject. It should seem that some 
of the Gnostics (the Basilidians) declined, and even refused, the honor of martyr- 
dom. Their reasons were singular and abstruse. See Mosheim, p. 359. 

*The Histoire du Gnosticisme of M. Matter is at once the fairest and most com- 
plete account of these sects. — Milman. 

The Gnostics were the offspring of philosophy, in the early stages of the pro- 
gress of Christianity. The time when they arose is uncertain ; nor had thev any 
eminent founder or fixed rule of faith. They appear to have originated as soon as 
the new religion became generally known ; they were the most educated among 
the heathens, and abounded principally in those Eastern countries, that were most 
pervaded by the philosophical notions of the age. Till the beginning of the second 
century, the Christian churches did not possess their scriptures, and had no 
common standard of orthodoxy. They had only traditions of what their great 
teacher had proclaimed, and these every individual adapted for himself to his own 
peculiar philosophy, be it what it might, and fashioned them to his own liking and 
degree of knowledge. This freedom of thought brought within the pale of the 
church all who had in any way learned to discredit the fables of polytheism, and 
the example of the higher drew the lower after them. Churches were thus or- 
ganized, into which, when they received the Scriptures, stricter canons were 
introduced. — English Churchman. 

fM. Hahn has restored the Marcionite Gospel with great ingenuity. His work 
is reprinted in Thilo. Codex. Apoc. <Xov. Test. vol. i. — Milman. 



ORIGEX, THE CHRISTIAN PRIEST. 1 25 

multitude of histories, in which the actions and discourses 
of Christ and of his apostles were adapted to their respective 
tenets. 35 The success of the Gnostics was rapid and exten- 

35 See a very remarkable passage of Origen * {Proem, ad Lucam.) That inde- 
fatigable writer, who had consumed his life in the study of the Scriptures, relies 
for their authenticity on the inspired authority of the church. It was impossible 
that the Guostics could receive our present Gospels, many parts of which (partic- 

* " Origen ' says the Rev. Robert Taylor, in 77ie Diegesis, (ch. xlii., p. 328-332,) 
" was the most distinguished priest of the Christian religion, while Constantine 
" was its most distinguished patron. Origen was born in that great cradle and 
" nursery of all superstition, Egypt, in the year 184 or 1S5, and died a. d. 253. He 
" had studied under that celebrated philosopher, Ammonius Saccas, who, in the 
" second century, had taught that ' Christianity and Paganism when rightly under- 
" ' stood, differed in no essential points, but had^a common origin, and really were 
" ' one and the same religion, nothing but the schismatical trickery of fanatical 
" 'adventurers, who sought to bring over the trade and profits of spiritualizing 
" ' into their own hands, having introduced a distinction where in reality there 
" 'was no difference.' This was unquestionably the orthodox doctrine of the 
" second century, and it so entirely quadrates with all the historical phenomena, 
'• that one cannot but hold it honorable both to Origen's head and heart, that he 
" has owned his early proficiency in the Ammonian philosophy, under this, its 
" illustrious master. In the sincerity of his devotion to the cause of Monkery — 
" from which Christianity is unquestionably derived, ' he was guilty of that rash 
" ' act so well known,' which he held to be his duty as inculcated by Christ in the 
" celebrated Matt. xix. 12. ' But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this 
" ' doctrine, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs which were 
" ' so born from their mother s womb, and there are some eunuchs wkicii were made 
" ' eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for 
" ' the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it. let him receive it.' 
" The Jewish law, which strictlv forbade the making any sort of cuttings in the 
" flesh, and allowed not an eunuch so much as to enter into the congregation of 
" the Lord, 1 Deut. xxiii. 1,) stands in resistless demonstration of the fact, that these 
" eunuchs were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. We have to look then 
" (where we shall assuredly find them,) to the monks of Egypt, who practised 
" these excisions, and whose sacred books were none other than the original, or 
" first written tale, from which our three first gospels are derived. (Such was the 
" opinion of Eusebius himself.) Lardner thus sums up Origen's character; ' He 
" ' had a capacious mind, and a large compass of knowledge, and though not per- 
" ' feet, nor infallible, was a bright light in the church of Christ, and one of those 
" ' rare personages that have done honor to the human nature.' (Lardner, vol. i. 
*' p. 528.) He is undoubtedly the most distinguished personage in the whole drama 
" of the Christian' evidences, nor can any man who believes Christianity to be a 
'' blessing to mankind have the least hesitation in pronouncing him to have been 
" one of the wisest, greatest, and best of men that was ever engaged in promoting 
" it. He is the first author who has given us a distinct catalogue of the books of 
" the Xew Testament, the first in whose writings such a name occurs as expressive 
" of such a collection of writings : nor would any writings that he had seen fit to 
'" reject have ever conquered their way into canonical authority : nor any that he 
** has once admitted, have been rejected. If there be consistency, harmony, or 
i; anywhere in those writings an observance of historical congruity, — the sacred 
" text owes its felicity to the criticisms and emendations of Origen, who pruned 
" excrescences, exscinded the more glaring contradictions, inserted whole verses 
" of his own pure ingenuity and conjecture, and diligently labored, by claiming for 
" the whole a mystical and allegorical sense, to rescue it from the contempt of the 
'* wise, and to moderate its excitement on the minds of the vulgar. His character 
" needs only the apology which human nature claims for every man — his situation. 
" He was in every sense of the word a master spirit — a civilized being among the 
<; wild men of the woods There is no occasion, however, to act on Dr. Lardner's 
" avowed principle of concealing facts to promote piety. (Lardner, vol. i. p. 552 ) 
" It is not to be denied, that this wisest, greatest, best that ever bore the Christian 
"name, relapsed at last into Paganism — publicly denied his Lord and Master, 
"Jesus Christ, and did sacrifice unto idols. The proof is to be found in Origen's 
" own writings, and is confirmed in his life, in the Greek of Suidas. His dolorous 
" lamentation and repentance after this outrageous apostasy, presents us with the 
" most authentic, and at the same time most demonstrative view of the interior 
" character of the most primitive Christianity." — E. 






126 GNOSTICISM AND PHILOSOPHY. 

sive. a6 They covered Asia and Egypt, established themselves 
in Rome, and sometimes penetrated into the provinces of 
the West.* For the most part they arose in the second 
century, nourished during the third, and were suppressed 
in the fourth or fifth, by the prevalence of more fashionable 

ularly in the resurrection of Christ) are directly, and as it might seem designedly, 
pointed against their favorite tenets. It is therefore somewhat singular that 
Ignatius {Episl. ad Smyrn. Patr. Apostol. torn. ii. p. 34) should choose to employ a 
vague and doubtful tradition, instead of quoting the certain testimony of the 
evangelists.! 

36 Faciunt favos et vespae ; faciunt ecclesias et Marcionitae, is the strong expres- 
sion of Tertullian, which I am obliged to quote from memory. In the time of 
Epiphanius (advers. Heereses, p. 302) the Marcionites were very numerous in Italy, 
Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia'. 

* " The Gnosis, or Gnosticism," says Rev. Robert Taylor, in The Diegesis, p. 37, 
" comprehends the doctrine of the Magi, the philosophy of the Persians, Chalde- 
" ans, and Arabians, and the wisdom of the Indians and Egyptians. It is distinctly 
" to be traced in the text and do6trines of the New Testament. It was from the 
" bosom of this pretended oriental wisdom, that the chiefs of those sects, which, 
" in the three first centuries, perplexed the Christian church, originally issued. 
" The name itself signified, that its professors taught thewayto the true knowledge 
" of the Deity. Their most distinguished sect inculcated the notion of a triumvirate 
" of beings, in which the Supreme Deity was distinguished both from the material 
" evil principle, and from the creator of this sublunary world. The Philosophy, 
" comprehended the Epicureans, the most virtuous and rational of men, who 
" maintained that wisely consulted pleasure, was the ultimate end of man : the 
" Academics, who placed the height of wisdom in doubt and skepticism ; the 
"Stoics, who maintained a fortitude indifferent to all events; the Aristotelians, 
" who, after their master, Aristotle, held the most subtle disputations concerning 
" God, religion, and the social duties, maintaining that the nature of God resembles 
" the principle that gives motion to a machine, that it is happy in the contemplation 
"of itself, and entirely regardless of human affairs; the Platonists, from their 
" master, Plato, who taught the immortality of the soul, the doctrine of the trinity, 
" of the manifestation of a divine man, who should be crucified, and the eternal 
" rewards and punishments of a future life ; and from all these resulting, the 
" Eclectics, who, as their names signifies elected, and chose what they held to be 
" wise and rational, out of the tenets of all sects, and rejected whatever was con- 
" sidered futile and pernicious. The Eclectics held Plato in the highest reverence. 
" Their college or chief establishment was at Alexandria in Egypt. Their founder 
"was supposed to have been one Pot anion. The most indubitable testimonies 
" prove, that this Philosophy was in a flourishing state, at the period assigned to 
" the birth of Christ. The Eclectics are the same as the Therapeuts or Essenes of 
" Philo, and whose sacred writings are, by Eusebius, shown to be the same as our 
" gospels. Nought, but the supposed expediency of deceiving the vulgar, and of 
" perpetuating ignorance, hinders the historian, [Mosheim,] to whom I am, for the 
" substance of this chapter, so much indebted, from acknowledging the fact, that 
" in every rational sense that can be attached to the word, they were the authors 
" and real founders of Christianity." — E. 

f Bishop Pearson has attempted very happily to explain this " singularity." The 
first Christians were acquainted with a number of sayings of Jesus Christ, which 
are not related in our Gospels, and indeed have never been written. Why might 
not St. Ignatius, who had lived with the apostles or their disciples, repeat in other 
words that which St. Luke has related, particularly at a time when, being in prison, 
he could have had the Gospels at hand ? Pearson, Void. Ign. pp. 2, 9 ; p. 396, in 
torn. ii. Patres Apos. ed Coteler. — Gitizot. 

Eusebius (Hist. Ecc. iii. 37) says that, in the time of Hadrian, Quadratus and 
others travelled among the churches "to deliver the Scriptures of the holy 
Gospels," which do not appear to have been in their possession before. The 
journey of Ignatius to Rome was in the preceding reign of Trajan. In exhorting 
the Christian communities among whom he passed, he could therefore appeal to 
no other rule of faith than the " traditions of the Apostles." Mr Davis contested 
this, in the passage cited by M. Guizot, and for that purpose, made the Greek term 
for " the Gospel" (or the Christian religion), mean " the gospels ;" (or the narra- 
tives of our four Evangelists.) — English Churchman. 



THE ESSEXES OR THERAPEUTS. 1 27 

controversies, and by the superior ascendant of the reigning 
power. Though they constantly disturbed the peace, and 
frequently disgraced the name of religion, they contributed 
to assist rather than to retard the progress of Christianity.* 
The Gentile converts, whose strongest objections and pre- 

* The Essenes or Therapeuts, whose chief college was at Alexandria, in Egypt, 
had manv doctrines in common with Christ and his apostles. In his great work, 
entitled An Inanity into the History of the Originals of King James's Bible, page 
262, Mr. Oliver White says : "Whoever will candidly consider what has been said 
" of the Essenes, their mode of life, their holding all their property in common, 
" except their weapons, their wearing white garments and calling each other 
" brethren, their wandering from city to city, and saying grace and returning 
" thanks before and after meat, their having curators who were ministers of peace, 
" their swearing 'not at all' except to keep their own creed, their obeying the 
" powers that be, for the powers that be are of God? their notions of future re- 
" wards and punishments, of the corruptibility of bodies, and the incorruptibility 
" of souls, their curing distempers, foretelling that which is to come, keeping the 
*' seventh dav, excommunicating those who did not keep the oaths they had taken, 
" or kept anything secret from their brethren, or disclosing the secrets of their 
" brethren, ' for unto the disciples it is given to know the kingdom of heaven,' will 
" perceive a resemblance between the manner of teaching and living among the Es- 
" senes and the teaching and manner of living recommended in the Xew Testament 
"too great to be merely accidental. The writers of the originals of the Gospels, as 
" we have them, were evidently Essenes, or those who had obtained the notions they 
" have expressed from a source that was common to both, and older than either." 
Indeed, the resemblance between the early Christians and the Essenes is so great, 
that the Rev. Robert Taylor claims, in his Diegesis, page 67, that Alexandria was 
the cradle of Christianitv,— that the Christian scriptures, doctrines, discipline and 
ecclesiastical polity existed in these monkish establishments long anterior to the 
period assigned as that of the birth of Christ, —that the Egyptian Therapeuts 
were Christians before the Augustan era, — that the titles, Essenes, Therapeuts, 
Ascetics, Monks, Ecclesiastics and Eclectics, are but different names for one and 
the self-same sect, — that the word Bssene is nothing more than the Egyptian 
word for that of which Therapeut is the Greek, each of them signifying healer or 
doctor, and designating the character of the sect as professing to be endowed with 
the miraculous gift of healing, — that the name of Ascetics indicated the severe 
discipline and exercise of self-mortification, long fastings, prayers, contemplation, 
and even making of themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven s sake, as did 
Origen, Melito, and others, who derived their Christianity from the same school : 
and that Christ himself is represented to have recognized and approved their 
practice ; — that the name of Monks indicated their delight in solitude, their con- 
templativeXxtt, and their entire segregation and abstraction from the world : which 
Christ, in th^ Gospel, is in like manner represented, as describing as characteristic 
of the community of which he himself was a member. (" They are not of the world, 
" even as I am not of the world." John xyii. i5. " I pray for them, I pray not for 
" the world." Ibid 9.) — That the name of ecclesiastics was of the same sense, and 
indicated their being called out, elected, separated from the general fraternity of 
mankind, and set aoart to the more immediate service and honor of God; — that 
their name of Ecleclics indicated that their divine philosophy was a collection of all 
the diverging rays of truth which were scattered through the various systems of 
Pagan and Jewish piety, into one bright focus — that their religion was made up of 
" whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
"just, ^whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things 
" are of good report — if there were any virtue, a?id if there were any praise," 
(Phil. iv. 8,) wherever found ; alike indifferent, whether it were derived from 
"saint, from savage, or from sage — Jehovah, Jove, or Lord." Eusebius, from 
wh mh all our knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity is derived, declares his opinion, 
that " the sacred writings used by this sect, were none other than our Gospels, 
" and the writings of the apostles ; and that certain Diegeses, after the manner of 
" allegorical interpretations of the ancient prophets ; these were their epistles." 
{Taxa 6'etKog a QqoLv agx auov ^ag avrotc etvat Gvyyga^.uara, evay ye'/ua, kcli 
rac tuv arroGToTiCov ypatpac, AIHTHSEIS re rivac Kara ro eitcor rov izaAai 
ngcxprjTov egfMivevriKac — etugto/mi, ravra eivat.— Euseb. Ec. Bis. lib. 2, c. 16. 
fol. ed. Colonics Allobrogum, 1612, p. 60, ad literam D, linea 6.) — E. 



128 THE BELIEF IN DEMONS. 

judices were directed against the law of Moses, could find 
admission into many Christian societies, which required not 
from their untutored mind any belief of an antecedent 
revelation. Their faith was insensibly fortified and enlarged, 
and the church was ultimate!}/ benefited by the conquests of 
its most inveterate enemies. 37 

But whatever difference of opinion might sub- 
considered as sist between the Orthodox, the Ebionites, and 
t antfqu d ity° f tne Gnostics, concerning the divinity or the 
obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all 
equally animated by the same exclusive zeal, and by the 
same abhorrence for idolatry, which had distinguished the 
Jews from the other nations of the ancient world. The 
philosopher, who considered the system of polytheism as a 
composition of human fraud and error, could disguise a 
smile of contempt under the mask of devotion, without 
apprehending that either the mockery, or the compliance, 
would expose him to the resentment of any invisible, or, as 
he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the established 
religions of Paganism were seen by the primitive Christians 
in a much more odious and formidable light. It was the 
universal sentiment both of the church and of heretics, that 
the daemons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects 
of idolatry. 38 Those rebellious spirits who had been 
degraded from the rank of angels, and cast down into the 
infernal pit, were still permitted to roam upon earth, to 
torment the bodies, and to seduce the minds, of sinful men.* 
The daemons soon discovered and abused the natural pro- 

37 Augustin is a memorable instance of this gradual progress from reason to faith. 
He was, during several years, engaged in the Manichsean sect. 

38 The unanimous sentiment of the primitive church is very clearly explained 
by Justin Martyr. Apolog. Major, by Athenagoras, Legat. c. 22, &c, and by 
Lactantius, Institut. Divin. ii. 14-19. 

* Casting out demons or devils, had become an established industry in the time 
of the apostles, and was then considered a pious, if not profitable, profession. As 
these demons were of many kinds and possessed various powers of resistance to 
the enchantment of the exorcists, it required great skill and experience to dislodge 
them successfully; without injury to the victim, to the demon, or offence to the 
mutual friends of the respective parties. Jn one notable example where a legion 
of devils (from three to five thousand) were evicted by the Savior from a man they 
inhabited without a shadow of legal right, these evil spirits wickedly entered into 
a herd of swine, and the swine preferring death to such bad company, "ran violently 
" down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters." Matt. viii. 32. In 
A6ts xix. 14-16, an account is given of the misfortunes that befell the " seven sons.' 
" of one Sciva," which shows the imminent danger of meddling with demons by 
those who have not properly learned the cabalistic art. When these seven sons 
undertook to cast out an evil spirit, such as St. Paul easily exorcised, the evil 
spirit answered and said : " Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are ye ? And 
" the man in whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them and overcame them, and pre- 
" vailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." — E. 



ABHORRENCE OF IDOLATRY. 1 29 

pensity of the human heart towards devotion ; and, artfully- 
withdrawing the adoration of mankind from their Creator, 
they usurped the place and honors of the Supreme Deity. 
By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at once 
gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the 
only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope 
of involving the human species in the participation of their 
guilt and misery. It was confessed, or at least it was 
imagined, that they had distributed among themselves the 
most important characters of polytheism, one daemon as- 
suming the name and attributes of Jupiter, another of 
iEsculapius, a third of Venus, and a fourth perhaps of 
Apollo ; 39 and that, by the advantage of their long experi- 
ence and aerial nature, they were enabled to execute, with 
sufficient skill and dignity, the parts which they had under- 
taken. They lurked in the temples, instituted festivals and 
sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced oracles, and were 
frequently allowed to perform miracles. The Christians, 
who, by the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily 
explain every praeternatural appearance, were disposed and 
even desirous to admit the most extravagant fictions of the 
Pagan mythology. But the belief of the Christian was 
accompanied with horror. The most trifling mark of 
respecl to the national worship he considered as a direct 
homage yielded to the daemon, and as an act of rebellion 
against the majesty of God. 

In consequence of this opinion, it was the first Abh rren 
but arduous duty of a Christian to preserve himself of the 
pure and undefiled from the practice of idolatry. fSSSSy. 
The religion of the nations was not merely a 
speculative doctrine, professed in the schools or preached in 
the temples. The innumerable deities and rites of polythe- 
ism were closely interwoven with every circumstance of 
business or pleasure, of public or of private life, and it 
seemed impossible to escape the observance of them, with- 
out, at the same time, renouncing the commerce of mankind, 
and all the offices and amusements of society. 40 The im- 
portant transactions of peace and war were 
prepared or concluded by solemn sacrifices, in Ceremonies, 
which the magistrate, the senator, and the 

39 Tertullian {Apolog. c. 23) alleges the confession of the daemons themselves as 
often as they were tormented by the Christian exorcists. 

40 Tertullian has written a most severe treatise against idolatry, to caution his 
brethren against the hourly danger of incurring that guilt. Recogita sylvam, et 
quantae latitant spinae. De Corona Militis, c. 10. 



I30 PAGAN FESTIVALS. 

soldier, were obliged to preside or to participate. 41 The 
public spectacles were an essential part of the cheerful 
devotion of the Pagans, and the gods were supposed to 
accept, as the most grateful offering, the games that the 
prince and people celebrated in honor of their peculiar 
festivals. 42 The Christian, who with pious horror avoided 
the abomination of the circus or the theatre, found himself 
encompassed with infernal snares in every convivial enter- 
tainment, as often as his friends, invoking the hospitable 
deities, poured out libations to each other's happiness. 43 
When the bride, struggling with well affected reluctance, 
was forced in hymeneal pomp over the threshold of her new 
habitation, 44 or when the sad procession of the dead slowly 
moved towards the funeral pile, 45 the Christian, on these 
interesting occasions, was compelled to desert the persons 
who were the dearest to him, rather than contract the guilt 
inherent to those impious ceremonies.* Every 
Arts. art and every trade that was in the least con- 
cerned in the framing or adorning of idols was 
polluted by the stain of idolatry; 46 a severe sentence, since 

41 The Roman senate was always held in a temple or consecrated place. (Aldus 
Gellius, xiv. 7.) Before they entered on business, every senator dropped some 
wine and frankincense on the altar. Suet on. in August, c. 35. 

42 See Tertullian, Be Speclaculis. This severe reformer shows no more indul- 
gence to a tragedy of Euripides, than to a combat of gladiators. The dress of the 
actors particularly offends him. By the use of the lofty buskin, they impiously 
strive to add a cubit to their stature, c. 23. 

43 The ancient practice of concluding the entertainment with libations may be 
found in every classic. Socrates and Seneca, in their last moments, made a noble 
application of this custom. Postremo stagnum calidae aquae introiit, respergens 
proximos servorum, addita voce, libare se liquorem ilium Jovi Liberatori. Tacit. 
Annul, xv. 64. 

4i See the elegant but idolatrous hymn of Catullus, on the nuptials of Manlius 
and Julia. O Hymen, Hymenaee 16! Quis huic Deo compararier ausit? 

45 The ancient funerals (in those of Misenus and Pallas) are no less accurately 
described by Virgil, than they are illustrated by his commentator Servius. The 
pile itself was an altar, the flames were fed with the blood of victims, and all the 
assistants were sprinkled with lustral water. 46 Tertullian de Idololatria, c. n.f 

*' ' It is a fact never to be forgotten," says M. Renan. in his great work on the Origin 
of Christianity, (Marc-Aurfle et la Fin du Monde Antique.) " that in the Roman 
' ' empire liberty of thought was absolute. From Nero to Constantine no thinker or 
" savant was ever troubled in his researches. All sects that tolerated other sects 
" were allowed to live at their ease in the empire. What caused the Christians to 
" be so constantly persecuted was their intolerance, their spirit of exclusion. Their 
" attitude was disdainful when it was not provoking. They had the mania of 
" martyrdom upon them. Far from making common cause with the good citizens, 
" and helping to defend the fatherland, they triumphed in its misfortunes." — E. 

t The exaggerated and declamatory opinions of Tertullian ought not to be taken 
as the general sentiment of the early Christians. Gibbon has too often allowed 
himself to consider the peculiar notions of certain Fathers of the Church as in- 
herent in Christianity. This is not accurate. — Guizot. 

This no doubt is unfair ; but it is the universal practice. Every sect and party 
is so judged. Tertullian may not have expressed the " general opinions of the first 
" Christians ;" but a man of his talents, animated by his energy, and occupying his 
position, must have had many followers who felt and thought like him. His in- 
fluence will be seen afterwards.— English Churchman. 



MYTHOLOGY AND CULTURE. I3I 

it devoted to eternal misery the far greater part of the 
community which is employed in the exercise of liberal or 
mechanic professions. If we cast our eyes over the numer- 
ous remains of antiquity, we shall perceive that, besides the 
immediate representations of the gods, and the holy instru- 
ments of their worship, the elegant forms and agreeable 
fictions consecrated by the imagination of the Greeks, were 
introduced as the richest ornaments of the houses, the dress, 
and the furniture of the Pagans. 47 Even the arts of music 
and painting, of eloquence and poetry, flowed from the same 
impure origin.* In the style of the fathers, Apollo and the 
Muses were the organs of the infernal spirit ; Homer and 
Virgil were the most eminent of his servants ; and the 
beautiful mythology which pervades and animates the com- 
positions of their genius is destined to celebrate the glory 
of the daemons. Even the common language of Greece and 
Rome abounded with familiar but impious expressions, 
which the imprudent Christian might too carelessly utter, 
or too patiently hear.' 48 

4" See every part of Montfaucon's Antiquities. Even the reverses of the Greek 
and Roman coins were frequently of an idolatrous nature. Here indeed the 
scruples of the Christians were suspended by a stronger passion. f 

48 Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 20, 21, 22. If a Pagan friend (on the occasion per- 
haps of sneezing) used the familiar expression of "Jupiter bless you," the Christian 
was obliged to protest against the divinity of Jupiter. 

* We have here an illustration of the spirit of opposition to science and culture 
which Christianity so early exhibited, and which reached its culminating period of 
domination in the'dark ages, when the Catholic church had quenched the light of 
science and kindled the flames of the inquisition. " The decline of culture," says 
Feuerbach, in his Essence of Christianity, "was identical with the victory of 
" Christianity. Did Christianity conquer a single philosopher, historian or poet, of 
" the classical period ? The philosophers who went over to Christianity were feeble, 
" contemptible philosophers. All who had the classic spirit in them were hostile, 
" or at least indifferent to Christianity." ..." How frivolous, therefore, are 
" modern Christians, when they deck chemselves in the arts and sciences of modern 
" nations as products of Christianity ! How striking is the contrast in this respect 
" between the modern boasters and the Christians of older times ! The latter knew 

of no other Christianity than that which is contained in the Christian faith, in 
" faith in Christ; they did not reckon the treasures and riches, the arts and sciences 
" of this world, as part of Christianity. In all these points, they rather conceded 
" the pre-eminence to the ancient heathens, the Greeks and Romans." 

" Why dost thou not also wonder, Erasmus," says Luther, (T. xix. p. 37,) " that 
" from the beginning of the world there have always been among the heathens 
" higher, rarer people, of greater, more exalted understanding, more excellent 
"diligence and skill in all arts, than among Christians or the people of God? 
" Christ himself says, that the children of this world are wiser than the children of 
" light. Yea, who among the Christians could we compare for understanding or 
" application to Cicero (to say nothing of the Greeks, Demosthenes and others)?" 

''Quid igitur nos antecellimus? Num. ingenio, doflrina, morum moderatione 
" illos superamus ? Nequaquam. Sed vera Dei agniiione, invocatione et celebra- 
" tione prcEstamusy — Melancthonis (et al. Declam. T. iii. de vera invocat. Dei). 

After the invention of printing and the revival of letters, the church began to lose 
its power over the minds of men. Free thought, in the form of Protestantism, began 
to exert its benign influence : science was revived, knowledge was disseminated, 
liberty was born, and freedom no longer feared the thunders of the Vatican.— E. 

fAll this scrupulous nicety is at variance with the decision of St. Paul about 
meat offered to idols. I. Cor. x. 21-32. — Milman. 



I32 SACRED FESTIVALS. 

The dangerous temptations which on every 
Festivals, side lurked in ambush to surprise the unguarded 
believer assailed him with redoubled violence on 
the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they framed 
and disposed throughout the year, that superstition always 
wore the appearance of pleasure, and often of virtue. 49 Some 
of the most sacred festivals in the Roman ritual were destined 
to salute the new calends of January with vows of public and 
private felicity ; to indulge the pious remembrance of the 
dead and living; to ascertain the inviolable bounds of 
property ; to hail, on the return of spring, the genial powers 
of fecundity ; to perpetuate the two memorable eras of 
Rome, the foundation of the city and that of the republic ; 
and to restore, during the humane license of the Saturnalia, 
the primitive equality of mankind. Some idea may be con- 
ceived of the abhorrence of the Christians for such impious 
ceremonies, by the scrupulous delicacy which they displayed 
on a much less alarming occasion. On days of general 
festivity it was the custom of the ancients to adorn their 
doors with lamps and with branches of laurel, and to crown 
their heads with a garland of flowers. This innocent and 
elegant practice might perhaps have been tolerated as a 
mere civil institution. But it most unluckily happened that 
the doors were under the protection of the household gods,* 
that the laurel was sacred to the lover of Daphne, and that 
garlands of flowers, though frequently worn as a symbol 
either of joy or mourning, had been dedicated in their first 
origin to the service of superstition. The trembling 
Christians, who were persuaded in this instance to comply 

49 Consult the most labored work of Ovid, his imperfect Fasti. He finished no 
more than the first six months of the year. The compilation of Macrobius is called 
the Saturnalia, but it is only a.small part of the first book that bears any relation 
to the title. 



*The household gods were of an inferior order of divinities, and did not ap- 
proach the august dignity of Jupiter, the father of gods and men. They corre- 
sponded in importance to the orders of Cherubim and Seraphim in the Jewish and 
Christian systems. The personification of inanimate objects, sentiments, actions 
and principles as deities and living beings, was common to both Christians and 
Pagans, and the objections of these austere Christians to these harmless Pagan 
myths, shows their morose and intolerant fanaticism. " The ship Argo," says 
Taylor, " in which Jason and his companions sailed for the golden fleece, had its 
" imaginary moral qualities ; it fought the waves, it suffered, it conquered, it was 
" translated into heaven. The disposition of mind called charity, is described by 
" St. Paul, under all- the circumstances that could be imagined of a most ac- 
" complished and lovely woman : ' She suffereth long, and is kind ; she doth not 
" ' behave herself unseemly , seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked,' &c. ti Cor. 
" xiii.) ; though nothing could be further from St. Paul's intention, than that we 
" should take charity to be a person who had a real existence, and endeavor to 
" find out when she was born, under what king's reign, and in what country, 
"&c." — E. 



CHRISTIAN ZEAL. 1 33 

with the fashion of their country and the commands of the 
magistrate, labored under the most gloomy apprehensions, 
from the reproaches of their own conscience, the censures 
of the church,* and the denunciations of divine vengeance. 50 

Such was the anxious diligence which was 
required to guard the chastity of the gospel Christianity. 
from the infectious breath of idolatry. The 
superstitious observances of public or private rites were 
carelessly practised, from education and habit, by the 
followers of the established religion. But as often as they 
occurred, they afforded the Christians an opportunity of 
declaring and confirming- their zealous opposition. By 
these frequent protestations their attachment to the faith 
was continually fortified ; and in proportion to the increase 
of zeal, they combated with the more ardor and success in 
the holy war which they had undertaken against the empire 
of the demons. § 

so Tertullian has composed a defence, or rather panegyric, of the rash action of 
a Christian soldier, who, by throwing away his crown of laurel, had exposed him- 
self and his brethren to the most imminent danger. f By the mention of the emperors 
(Severus and Caracalla), it is evident, notwithstanding the wishes of M. de Tille- 
mont, that Tertullian composed his treatise De Corona long before he was engaged 
in the errors of the Montanists. See Memoires Ecclesiastiques, torn. iii. p. 384.J 

* M. Renan, in his great work, from which we have already quoted, " shows us 
Christianity and the Roman empire in the attitude of two animals on the point 
of devouring each other, without knowing what are the causes of their hostility. 
When a society of men takes such an attitude as the Christians did in the midst 
of a great society, and when it becomes in the State a republic of itself, even 
were it composed of angels, it is a scourge. It is not without reason that they 
were detested, these men in appearance so gentle and so beneficent. They were 
in reality demolishing the Roman empire. They were drinking its strength ; 
they were robbing its functions, especially the army, of the finest subjects. It is 
useless to say a man is a good citizen because he pays his taxes, is charitable, 
sober, and settled, when he is in reality a citizen of heaven, and considers the 
earthly fatherland simply as a prison where he is chained up side by side with 
wretches. The fatherland, one's country, is an earthly thing ; a man who wants 
to play the angel is always a poor patriot. Religious exaltation is dangerous 
for the state." — E. 

f The soldier did not tear off his crown to throw it down with contempt ; he did 
not even throw it away ; he held it in his hand, while others wore it on their heads. 
Solus libero capite, ornamento in manu otioso. — Guizot. 

J Tertullian does not expressly name the two emperors, Severus and Caracalla : 
he speaks only of two emperors, and of a long peace which the church had enjoyed. 
It is generally agreed that Tertullian became a Montanist about the year 200 : his 
work, de Corona Militis, appears to have been written, at the earliest, about the 
year 202 before the persecution of Severus : it may be maintained, then, that it is 
subsequent to the Montanism of the author. See Mosheim, Diss, de Apol. Tertull, 
p- 53. Biblioth. rais. Amsterd. torn. x. part ii. p. 292. Cave's Hist. Lit. pp. 92, 93. — G" 
The state of Tertullian's opinions at the particular period is almost an idle 
question. " The fiery African " is not at any time to be considered a fair repre- 
sentative of Christianity. — Milman. 

i The intolerance of the Christian sects and their rebellion against the established 
laws, produced internal discord and dissensions among the people, corrupted the 
discipline and paralized the bravery of the legions, and in time left Rome powerless, 
unprotected and exposed to the inroads of the barbarians. After the conversion 
of Constantine, the Christians rapidly rose to power and influence, the spirit of 
Roman patriotism was destroyed, "and the triumphant banner of the cross was 
" erected on the ruins of the Capitol." — E. 



134 DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

II. The writings of Cicero 51 represent in the 
Ti Caos£ >ND most lively colors the ignorance, the errors, and 
The doctrine the uncertainty of the ancient philosophers with 
talityof the regard to the immortality of the soul. When 
s «£w?S£« e they are desirous of arming their disciples against 

philosophers. -' . » r &> , 

the fear of death, they inculcate, as an obvious 
though melancholy position, that the fatal stroke of our 
dissolution released us from the calamities of life ; and that 
those can no longer suffer, who no longer exist.* Yet there 
were a few sages of Greece and Rome who had conceived a 
more exalted, and, in some respects, a juster idea of human 
nature, though it must be confessed that, in the sublime in- 
quiry, their reason had been often guided by their imagina- 
tion, and that their imagination had been prompted by their 
vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of 
their own mental powers, when they exercised the various 
faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most 
profound speculations, or the most important labors, and 
when they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported 
them into future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of 
the grave, they were unwilling to confound themselves with 
the beasts of the field, or to suppose that a being, for whose 
dignity they entertained the most sincere admiration, could 
be limited to a spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. 
With this favorable prepossession they summoned to their 
aid the science, or rather the language, of Metaphysics. 
They soon discovered that, as none of the properties of 
matter will apply to the operations of the mind, the human 
soul must consequently be a substance distinct from the 
body, pure, simple, and spiritual, incapable of dissolution, 
and susceptible of a much higher degree of virtue and 
happiness after the release from its corporeal prison. From 
these specious and noble principles the philosophers who 
trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very unjustifiable 
conclusion, since they asserted, not only the future im- 

5i In particular, the first book of the Tusculan Questions, and the treatise De 
Senectute, and the Somnium Scipionis, contain, in the most beautiful language, 
everything that Grecian philosophy, or Roman good sense, could possibly suggest 
on this dark but important object. 

* Buddhism claims for itself more adherents than any other religious belief, and 
one of the most popular verses in the Pali Pitakas, or sacred books of that sect, is 
as follows : 

" How transient are all component things ! 

" Growth is their nature and decay. 

" They are produced — they are dissolved again, 

" And there is rest when they have sunk to rest ! " — E. 



BELIEF OF THE PAGANS. 



'35 



mortality, but the past eternity of the human soul, which 
they were too apt to consider as a portion of the infinite 
and self-existing spirit which pervades and sustains the 
universe. 52 A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses 
and the experience of mankind might serve to amuse the 
leisure of a philosophic mind ; or, in the silence of solitude, 
it might sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding 
virtue ; but the faint impression which had been received in 
the schools was soon obliterated by the commerce and 
business of active life. We are sufhcientiy acquainted with 
the eminent persons who flourished in the age of Cicero 
and of the first Caesars, with their actions, their characters, 
and their motives, to be assured that their conduct in this 
life was never regulated by any serious conviction of the 
rewards or punishments of a future state.* At the bar and 
in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not appre- 
hensive of giving offence to their hearers by exposing that 
doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was re- 
jected with contempt by every man of a liberal education 
and understanding. 53 

Since therefore the most sublime efforts of Am - : ,. 
philosophy can extend no further than feebly to Pagans of 
point out the desire, the hope, or, at most, the Gr R c me and 
probability, of a future state, there is nothing, 
except a divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence 
and describe the condition, of the invisible country which is 
destined to receive the souls of men after their separation 
from the body. But we may perceive several defects in- 
herent to the popular religions of Greece and Rome, which 
rendered them very unequal to so arduous a task. I. The 
general system of their mythology was unsupported by any 
solid proofs ; and the wisest among the Pagans had already 

52 The pre-existence of human souls, so far at least as that doctrine is compatible 
with religion, was adopted by many of the Greek and Latin fathers. See Beausobre, 
Hist, du Manicheisme, 1. vi. c. 4. 

53 See Cicero pro Cluent. c. 61. Ctzsar ap. Sallust. de Bell. Catilin. c. 50. Ju- 
venal. Satir. ii. 149. 

Esse aliquid manes, et subterranea regna, 
* * * * * * * * 

Nee pueri credunt, nisi qui nondum asre lavantur. 



* Immediately after the epocha of time " says Taylor " ascribed to the dawning 
" of divine light, the human mind seems generally to have suffered an eclipse. 
" The arts and sciences, intelligence and virtue, were smitten with an unaccount- 
" able palsy. The mind of man lost all its energies, and sunk under a generally 
" prevailing imbecility. We look in vain among the successors of Cicero, Livy, 
" Tacitus, Horace, and Virgil, the statesmen, orators, and poets of the golden age 
" of literature, for a continuation of the series of such ornaments of human nature. 
' A blight had smitten the growth of men's understandings." — E. 



I36 DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE STATE. 

disclaimed its usurped authority. 2. The description of the 
infernal regions had been abandoned to the fancy of painters 
and of poets, who peopled them with so many phantoms 
and monsters, who dispensed their rewards and punish- 
ments with so little equity, that a solemn truth, the most 
congenial to the human heart, was oppressed and disgraced 
by the absurd mixture of the wildest fictions. 54 3. The 
doctrine of a future state was scarcely considered among 
the devout polytheists of Greece and Rome as a fundamental 
article of faith. The providence of the gods, as it related to 
public communities rather than to private individuals, was 
principally displayed on the visible theatre of the present 
world. The petitions which were offered on the altars of 
Jupiter or Apollo expressed the anxiety of their worshipers 
for temporal happiness, and their ignorance or indifference 
concerning a future life. 55 The important truth of the im- 
mortality of the soul was inculcated with more diligence, as 

well as success, in India, in Assyria, in Egypt, 
wh^*!? and in Gaul ; and since we cannot attribute such 

a difference to the superior knowledge of the 
barbarians, we must ascribe it to the influence of an es- 
tablished priesthood, which employed the motives of virtue 
as the instrument of ambition. 56 

We might naturally expect that a principle so 
At je"l, the essential to religion would have been revealed 

in the clearest terms to the chosen people of 
Palestine, and that it might safely have been intrusted to 
the hereditary priesthood of Aaron. It is incumbent on us 
to adore the mysterious dispensations of Providence, 57 when 

M The eleventh book of the Odyssey gives a very dreary and incoherent account 
of the infernal shades. Pindar and Virgil have embellished the picture ; but even 
those poets, though more correct than their great model, are guilty of very strange 
inconsistencies. See Bayle, Responses aux Questions d'un Provincial, part iii. c. 22. 

55 See the sixteenth epistle of the first book of Horace, the thirteenth Satire of 
Juvenal, and the second Satire of Persius : these popular discourses express the 
sentiment and language of the multitude. 

5G if we confine ourselves to the Gauls, we may observe, that they intrusted, not 
only their lives, but even their money, to the security of another world. Vetus 
ille'mos Gallorum occurrit (says Valerius Maximus, 1. ii c. 6, p. 10) quos, memoria 
proditum est, pecunias mutuas, quae his apud inferos redder^ntur, dare solitos. 
The same custom is more darkly insinuated by Mela, 1. iii. c. 2. It is almost 
needless to add. that the profits of trade hold a just proportion to the credit of the 
merchant, and that the Druids derived from their holy profession a character of 
responsibility, which could scarcely be claimed by any other order of men. 

5" The right reverend author of the Divine Legation of Moses assigns a very 
curious reason for the omission, and most ingeniously retorts it on the unbe- 
lievers.* 



* The hypothesis of Warburton concerning this remarkable fact, which, as far as 
the Law of Moses, is unquestionable, made few disciples ; and it is difficult to 
suppose that it could be intended by the author himself for more than a display of 



DISBELIEF OF THE JEWS. 137 

we discover that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul 
is omitted in the law of Moses ; it is darkly insinuated by 
the prophets ; and during the long period which elapsed 

intellectual strength. Modern writers have accounted in various ways for the 
silence of the Hebrew legislator on the immortality of the soul. According to 
Michaelis, "Moses wrote as an historian and as a lawgiver; he regulated the 
" ecclesiastical discipline, rather than the religious belief of his people ; and the 
" sanctions of the law being temporal, he had no occasion, and as a civil legislator 
" could not with propriety, threaten punishments in another world." See Michaelis, 
Laws of Moses, art. 272, vol. iv. p. 209, Eng. Trans. ; and Syntagma Commentation- 
um, p. 80, quoted by Guizot. M. Guizot adds the "ingenious conjecture of a 
" philosophic theologian," which approximates to an opinion long entertained by 
the Editor. That writer believes, that in the state of civilization at the time of the 
legislator, this doctrine, become popular among the Jews, would necessarily have 
given birth to a multitude of idolatrous superstitions which he wished to prevent. 
His primary object was to establish a firm theocracy, to make his people the con- 
servators of the doctrine of the Divine Unity, the basis upon which Christianity 
was hereafter to rest. He carefully excluded everything which could obscure or 
weaken that doctrine. Other nations had strangely abused their notions on the 
immortality of the soul ; Moses wished to prevent this abuse : hence he forbade 
the Jews from consulting necromancers, (those who evoke the spirits of the dead). 
Deut. xviiii. 11. Those who reflect on the state of the Pagans and of the Jews, and 
on the facility with which idolatry crept in on every side, will not be astonished 
that Moses has not developed a doctrine of which the influence might be more 
pernicious than useful to his people. Orat. Fest. de Vitce Immort. Sfie., Qfc,. aucl. 
Ph. Alb. Stopfer, pp. 12, 13, 20. Berne, 1787. 

Moses, as well from the intimations scattered in his writings, the passage re- 
lating to the translation of Enoch (Gen. v. 24), the prohibition of necromancy, 
(Michaelis believes him to be the author of the Book of Job, though this opinion 
is in general rejected ; other learned writers consider this Book to be coeval with 
and known to Moses), as from his long residence in Egypt, and his acquaintance 
with Egyptian wisdom, could not be ignorant of the doctrine of the immortality 
of the soul. But this doctrine, if popularly known among the Jews, must have 
been purely Egyptian, and, as so, intimately connected with the whole religious 
system of that country. It was no doubt moulded up with the tenet of the trans- 
migration of the soul, perhaps with notions analogous to the emanation system of 
India, in which the human soul was an efflux from, or indeed a part of, the Deity. 
The Mosaic religion drew a wide and impassable interval between the Creator and 
created human beings : in this it differed from the Egyptian and all the Eastern 
religions. As then the immortality of the soul was thus inseparably blended with 
those foreign religions which were altogether to be effaced from the minds of the 
people, and by no means necessary for the establishment of the theocracy. Moses 
maintained silence on this point, and a purer notion of it was left to be developed 
at a more favorable period in the history of man. — Milman. 

It is by no means clearly demonstrated that this doctrine is omitted in the law 
of Moses. Michaelis thinks, that even if the silence of the Jewish lawgiver were 
incontrovertibly proved, still we should not be authorized to infer from it, that he 
was unacquainted with, or did not admit, the immortalitv of the soul. According 
to him, Moses did not write as a theologian ; he did not instruct his people in the 
verities of the faith ; we see in his works onlv the historian and the civil legislator ; 
he regulated ecclesiastical discipline more than religious belief. As a mere human 
legislator, the immortalitv of the soul must often have been made known to him. 
The Egyptians, among whom he lived fortv years believed it, in their wav. The 
ascent of Enoch, who "walked with God and he was not, for God took him" 
(Genesis v. 24), seems to indicate some idea of an existence that follows man's 
ea vf u y bein &- The " Dook of Job, which some learned men attribute to Moses him- 
self, has this clearer reference to the doctrine: (c. xix. v. 26, 27) — " and though 
u after my skin worms destroy this bodv, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I 

shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold and not another." M. Pareau, 
professor of theology at Harderwyk. published, in 1807, an octavo volume, with the 
title, Commentatio de immortalitatis ac vitae futuras notitiis, ab antiquissimo 
Jobo scnptore," in which he deduces intimations of the doctrine of a future state, 
from the twenty-seventh chapter of Job. (Michaelis, Syntagma, Comment, p. 80. 
survey of the state of Literature and ancient History in Germany, by Ch. Villers, 
p. 63: 1809.) These notions of immortalitv are not so distinct and positive as to 
obviate all objections. What may be said' is, that they seem to be gradually de- 



138 



ORIENTAL BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 



between the Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the 
hopes as well as the fears of the Jews appear to have been 
confined within the narrow compass of the present life. 

veloped by the succession of sacred writers. This may be seen in Isaiah, David, 
and Solomon, who says (Eccles. xii. 9), " Then shall the dust return to the earth 
" as it was, and the spirit unto God who gave it." I will add here the ingenious 
conjecture of a philosophical theologian, on the causes which induced Moses to 
withhold from his people any special announcement of the immortality of the soul. 
He thinks, that this legislator beheld around him a state of civilization, in which 
any popular knowledge of this doctrine would have misled the Jews into many 
idolatrous superstitions, against which it was his object to guard them. He con- 
templated mainly the establishment of a firm theocracy, and to preserve among 
his nation the idea of the unity of God, as the future basis of Christianity. He 
carefully kept at a distance all that might weaken or obscure this idea. In other 
countries the people had strangely abused the notions which they entertained, 
respecting the immortality of the soul. This he wished to prevent, and therefore 
made it a part of his code (Deut. xviii. 11), that the Jews should not, like the 
Egyptians, have communion with a "a charmer, or a consulter with familiar 
" spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." Those who will take into consideration 
the condition of the Gentiles and the Jews, and the facility with which idolatry at 
that period everywhere insinuated itself, will not be surprised that Moses sup- 
pressed a tenet, the influence of which would have been more fatal than useful to 
the Israelites. Orat. Fest. de Vitce Immort. Spe, C2fc, aucl. Ph. Alb. Stap/er, pp. 
12, 13, 20. Berne, 1787. — Guizot. 

The omission which M. Guizot says " is not clearly demonstrated," Dean Mil- 
man candidly admits to be "unquestionable." The well-known use of it by 
Warburton, is also confessed to have " made few disciples ; and it is difficult to 
" suppose that it would be intended by the author himself, for more than a display 
" of intellectual strength" The world had no distinct idea of a future state. 
Greek philosophy had speculated on it, and excited hopes which became more 
lively as education expanded. The two leading popular wants of the age were 
then, the worship of a supreme spiritual Godhead, and a settled conviction of the 
immortality of the soul. These Christianity supplied so authoritatively, that it 
could not fail to make a rapid progress. — English Churchman. 

Here was a glorious opportunity for Messrs. Wenck, Guizot, and Milman to 
earn the commendation of the " distinguished churchman," (to quote his own lan- 
guage,) for the care bestowed by them "on those portions of Gibbon's History 
" where religion demanded thei'r services." But. although these* learned and 
reverend advocates made strenuous efforts to explain the unpardonable omission of 
Moses to proclaim to Jehovah's "peculiar people " the doctrine of immortality, yet 
candor compels the sad admission that they arrived at a " most lame and impotent 
conclusion." After skillfully using a multitude of words on the subject, Milman 
cautiously states that" M. Guizot adds the 'ingenious conjecture of a philosophic 
" 'theologian,' which approximates to an opinion long entertained by himself." 
And this long entertained " conjecture, so discreetly and pompously formulated, 
simply amounts to this, that had the doctrine of immortality then become popular 
" it would necessarily have given birth to a multitude of idolatrous superstitions." 
Without that doctrine, the Jews worshiped the golden calf and repeatedly sacri- 
ficed to Pagan idols, and with it, they surely could have done no worse ; and it 
does not explain "why Moses maintained silence on this point " to tell us that 
"the immortality of the soul was inseperably blended with foreign religions." 
If the doctrine be true, how could it have proved injurious to the Jews ; and if it 
be of Pagan origin, why not honestly admit the fact ? Why claim originality for a 
borrowed dogma ? Whv not " render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," 
and unto the Pagans the doctrines which are their own ? 

Centuries before the birth of Moses the Egyptians had taught this dogma, and 
it is to the Mvthology of the Orientals that we must look for the origin of the belief 
in a future life ; and while this do6trine of immortality was gradually adopted in 
later years by a portion of the Jews, it never was received with universal credence 
bv the children of Abraham. Even as late as the time of the apostles, St. Paul, 
when brought before Ananias, the high priest, (Acts xxiii. 7, 8,) was enabled to 
divide his accusers and secure assistance from the Pharisees, by claiming to be a 
Pharisee, "the son of a Pharisee." "For the Sadducees say that there is no 
" resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit : but the Pharisees confess both." 

" The Jews," savs Voltaire. " in the later period of their sojourn at Jerusalem, 
" were scrupulously attached to nothing but the ceremonials of their law. The 



BELIEF OF THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES. 1 39 

After Cyrus had permitted the exiled nation 5S to return into 
the promised land, and after Ezra had restored the ancient 
records of their religion, two celebrated sects, the Sadducees 
and the Pharisees, insensibly arose at Jerusalem. 59 The 
former, selected from the more opulent and distinguished 
ranks of society, were strictly attached to the literal sense 
of the Mosaic law, and they piously rejected the immortality 
of the soul, as an opinion that received no countenance from 
the divine book, which they revered as the only rule of their 
faith. To the authority of Scripture the Pharisees added 
that of tradition, and they accepted, under the name of 
traditions, several speculative tenets from the philosophy 
or religion of the eastern nations. The doctrines of fate or 
predestination, of angels and spirits, and of a future state of 
rewards and punishments, were in the number of these new 
articles of belief ; and as the Pharisees, by the austerity of 
their manners, had drawn into their party the body of the 
Jewish people, the immortality of the soul became the pre- 
ss see Le Clerc {Prolegomena ad Hist. Ecclesiast. seel, r, c. 8.) His authority 
seems to carry the greater weight, as he has written a learned and judicious com- 
mentary on the books of the Old Testament. 

59 Joseph. Antiquitat. 1. xiii. c. 10. De Bell. Jud. ii. 8. According to the most 
natural interpretation of his words, the Sadducees admitted only the Pentateuch ; 
but it has pleased some modern critics to add the Prophets to their creed, and to 
suppose that they contented themselves with rejecting the traditions of the 
Pharisees. Dr. Jortin has argued that point in his Remarks on Ecclesiastical 
History, vol. ii. p. 103. 



" man who should have eaten pudding or rabbit, would have been stoned ; while 
" he who denied the immortality of the soul might be high-priest." 

" We hope fpr a blessed immortality beyond the grave," is the language of our 
most reasonable Christian sects. This hope, (which is not an affirmation,) reason 
and philosophy do not antagonize, if they do not support ; but those sectarians 
who have least studied the question, and are the most ignorant in regard to the 
subject, are the most positive in their belief and the most secure in their faith. 

In I. Kings iv. 29-31, it is stated that " God gave Solomon wisdom and under- 
" standing exceeding much. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all 
" the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser 
" than all men." This so-called wise man discusses the subject of immortality 
very- fully in Eccles. iii. 19, 20, as follows: " That which befalleth the sons of men 
" befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth th^m, as the one dieth, so dieth the 
" other ; yea, they have all one breath : so that a man hath no pre-eminence above 
" a beast. All go unto one place ; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again." 

In contrast with this materialistic teaching of the annointed king of Israel, let us 
quote a single paragraph from the writings of a modern philosopher, who cannot, 
by any stretch of the imagination, be called a believer either in Judaism or 
Christianity, and yet whose words of burning eloquence, of beauty, and of pathos, 
have not been excelled since mortals first learned to crystallize their noblest 
thoughts in written symbols. And, while these words carefully embody the results 
of modern scientific research, and are based on experience and demonstrated facts, 
they do not, like the Hebrew voluptuary, deny to the mourner at the death-bed the 
consolation which hope and love demand. 

" Life," says Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, '-' is a narrow vale between the cold and 
" barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. 
" We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the 

voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word ; but, in the night of 
" death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing." — E. 



I40 BELIEF OF THE CHRISTIANS. 

vailing sentiment of the synagogue under the reign of the 
Asmonsean princes and pontiffs. The temper of the Jews was 
incapable of contenting itself with such a cold and languid 
assent as might satisfy the mind of a Polytheist ; and, as soon 
as they admitted the idea of a future state, they embraced 
it with the zeal which has always formed the characteristic 
of the nation. Their zeal, however, added nothing to its 
evidence, or even probability : and it was still necessary that 
the doctrine of life and immortality, which had been dictated 
by nature, approved by reason, and received by superstition, 
should obtain the sanction of divine truth from the authority 
and example of Christ. 

When the promise of eternal happiness was 
christians 6 proposed to mankind on condition of adopting 

the faith, and of observing the precepts, of the 
gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer should 
have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of 
every rank, and of every province in the Roman empire. 
The ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for 
their present existence, and by a just confidence of immor- 
tality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern 

ages cannot give us any adequate notion. In the 
Approaching primitive church the influence of truth was very • 
world. powerfully strengthened by an opinion which, 

however it may deserve respect for its useful- 
ness and antiquity, has not been found agreeable to experi- 
ence. It was universally believed that the end of the world, 
and the kingdom of heaven, were at hand.* The near 
approach of this wonderful event had been predicted by 
the apostles ; the tradition of it was preserved by their 
earliest disciples, and those who understood in their literal 
sense the discourses of Christ himself, were obliged to 
expect the second and glorious coming of the Son of Man in 
the clouds, before that generation was totally extinguished, 
which had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and 
which might still be witness of the calamities of the Jews 
under Vespasian or Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen 
centuries has instructed us not to press too closely the 
mysterious language of prophecy and revelation ; but as 
long as, for wise purposes, this error was permitted to sub- 
sist in the church, it was productive of the most salutary 

*This was, in fact, an integral part of the Jewish notion of the Messiah, from 
which the minds of the apostles themselves were but gradually detached. See 
Bertholdt, Christologia jfudccorum, concluding chapters. — Milman. 



THE MILLENNIUM. 141 

efTecls on the faith and practice of Christians, who lived in 
the awful expectation of that moment when the globe itself, 
and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at the 
appearance of their divine Judge. 60 

The ancient and popular doctrine of the Mil- 
lennium was intimately connected with the second Doct t £J e of 
coming of Christ. As the works of the creation Millennium. 
had been finished in six days, their duration in 
their present state, according to a tradition which was 
attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand 
years. 61 By the same analogy it was inferred, that this long 
period of labor and contention, which was now almost 
elapsed, would be succeeded by a joyful Sabbath of a 
thousand years ; and that Christ, with the triumphant band 
of the saints and the elect who had escaped death, or who 
had been miraculously revived, would reign upon earth till 

60 This expectation was countenanced by the twenty-fourth chapter of St. 
Matthew, and by the first epistle of St. Paul to the Thessalonians. Erasmus 
removes the difficulty by the help of allegory and metaphor ; and the learned 
Grotius ventures to insinuate, that, for wise purposes, the pious deception was 
permitted to take place.* 

61 See Burnet's Sacred Theory, part iii. c. 5. This tradition may be traced as 
high as the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, who wrote in the first century, and 
who seems to have been half a Jew.f 

*Some modern theologians explain it without discovering either allegory or 
deception. They say, that Jesus Christ, after having proclaimed the ruin of 
Jerusalem and of the Temple, speaks of his second coming, and the signs which 
were to precede it ; but those who believed that the moment was near, deceived 
themselves as to the sense of two words, an error which still subsists in our 
versions of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, xxiv. 29, 34. In verse 29, we 
read, " Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened," 
&c. The Greek word ev^ecoc signifies all at once, suddenly, not immediately ; so 
that it signifies only the sudden appearance of the signs which Jesus Christ 
announces, not the shortness of the interval which was to separate them from the 
" days of tribulation," of which he was speaking. The verse 34 is this : " Verily 
" I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all these things shall be ful- 
" filled." Jesus, speaking to his disciples, uses these words, avrrj yevea, which 
the translators have rendered by this generation, but which means the race, the 
filiation of my disciples ; that is, he speaks of a class of men, not of a generation. 
The true sense then, according to these learned men, is, In truth I tell you that 
this race of men, of which you are the commencement, shall not pass away till 
this shall take place ; that is to say, the succession of Christians shall not cease 
till his coming. See Commentary of M. Paulus on the New Test., edit. 1802, torn, 
iii. pp. 445, 446. — Guizot. 

Others, as Rosenmuller and Kuinoel, in loc, confine this passage to a highly 
figurative description of the ruins of the Jewish city and polity. — Milman. 

When such nicely-varied interpretations support opposite opinions, on passages 
in Matthew's Gospel, we feel the loss of his Hebrew original. Scripture critics 
appeal to Greek expressions, as if they were the very words used by the speaker, 
when, as is well known, they were uttered to Jews, recorded in their language, 
and put into Greek by some unknown translator. (Ifieron de Vir. Must, iii.) The 
difficulty of accurately representing the true sense of Hebrew in another language 
is admitted and notorious— English Churchman. 

f In fa 61 it is purely Jewish. See Mosheim, De Reb. Christ, ii. 8. LightfooVs 
Works, 8vo. edit. vol. iii. p. 37. Bertholdt, Christologia Judceoruni, ch. 38. — M. 



I42 THE NEW JERUSALEM. 

the time appointed for the last and general resurrection* 
So pleasing was this hope to the mind of believers, that the 
New Jerusalem, the seat of this blissful kingdom, was quickly 
adorned with all the gayest colors of the imagination. A 
felicity consisting only of pure and spiritual pleasure would 
have appeared too refined for its inhabitants, who were still 
supposed to possess their human nature and senses. A 
garden of Eden, with the amusements of the pastoral life, 
was no longer suited to the advanced state of society which 
prevailed under the Roman empire. A city was therefore 
erected of gold and precious stones, and a supernatural 
plenty of corn and wine was bestowed on the adjacent 
territory ; in the free enjoyment of whose spontaneous pro- 
ductions the happy and benevolent people was never to be 
restrained by any jealous laws of exclusive property. 63 The 
assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by 
a succession of fathers from Justin Martyr 64 and Irenaeus, 
who conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, 
down to Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Con- 
stantine. 63 Though it might not be universally received, it 
appears to have been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox 
believers ; and it seems so well adapted to the desires and 

62 The primitive church of Antioch computed almost 6000 years from the creation 
of the world to the birth of Christ. Africanus, Lactantius, and the Greek church, 
have reduced that number to 5,500, and Eusebius has contended himself with 5,200 
years. These calculations were formed on the Septuagint, which was universally 
received during the six first centuries. The authority of the Vulgate and of the 
Hebrew text has determined the moderns, Protestants as well as Catholics, to 
prefer a period of about 4,000 years : though, in the study of profane antiquity, 
thev often hnd themselves straitened by those narrow limits.* 

63 Most of these pictures were borrowed from a misinterpretation of Isaiah, 
Daniel and the Apocalypse. One of the grossest images may be found in Irenaeus 
(1. v. p. 455), the disciple of Papias, who had seen the apostle St. John. 

61 See the second dialogue of Justin with Tryphon, and the seventh book of 
Lactantius. It is unnecessary to allege all the intermediate fathers, as the fact is 
not disputed. Yet the curious reader may consult Daille de Usu Patrum, 1. ii. c. 4. 

6j The testimony of Justin of his own faith and that of his orthodox brethren, in 
the doctrine of a Millennium, is delivered in the clearest and most solemn manner 
(Dialog, aim Tryphonte yud. pp. 177, 178, edit. Benedictin). If in the beginning of 
this important passage there is any thing like an inconsistency, we may impute it, 
as we think proper, either to the author or to his transcribers.! 



*Most of the more learned modern English Protestants, Dr. Hales, Mr. Faber, 
Dr. Russel, as well as the Continental writers, adopt the larger chronology. 
There is little doubt that the narrower system was framed by the Jews of Tibe- 
rias ; it was clearly neither that of St. Paul, nor of Josephus, nor of the Samaritan 
Text. It is greatly to be regretted that the chronology of the earlier Scriptures 
should ever have been made a religious question. — Milman. 

f The Millennium is described in what once stood as the XLIst Article of the 
English Church (see Collier, Eccles. Hist., for Articles of Edw. VI.) as "a fable 
" of Jewish dotage." The whole of these gross and earthly images may be traced 
in the works which treat on the Jewish traditions, in Lightfoot, Schoetgen, and 
Eisermenger ; " Das entdecktc yudcnthum," t. ii. 809 ; and briefly in Bertholdt, i. 
c- 38. 39. — Milman. 



DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD FORETOLD. I43 

apprehensions of mankind, that it must have contributed in 
a very considerable degree to the progress of the Christian 
faith. But when the edifice of the church was almost com- 
pleted, the temporary support was laid aside. The doctrine 
of Christ's reign upon earth was at first treated as a profound 
allegory, was considered by degrees as a doubtful and use- 
less opinion, and was at length rejected as the absurd in- 
vention of heresy and fanaticism. 66 A mysterious prophecy 
which still forms a part of the sacred canon, but which was 
thought to favor the exploded sentiment, has very narrowly 
escaped the proscription of the church. 67 

Whilst the happiness and glory of a temporal c nfl „ at - 
reign were promised to the disciples of Christ, of Rome and 
the most dreadful calamities were denounced world. 
against an unbelieving world. The edification 
of the new Jerusalem was to advance by equal steps with 
the destruction of the mystic Babylon ; and as long as the 
emperors who reigned before Constantine persisted in the 
profession of idolatry, the epithet of Babylon was applied to 
the city and to the empire of Rome. A regular series was 
prepared of all the moral and physical evils which can afflict 
a flourishing nation ; intestine discord, and the invasion of 
the fiercest barbarians from the unknown regions of the 
North ; pestilence and famine, comets and eclipses, earth- 
quakes and inundations. 68 All these were only so many 

66 Dupin', Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, torn. i. p. 223, torn. ii. p. 366, and Mosheim, 
p. 720 ; though the latter of these learned divines is not altogether candid on this 
occasion. 

67 In the council of Laodicea (about the year 360), the Apocalypse was tacitly 
excluded from the sacred canon, by the same churches of Asia to which it is ad- 
dressed ; and we may learn from the complaint of Sulpicius Severus, that their 
sentence had been ratified by the greater number of Christians of his time. From 
what causes then is the Apocalypse at present so generally received by the Greek, 
the Roman, and the Protestant Churches? The following ones may be assigned. 
I. The Greeks were subdued by the authority of an impostor, who in the sixth 
century, assumed the character of Dionysius the Areopagite. 2. A just appre- 
hension, that the grammarians might become more important than the theologians, 
engaged the council of Trent to fix the seal of their infallibility on all the books of 
Scripture contained in the Latin Vulgate, in the number of which the Apocalypse 
was fortunately included. {Fr. Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, 1. ii.) 
3. The advantage of turning those mysterious prophecies against the Sec of Rome, 
inspired the Protestants with uncommon veneration for so useful an ally. See the 
ingenious and elegant discourses of the bishop of Litchfield on that unpromising 
subiect.* 

68 Lactantius {bistitui. Divin. vii. 15, &c.) relates the dismal tale of futurity with 
great spirit and eloquence.f 

* The exclusion of the Apocalypse is not improbably assigned to its obvious 
unfitness to be read in churches. It is to be feared that a history of the inter- 
pretation of the Apocalypse would not give a very favorable view either of the 
wisdom or the charity of the successive ages of Christianity. Wetstein's inter- 
pretation, differently modified, is adopted by most Continental scholars. — Milman. 

t Lactantius had a notion of a great Asiatic empire, which was previously to rise 
on the ruins of the Roman : quod Romanum nomen' (horret animus dicere, sed 
dicam, quia futurum est) tolletur de terra, et imperium in Asiam revertetur. — M. 



144 FIRE THE CONSUMING AGENT. 

preparatory and alarming signs of the great catastrophe of 
Rome, when the country of the Scipios and Caesars should 
be consumed by a flame from heaven, and the city of the 
seven hills, with her palaces, her temples, and her triumphal 
arches, should be buried in a vast lake of fire and brimstone. 
It might, however, afford some consolation to Roman vanity, 
that the period of their empire would be that of the world 
itself; which, as it had once perished by the element of 
water, was destined to experience a second and speedy 
destruction from the element of fire. In the opinion of a 
general conflagration the faith of the Christian very happily 
coincided with the tradition of the East, the philosophy of 
the Stoics, and the analogy of Nature ; and even the country, 
which, from religious motives, had been chosen for the 
origin and principal scene of the conflagration, was the best 
adapted for that purpose by natural and physical causes ; 
by its deep caverns, beds of sulphur, and numerous vol- 
canoes, of which those of ^Etna, of Vesuvius, and of Lipari, 
exhibit a very imperfect representation. The calmest and 
most intrepid sceptic could not refuse to acknowledge that 
the destruction of the present system of the world by fire 
was in itself extremely probable. The Christian, who founded 
his belief much less on the fallacious arguments of reason 
than on the authority of tradition and the interpretation of 
Scripture, expected it with terror and confidence as a certain 
and approaching event ; and as his mind was perpetually 
filled with the solemn idea, he considered every disaster 
that happened to the empire as an infallible symptom of an 
expiring world. 69 

The condemnation of the wisest and most 

T devote? a t n o virtuous of the Pagans, on account of their 

eternal ignorance or disbelief of the divine truth, seems 

to offend the reason and the humanity of the 

present age. 70 But the primitive church, whose faith was of 

a much firmer consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, 

69 On this subject every reader of taste will be entertained with the third part of 
Burnet's Sacred Theory. He blends philosophy, Scripture, and tradition, into one 
magnificent system ; in the description of which he displays a strength of fancy 
not inferior to' that of Milton himself. 

'OAnd yet whatever maybe the language of individuals, it is still the public 
doctrine of all the Christian churches ; nor can even our own refuse to admit the 
conclusions which must be drawn from the eight and the eighteenth of her 
Articles. The Jansenists, who have so diligently studied the works of the fathers, 
maintain this sentiment with distinguished zeal ; and the learned M. de Tillemont 
never dismisses a virtuous emperor without pronouncing his damnation. Zuing- 
lius is perhaps the only leader of a party who has ever adopted the milder senti- 
ment, and he gave no less offence to the Lutherans than to the Catholics. See 
Bossuet, Histoire des Variations des Eglises Protestantes, 1. ii. c. 19-22. 



DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. I45 

to eternal torture, the far greater part of the human species.* 
A charitable hope might perhaps be indulged in favor of 
Socrates, or some other sages of antiquity, who had con- 
sulted the light of reason before that of the gospel had 
arisen. 71 But it was unanimously affirmed that those who, 

"i Justin and Clemens of Alexandria allow that some of the philosophers were 
instructed by the Logos ; confounding its double signification of the human 
reason, and of the Divine Word. 

* A golden city with foundations of precious gems, for the elect, and a burning 
lake of fire and brimstone for the condemned, was the crude belief of the early 
teachers of the Christian religion ; and, while many Christians have now outgrown 
this primitive theology, and realize that we can best serve God by being just and 
merciful to our fellow men — that a life of virtue and happiness here does not unfit 
us for what may occur hereafter — that the moral doctrine of Confucius and of 
Jesus " Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you," is nobler than 
"the vindictive threat of an infinite punishment for a finite offence," still this 
materialistic heaven and this realistic hell, form the usual stock in trade of our 
most successful revivalists, whose vivid pictures of the terrors of perdition, which 
are beneath the contempt of the wise, arouse the fears of weak-minded believers, 
and sometimes drive them to despair and insanity. In comparison with such 
childish conceptions of omnipotence and immortality, how grand seem the \ iews 
of philosophers and rationalists, who contemplate with calnv serenity, without 
alarm or apprehension, the action of those immutable laws which control the 
universe.. Realizing that, in defiance of death's stern mandate, and notwith- 
standing change is written on the universal face of Nature, the benefactors of 
our race still survive in the influence of their works — that no generous aspiration, 
no earnest effort, is ever lost to humanity — no noble deed is ever achieved in 
vain. And that we now inherit and enjoy the civilization, the wisdom and experi- 
ence garnered by our predecessors in the ages that are past, and which priceless 
legacy will be transmitted by us to myriads yet unborn. Says George Eliot ; 

" Oh, may I join the choir invisible 

" Of those immortal dead who live again 

" In minds made better by their presence ; live 

" In pulses stirred to generosity, 

" In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 

" For miserable aims that end with self, 

" In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars 

" And with their mild persistence urge men's search 

" To vaster issues. * *: * 

" * * * This is life to come." 
" For as soon as we have once clearly understood" says Bleek, " that individual 
'* life and action only form a small fragment of the great eternal life of mankind, 
" and that it is only by partaking in the latter that the individual man really lives, 
"and, as we may- hope, lives forever — striving for the general good no longer 
" appears a duty hard of fulfillment, but a necessity of our nature, which we are 
" the less able to resist, the more we have recognized the true essence of things. 
" And in truth it is the sentiment of such a relation that is the great source of all 
"noble and good efforts." 

"The great mystery of existence," says Biichner," consists in perpetual and 
"uninterrupted change. Every thing is immortal and indestructible, — the 
"smallest worm as well as the most enormous of the celestial bodies, — the sand- 
" grain or the water-drop as well as the highest being in creation : man and his 
" thoughts. Only the forms in which being manifests itself are changing ; but 
" Being itself remains eternally the same and imperishable. When we die we do 
" not lose ourselves, but only our personal consciousness, or the casual form which 
" our being, in itself eternal and imperishable, had assumed for a short time ; we 
" live on in Nature, in our race, in our children, in our descendants, in our deeds, 
"in our thoughts, —in short in the entire material and psychical contribution 
" which, during our short personal existence, we have furnished to the subsistence 
" of mankind and of nature in general." 

"Humanity," says Radenhausen, "persists and flows on although the indi- 
" vidual disappears after a short course of life : but neither his life, nor that of the 
"water-drop is lost. For just as the latter could not complete its circulation 
" without dissolving or superinducing the combinations of other matters, so 



I46 DOCTRINE OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 

since the birth or the death of Christ, had obstinately per- 
sisted in the worship of the daemons, neither deserved nor 
could expect a pardon from the irritated justice of the Deity. 
These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the 
ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness 
into a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and 
friendship were frequently torn asunder by the difference of 
religious faith ; and the Christians, who, in this world, found 
themselves oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were 
sometimes seduced by resentment and spiritual pride to 
delight in the prospect of their future triumph. "You are 
" fond of spectacles," exclaims the stern Tertullian ;* " expect 
" the greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment 
" of the universe. How shall I admire, how laugh, how 
" rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud 
" monarchs, and fancied gods, groaning in the lowest abyss 
" of darkness, ; so many magistrates, who persecuted the 
" name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever 
" kindled against the Christians ; so many sage philosophers 
" blushing in red-hot flames with their deluded scholars ; so 

" every man leaves the traces of his existence behind him in what he separated 
14 or brought into new combinations, in the contribution to the culture treasures 
" of humanity, which is furnished by every human life, from the least to the 
" greatest." Says Schopenhauer : 

" Drum schreitet, Thoren, ferner nicht, 

" Ob Ihr im Geist unsterblich seid ! 

" Denn keines Todes Macht zerbricht 

" Der Dinge Unverganglichkeit, 

" Die Alles was da ist und lebt, 

" In einem ew'gen Kreise fuehrt 

" Und, who sie zur Vernichtung strebt, 

" Die Flammen neuen Lebens schuertl 

44 Unsterblich ist der kleinste Wurni, 

" Unsterblich auch des Menschen Geist, 

" Den jeder neue Todessturm 

" In immer neue Bahnen reisst! 

" So lebet Ihr, gestorben auch. 

" In kuenftigen Geschlechtern fort, 

41 Und dieser ewige Gebrauch 

41 Verwechselt nichts als Zeit und Ort 1 " — E. 
* " Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus," says Rev. Robert Taylor, "the last 
" that can be read into the second century, and the very first of all the Latin 
'' Fathers, was, like the rest of them, originally a heathen, was afterwards a most 
" zealous and orthodox Christian, and finally fell into heresy. He was made 
" presbyter of the church of Carthage in Africa, of which he was a native, about 
" a. d. 193, and died, as may be conjectured, about the year 220. As he had become 
"tinctured with heresy, he lost the honor of his place in 'the noble army of 
" ' martyrs.'' " 

In Taylor's Syntagma, p. 106, a specimen is given of Tertullian's manner of 
reasoning, as follows : " I find no other means to prove myself to be impudent 
" with success, and happily a fool, than by my contempt of shame ; as, for instance : 
" I maintain that the Son of God was born : why am I not ashamed of maintaining 
"such a thing? Why! but because it is itself a shameful thing. I maintain that 
"the Son of God died: well, that is wholly credible because it is monstrously 
" absurd. I maintain that after having been buried, he rose again : and that I 
" take to be absolutely true, because it was manifestly impossible." — E. 



FEAR, A MOTIVE FOR CONVERSION. 1 47 

" many celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not 
11 oi Minos, but of Christ ; so many tragedians, more tuneful 
" in the expression of their own sufferings ; so many 
" dancers — ."* But the humanity of the reader will permit 
me to draw a veil over the rest of this infernal description, 
which the zealous African pursues in a long variety of 
affected and unfeeling witticisms. 72 

Doubtless there were many among the primi- 
tive Christians of a temper more suitable to the Averted 6 " r 
meekness and charity of their profession. There their fears/ 
were many who felt a sincere compassionTor the 
danger of their friends and countrymen, and who exerted 
the most benevolent zeal to save them from the impending 
destruction. The careless Polytheist, assailed by new and 
unexpected terrors, against which neither his priests nor his 
philosophers could afford him any certain protection, was 
very frequently terrified and subdued by the menance of 

72 Tertullian, de Speclaculis, c. 30. In order to ascertain the degree of authority 
which the zealous African had acquired, it may be sufficent to allege the testimony 
of Cyprian, the doctor and guide of all the western churches. (See Prudent. 
Hym. xiii. 100.) As often as he applied himself to his daily study of the writings 
of Tertullian, he was accustomed to say, ".Da mihi magistrum, Give me my 
master." {Hieronym. de Viris Illustribus, torn. i. p. 284.)! 

*This translation is not exact : the first sentence is imperfect. Tertullian says, 
Ille dies natiombus insperatus, ille derisus, cum tanta saeculi vetustas et tot ejus 
nativitates uno igne haurientur. The text does not authorize the exaggerated 
expressions, so many magistrates, so many sage philosophers, so many poets, &c. : 
but simply magistrates, philosophers, poets. — Guizot. 

It is not clear that Gibbon's version or paraphrase is incorrect ; Te-rtullian 
writes tot tantosque reges item praesides, &c. — Milman. 

Both these fathers were prepared for the Christian faith by Platonism, and could 
not be so ungrateful to their eminent heathen teachers, as to exclude them from 
the mansions of the blest. Clemens, who was half a century later than Justin, has 
been censured for the use which he made of his philosophy in his religious 
writings, some part of which Cassiodorus suppressed in his translation on that 
account. R. Simon, Hist. Crit. p. 19, 20. — English Churchman. 

f The object of Tertullian's vehemence in his Treatise was to keep the Christians 
away from the secular games celebrated by the Emperor Severus : it has not pre- 
vented him from showing himself in other places full of benevolence and charity 
towards unbelievers : the spirit of the gospel has sometimes prevailed over the 
violence of human passions : Qui ergo putaveris nihil nos de salute Ceesaris curare 
(he says in his Apology) inspice Dei voces, literas nostras. Scitote ex illis prae- 
ceptum esse nobis ad redundationem, benignitates etiam pro inimicis Deura orare, 
et pro persecutoribus bona precari. Sed etiam nominatim atque manifeste orate 
inquit (Christus) pro regibus et pro principibus et potestatibus ut omnia sint 
tranquilla vobis. Tert. Apol. c. 31. —Guizot. 

It would be wiser for Christianity, retreating upon its genuine records in the 
New Testament, to disclaim this fierce African, than to identify itself with his 
furious invectives by unsatisfactory apologies for their unchristian fanaticism.— M. 

Tertullian, in a former note, was denounced by M. Guizot as an untrue exponent 
of early Christian sentiments. The first sentence, as given by him at full length, 
is far more violent and revolting than it is in Gibbon's abridged version. To 
make good his second charge of " exaggerated exclamations," he has himself had 
recourse to a most unpardonable mutilation. The " so many," which he censures 
as an amplifying interpolation, is actually in the original, and if used only once, it 
is applied to' all by conjunctive particles. — English Churchman. 



I48 THE GIFT OF TONGUES. 

eternal tortures. His fears might assist the progress of his 
faith and reason ; and if he could once persuade himself to 
suspect that the Christian religion might possibly be true, it 
became an easy task to convince him that it was the safest 
and most prudent party that he could possibly embrace. 

III. The supernatural gifts, which even in 
Th caus" IRD tn i s n fe were ascribed to the Christians above 

Miraculous the rest of mankind, must have conduced to 
P of ithe S their own comfort, and very frequently to the 

P chJrch e conviction of infidels. Besides the occasional 
prodigies, which might sometimes be effected 
by the immediate interposition of the Deity when he sus- 
pended the laws of nature for the service of religion, the 
Christian church, from the time of the apostles and their 
first disciples, 73 has claimed an uninterrupted succession of 
miraculous powers, the gift of tongues, of vision, and of 
prophesy, the power of expelling daemons, of healing the 
sick, and of raising the dead.* The knowledge of foreign 
languages was frequently communicated to the contempo- 
raries of Irenaeus, though Irenaeus himself was left to struggle 
with the difficulties of a barbarous dialect, whilst he preached 

73 Notwithstanding the evasions of Dr. Middleton, it is impossible to overlook 
the clear traces of visions and inspiration, which may be found in the apostolic 
fathers.! 



* If a miracle be denned as an occurrence opposed to the laws of nature, the 
definition itself demonstrates its impossibility : if it be only claimed as an apparent 
violation of those laws, then the miracle ceases when the modus operandi is dis- 
covered. 

" Miracles," says Giebel, "are great horrors in the domain of science where, 
" not blind faith, but conviction derived from knowledge, is of any value." 

"There is neither chance nor miracle;" says Jouvencel, "there exist but 
" phenomena governed by laws." 

*' Miracles," says the celebrated Systeme de la Nature, " exist only for him who 
" has not studied them." 

" We have the fullest right," says Biichner, "and are scientifically correct, in 
" asserting there is no such thing as a miracle ; everything that happens, does so 
" in a natural way. No revolution on earth or in heaven, however stupendous, 
" could occur in any other manner." 

" Every miracle, if it existed," observes Cotta, "would lead to the conviction 
" that the creation is not deserving the respect which all pay to it, and the mystics 
" would necessarily be obliged to deduce from the imperfection of the created 
" world the imperfection of the creator." 

" The government of the world," says Strauss, "must not be considered as de- 
" termined by an extramundane intelligence, but by one immanent in the cosmical 
" forces and their relations." 

" We find," says Tuttle, "in the constant harmony of nature a sufficient proof 
" in favor of the immutability of its laws. Every miracle would involve their m- 
" fraction ; a process to which nature would submit as little as to any other inter- 
" vention in its empire ; in which every thing, from the gnat which dances in the 
" sunbeam up to the human mind, which issues from the brain, is governed by 
" fixed principles." — E. 

t Gibbon should have noticed the distinct and remarkable passage from 
Chrysostom, quoted by Middleton {IVorks, vol. i. p. 105), in which he affirms the 
long discontinuance of miracles as a notorious fact. — Mi lm an. 



INSPIRED VISIONS. I49 

the gospel to the natives of Gaul. 74 The divine inspiration, 
whether it was conveyed in the form of a waking or of a 
sleeping vision, is described as a favor very liberally 
bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on women as on 
elders, on boys as well as upon bishops. When their 
devout minds were sufficiently prepared by a course of 
prayer, of fasting, and of vigils, to receive the extraordinary 
impulse, they were transported out of their senses, and 
delivered in ecstasy what was inspired, being mere organs 
of the Holy Spirit,* just as a pipe or flute is of him who 
blows into it. ' 5 We may add that the design of these visions 
was, for the most part, either to disclose the future history, 
or to guide the present administration, of the church. The 
expulsion of the daemons from the bodies of those unhappy 
persons whom they had been permitted to torment, was 
considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of religion, 
and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apologists as the 
most convincing evidence of the truth of Christianity. The 
awful ceremony was usually performed in a public manner, 
and in the presence of a great number of spectators ; the 
patient was relieved by the power or skill of the exorcist, 
and the vanquished daemon was heard to confess that he 
was one of the fabled gods of antiquity, who had impiously 

M Irenceus adv. Hceres. Proem, p. s.f Dr. Middleton {Free Inquiry, p. 96, &c.) 
observes, that as this pretension of all others was the most difficult to support by 
art, it was the soonest given up. The observation suits his hypothesis.^ 

■<5 Athenagoras in Legatione. Justin Martyr, Cohort, ad Gentes. Tertullian 
advers. Marcionit, 1. iv. These descriptions" are not very unlike the prophetic 
fury, for which Cicero (de Divinat. ii. 54) expresses so little reverence. 

*The spiritualists of the present day claim that certain members of their society 
called " Mediums" are habitually influenced and controlled by spirits, or bv per- 
sons who formerly lived upon the earth ; and further, that these Mediums in their 
inspired or extatic state, oft teach doctrines thev do not comprehend, and speak 
in languages they do not understand. All who have listened to their rhapsodies 
will unhesitatingly admit, at least, the latter portion of this claim. — E. 

t This passage of Irenseus contains no allusion to the gift of tongues ; it is merely 
an apology for a rude and unpolished Greek style, which could not be expected 
from one who passed his life in a remote and barbarous province, and was con- 
tinually obliged to speak the Celtic language. — Milman. 

I Except in the life of Pachomius, an Egvptian monk of the fourth centurv (see 
Jortin, Ecc. Hist, i, p. 368, edit. 1805), and the latter (not earlier) lives of Xavier, 
there is no claim laid to the gift of tongues since the time of Irenaeus : and of this 
claim Xavier's own letters are profoundlv silent. See Douglas's Criterion, p. 76, 
edit. 1807. — Milman. 

_ The attack first made by Mr. Davis on this passage is repeated by Dean Milman 
in milder terms. They both misconceived Gibbon's meaning. He does not say 
that Irenseus made "any allusion to the gift of tongues ;" but on the contrary, 
that he was silent on the subject ; that while this miraculous faculty was asserted 
to be in the church, the bishop of Lyons had acquired, by the natural course of 
study, the means of conversing with the Gauls of his diocese. His words : " non 
" didicimus," "non affectavimus," clearly denote this. — English Churchman. 



I50 MIRACLES OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. 

usurped the adoration of mankind. 76 But the miraculous 
cure of diseases of the most inveterate or even preternatural 
kind can no longer occasion any surprise, when we recollect 
that in the days of Irenseus, about the end of the second 
century, the resurrection of the dead was very far from 
being esteemed an uncommon event ; that the miracle was 
frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great 
fasting and the joint supplication of the church of the place, 
and that the persons thus restored to their prayers had 
lived afterwards among them many years. 77 At such a 
period, when faith could boast of so many wonderful 
victories over death,* it seems difficult to account for the 

?R Tertullian {Apolog. c. 23) throws out a bold defiance to the Pagan magistrates. 
Of the primitive miracles, the power of exorcising is the only one which has been 
assumed by Protestants. t 

~~ IrencEus adv. Hcsreses, 1. ii. 56, 57, 1. v. c. 6. Mr. Dodwell (Dissertat. ad. 
Irenceum, ii. 42) concludes, that the second century was still more fertile in miracles 
than the first J 

* Faith no longer performs the miracles of the past. In the sunlight of the 
nineteenth century prayers are impotent, and do not restore the dead to life. The 
sublime order of nature is not now reversed at the bidding of priest or prelate. 
Blossoms do not greet the chill winds of autumn, neither does the ripened fruit 
appear to woo the genial warmth of spring. " The myths of Paganism," says 
Huxley, (Lay Lessons, pp. 277, 27S,) " are as dead as Osiris or Zeus, and the man 
" who should revive them, in opposition to the knowledge of our time, would be 
" justly laughed to scorn ; but the coeval imaginations current among the rude 
" inhabitants of Palestine, recorded by writers whose very name and age are ad- 
" mitted by every scholar to be unknown, have unfortunately not yet shared their 
" fate, but, even at this day, are regarded by nine-tenths of the civilized world as 
" the authoritative standard of fact. The cosmogony of the semi-barbarous 
" Hebrew is the incubus of the philosopher and the opprobium of the orthodox. 
" Who shall number the patient and earnest seekers alter truth, from the days of 
" Galileo until now, whose lives have been embittered and their good name blasted 
" by the mistaken zeal of Bibliolaters? Who shall count the host of weaker men 
" whose sense of truth has been destroyed in the effort to harmonize impossibilities 
" —whose life has been wasted in the attempt to force the generous new wine of 
" Science into the old bottles of Judaism." 

The brutal assassination and sad death, in 1881, of President Garfield, who was 
not onlv honored and beloved by his countrymen, but was also respected and 
admired wherever civilization holds its sway, gave an opportunity to test the 
efficacy of praver as a means of controlling future events, such as the world has 
seldom witnessed. The probability that he would live was asserted by his phy- 
sicians, and the hopes, desires, and prayers of the people for his recovery were 
universal. " There is no language," said an eloquent speaker, " in which petitions 
" have not arisen for Garfield's life, and no clime where tears have not fallen for 
" his death." This is indeed the mournful truth, and yet that brave and noble 
spirit sank at last to silence and to rest. Tears and petitions could not save his 
valued life. Invocations and prayers cannot change the inexorable decrees of fate. 
A nation suppliant, while the victim dies, demonstrates the futility of human ap- 
peals, and illustrates the eternal and immutable laws that control the universe. — E. 

t But by Protestants neither of the most enlightened ages nor most reasoning 
minds. — Milman. 

t It is difficult to answer Middleton's objection to this statement of Irenseus : 
" It is very strange, that from the time of the apostles there is not a single instance 
" of this miracle to be found in the three first centuries ; except a single case, 
" slightly intimated in Eitsebius, from the Works of Papias ; which he seems to 
rank among the other fabulous stories delivered by that weak man." Middleton, 
Works, vol. i. p. 59. Bp. Douglas {Criterion, p. 389) would consider Irenreus to 
soeak of what had "been performed formerly," not in his own time. — Milman. 






THE MIRACULOUS PERIOD. 151 

skepticism of those philosophers who still rejected and de- 
rided the doctrine of the resurrection. A noble Grecian had 
rested on this important ground the whole controversy, and 
promised Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, that, if he could 
be gratified with the sight of a single person who had been 
actually raised from the dead, he would immediately em- 
brace the Christian religion. It is somewhat remarkable 
that the prelate of the first eastern church, however anxious 
for the conversion of his friend, thought proper to decline 
this fair and reasonable challenge. Ts 

The miracles of the primitive church, after 
obtaining the sanction of ages, have been lately Contested! 1 
attacked in a very free and ingenious inquiry, 79 
which, though it has met with the most favorable reception 
from the public, appears to have excited a general scandal 
among the divines of our own as well as of the other Protest- 
ant churches of Europe. 80 Our different sentiments on this 
subject will be much less influenced by any particular argu- 
ments, than by our habits of study and reflection ; and, 
above all, by the degree of the evidence which we have 
accustomed ourselves to require for the proof of a miraculous 
event. The duty of an historian does not call 
upon him to interpose his private judgment in perplexity in 
this nice and important controversy ; but he defining the 
ought not to dissemble the difficulty of adopting period." 
such a theory as may reconcile the interest of 
religion with that of reason, of making a proper application 
of that theory, and of defining with precision the limits of 
that happy period, exempt from error and from deceit, to 
which we might be disposed to extend the gift of super- 
natural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of 
the popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and 
of miracles, is continued without interruption ; and the pro- 
gress of superstition was so gradual, and almost impercepti- 

78 Theophilus ad Autolycum, 1. i. p. 345. Edit. Benedictin. Paris, 1742.* 

"9 Dr. Middleton sent out his Introduction in the year 1747, published his Free 
Inquiry in 1749. and before his death, which happened in 1750, he had prepared a 
vindication of it against his numerous adversaries. 

so The university of Oxford conferred degrees on his opponents. From the 
indignation of Mosheim (p. 221), we may discover the sentiments of the Lutheran 
divines.! 

* A candid skeptic might discern some impropriety in the Bishop being called 
upon to perform a miracle on demand. — Milman. 

If the "candid" Bishop asserted his power to raise the dead, he should have 
been prepared to demonstrate that power when challenged, for one demonstration 
is worth more than a thousand assertions, or ten thousand apologies. — E. 

f Yet many Protestant divines will now without reluctance confine miracles to 
the time of the apostles, or at least to the first century. — Milman. 



152 WHEN DID MIRACLES CEASE? 

ble, that we know not in what particular link we should 
break the chain of tradition. Every age bears testimony to 
the wonderful events by which it was distinguished,* and its 
testimony appears no less weighty and respectable than that 
of the preceding generation, till we are insensibly led on to 
accuse our own inconsistency, if .in the eighth or in the 
twelfth century we deny to the venerable Bede, or to the 
holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence which, in the 
second century, we had so liberally granted to Justin or to 
Irenaeus. 81 If the truth of any of those miracles is appreci- 
ated by their apparent use and propriety, every age had 
unbelievers to convince, heretics to confute, and idolatrous 
nations to convert ; and sufficient motives might always be 
produced to justify the interposition of heaven. And yet, 
since every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality, 
and every reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of 
miraculous powers, it is evident that there must have been 
some period in which they were either suddenly or gradually 
withdrawn from the Christian church. Whatever era is 
chosen for that purpose, the death of the apostles, the con- 
version of the Roman empire, or the extinction of the Arian 
heresy, 82 the insensibility of the Christians who lived at that 

si It may seem somewhat remarkable, that Bernard of Clairvaux, who records 
so many miracles of his friend St. Malachi, never takes any notice of his own, 
which, in their turn, however, are carefully related by his companions and dis- 
ciples. In the long series of ecclesiastical history, does there exist a single instance 
of a saint asserting that he himself possessed the gift of miracles? 

82 The conversion of Constantine is the era which is most usually fixed by 
Protestants. The more rational divines are unwilling to admit the miracles of the 
fourth, whilst the more credulous are unwilling to reject those of the fifth century .f 

* " Mention to me a single nation," says Voltaire, " in which the most incredible 
" prodigies have not been performed, and especially in those periods in which the 
" people scarcely knew how to read or write." — E. 

f All this appears to proceed on the principle that any distinct line can be drawn 
in an unphilosophic age between wonders and miracles, or between what piety, 
from their unexpected and extraordinary nature, the marvellous concurrence of 
secondary causes to some remarkable end, may consider provide?itial interpo- 
sitions, and miracles strictly so called, in which the laws of nature are suspended 
or violated. It is impossible to assign, on one side, limits to human credulity, on 
the other, to the influence of the imagination on the bodily frame ; but some of the 
miracles recorded in the Gospels are such palpable impossibilities, according to 
the known laws and operations of nature, that if recorded on sufficient evidence, 
and the evidence we believe to be that of eye-witnesses, we cannot reject them, 
without either asserting, with Hume, that "no evidence can prove a miracle, or 
that the Author of Nature has no power of suspending its ordinary laws. But 
which of the post-apostolic miracles will bear this test? — Milman. 

M. Guizot has abstained from all remarks en this "third cause." Dean Milman 
has made several, which are those of an enlightened and liberal mind. " Many 
" Protestant divines," he says, " will now, without reluctance, confine miracles to 
" the time of the apostles, or at least to the first century." He admits that the 
post-apostolic miracles are doubtful, and that the most credible among them may 
be ascribed to some "marvellous concurrence of secondary causes," between 
which and actual suspensions of the laws of nature, " an unphilosophic age " can 
draw no line of distinction. — English Churchman. 



THE USE OF MIRACLES. I53 

time will equally afford a just matter of surprise. They still 
supported their pretensions after they had lost their power. 
Credulity performed the office of faith ; fanaticism was per- 
mitted to assume the language of inspiration, and the effects 
of accident or contrivance were ascribed to supernatural 
causes. The recent experience of genuine miracles should 
have instructed the Christian world in the ways of Provi- 
dence, and habituated their eye (if we may use a very 
inadequate expression) to the style of the divine artists. 
Should the most skillful painter of modern Italy presume to 
decorate his feeble imitations with the name of Raphael or 
Correggio, the insolent fraud would be soon discovered and 
indignantly rejected.* 

Whatever opinion may be entertained of the 
miracles of the primitive church since the time Us ? °. f . the 
of the apostles, this unresisting softness of Kracies! 
temper, so conspicuous among the believers of 
the second and third centuries, proved of some accidental 
benefit to the cause of truth and religion. In modern 
times, a latent and even involuntary skepticism adheres to 
the most pious dispositions. Their admission of super- 
natural truths is much less an active consent than a cold 
and passive acquiescence. Accustomed long since to observe 
and to respect the invariable order of nature, our reason, 
or at least our imagination, is not sufficiently prepared to 
sustain the visible action of the Deity. But, in the first ages 
of Christianity, the situation of mankind was extremely 
different. The most curious, or the most credulous, among 
the Pagans, were often persuaded to enter into a society 
which asserted an actual claim to miraculous powers. The 
primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and 
their minds were exercised by the habits of believing the 
most extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied, that 
on every side they were incessantly assaulted by daemons, 
comforted by visions, instructed by prophesy, and surpris- 

* A religion which bases its claim to credence on the power of working miracles, 
must expect to encounter disbelief when its teachers have lost their mystic art.' 
Each neophyte is entitled, in justice, to the same proof that convinced the first 
believers. If A has seen a ghost, he may be expected to believe that ghosts exist, 
but his experience is no proof to B, who would sooner believe in A's mistaken 
perceptions, or even falsehood, than in the reality of ghostly visitants. Like the 
doubting Thomas in scripture, he requires the evidence of his own senses before 
he will believe an assertion which is opposed to all his former experience. " It is 
(- clear," says Bishop Watson, in his Apology for Christianity, letter iii., "that a 
(( past miracle can neither be the objea of sense nor of intuition, nor consequently 

of demonstration : we cannot then, philosophically speaking, be said to know 

that a miracle has ever been performed." — E. 



154 REFORMATION OF MANNERS. 

ingly delivered from danger, sickness, and from death itself, 
by the supplications of the church. The real or imaginary 
progidies, of which they so frequently conceived themselves 
to be the objects, the instruments, or the spectators, very 
happily disposed them to adopt with the same ease, but 
with far greater justice, the authentic wonders of the evan- 
gelic history; and thus miracles that exceeded not the 
measure of their own experience inspired them with the 
most lively assurance of mysteries which were acknowl- 
edged to surpass the limits of their understanding. It is 
this deep impression of supernatural truths which has been 
so much celebrated under the name of faith ; a state of 
mind described as the surest pledge of the divine favor and 
of future felicity, and recommended as the first, or perhaps 
the only merit of a Christian. According to the more rigid 
doctors, the moral virtues, which may be equally practised 
by infidels, are destitute of any value or efficacy in the work 
of our justification.* 

IV. But the primitive Christian demonstrated 
Th cause RTH ms fei tn by his virtues; and it was very justly 
Virtues of the supposed that the divine persuasion, which en- 
ChdsUans. lightened or subdued the understanding, must, 
at the same time, purify the heart, and direct the 
actions, of the believer. The first apologists of Christianity 
who justify the innocence of their brethren, and the writers 
of a later period who celebrate the sanctity of their ancestors, 
display, in the most lively colors, the reformation of manners 
which was introduced into the world by the preaching of the 
gospel. As it is my intention to remark only such human 
causes as were permitted to second the influence of revela- 
tion, I shall slightly mention two motives which might 
naturally render the lives of the primitive Christians much 
purer andmore austere than those of their Pagan contempo- 
raries, or their degenerate successors : repentance for their 
past sins, and the laudable desire of supporting the reputa- 
tion of the society in which they were engaged.f 

* The moral virtues which, as Gibbon here shows, are destitute of any value in 
the work of justification, are, notwithstanding, of inestimable value to human 
society and to human welfare. The practice of virtue and morality in this life 
cannot unfit mortals for happiness in a life to come, and gives us here on earth a 
foretaste of the heaven which is promised hereafter. — E. 

f These, in the opinion of the editor, are the most uncandid paragraphs in 
Gibbon's History. He ought either, with manly courage, to have denied the moral 
reformation introduced by Christianity, or fairly to have investigated all its 
motives ; not to have confined himself to an insidious and sarcastic description of 
the less pure and generous elements of the Christian character as it appeared even 
at that early time. — Milman. 



MUTUAL SUPERVISION. 1 55 

It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the 
ignorance or the malice of infidelity, that the E ^ C ef r of 
Christians allured into their party the most repentance. 
atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were 
touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to 
wash away, in the water of baptism,* the guilt of their past 
conduct, for which the temples of the gods refused to grant 
them any expiation. But this reproach, when it is cleared 
from misrepresentation, contributes as much to the honor as 
it did to the increase of the church. 83 The friends oi 
Christianity may acknowledge without a blush that many 
of the most eminent saints had been before their baptism 
the most abandoned sinners. Those persons who in the 
world had followed, though in an imperfect manner, the 
dictates of benevolence and propriety, derived such a calm 
satisfaction from the opinion of their own rectitude as ren- 
dered them much less susceptible of the sudden emotions of 
shame, of grief, and of terror, which have given birth to so 
many wonderful conversions. After the example of their 
divine master, the missionaries of the gospel disdained not 
the society of men, and especially of women, oppressed by 
the consciousness, and very often by the effects, of their 
vices. As they emerged from sin and superstition to the 
glorious hope of immortality, they resolved to devote them- 
selves to a life, not only of virtue, but of penitence. The 
desire of perfection became the ruling passion of their soul ; 
and it is well known that, while reason embraces a cold 
mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over 
the space which lies between the most opposite extremes. 

83 The imputations of Celsus and Julian, with the defence of the fathers, are very 
fairly stated by Spanheim, Commentaire sur les Ccesars de Julian, p, 468. 

* " Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow," is the promise 
held forth to those who believe in the virtues of the atonement. A willing as- 
sent to this dogma, not the practice of a virtuous life — an unbounded faith, not 
moral rectitude — is the essential condition for salvation. Hence Gibbon was justi- 
fied in asserting that the most atrocious criminals, spurned with contempt from 
the temples of the gods, were admitted into the Christian community. " We are 
" made as the filth of the world," says St. Paul, I. Cor. iv. 13, "and are the off- 
" scouring of all things unto this day." And it is no demerit to Christianity, (ex- 
cept in the eyes of certain refined Christians like Milman,) that Christianity was , 
established by and for the poor and ignorant, and that Christ labored especially for ( 
the outcast, the guilty, and the oppressed. It is true that this meek and lowly origin 
ill consorts with the dignity and pomp of the Church as established by law. The 
class prejudices, so conspicuous in English society, naturally cause both preacher 
and prelate to revolt at even the suggestion of the most casual contact with the 
depraved outcast. These men will willingly preach " Christ and him crucified," 
in consideration of receiving a substantial" salary for their trouble. But who could 
imagine a Dean or a Bishop of the holy Episcopal Church consenting to be crucified, 
like Jesus, between two thieves, even to save the souls of a universe of sinners ? — E. 



I56 CONTEMPT OF WORLDLY PLEASURES. ' 

When the new converts had been enrolled in the 
Care of their number of the faithful, and were admitted to the 
reputation, sacraments of the church, they found themselves 
restrained from relapsing into their past dis- 
orders by another consideration of a less spiritual, but of a 
very innocent and respectable nature. Any particular 
society that has departed from the great body of the nation, 
or the religion to which it belonged, immediately becomes 
the object of universal as well as invidious observation. In 
proportion to the smallness of its numbers, the character of 
the society may be affected by the virtues and vices of the 
persons who compose it; and every member is engaged to 
watch with the most vigilant attention over his own behavior, 
and over that of his brethren ; since, as he must expect to 
incur a part of the common disgrace, he may hope to enjoy 
a share of the common reputation. When the Christians 
of Bithynia were brought before the tribunal of the younger 
Pliny, they assured the proconsul that, far from being en- 
gaged in any unlawful conspiracy, they were bound by a 
solemn obligation to abstain from the commission of those 
crimes which disturb the private or public peace of society ; 
from theft, robbery, adultery, perjury, and frauds Near a 
century afterwards, Tertullian, with an honest pride, could 
boast that very few Christians had suffered by the hand of 
the executioner, except on account of their religion. 85 Their 
serious and sequestered hfe, averse to the gay luxury of the 
age, inured them to chastity, temperance, economy, and all 
the sober and domestic virtues. As the greater number 
were of some trade or profession, it was incumbent on them, 
by the strictest integrity and the fairest dealing, to remove 

84 PHn. Epist. x 97* 

85 Tertullian, Apolog. c. 44. He adds, however, with some degree of hesitation, 
"Aut si aliud, jam non Christianus."f 

*And this blamelessness was fully admitted by the candid and enlightened 
Roman.— Milman. 

f Tertullian says positively no Christian, nemo illic Christianus ; for the rest, the 
limitation which he himself subjoins, and which Gibbon quotes in the foregoing 
note, diminishes the force of this assertion, and appears to prove that at least he 
knew none such. — GnzoT. 

Is not the sense of Tertullian rather, if guilty of any other offence, he has thereby 
ceased to be a Christian? — Milman. 

Dean Milman has undoubtedly given the true meaning of the passage, viz. that 
any one guilty of such crimes, " ceased to be a Christian." As an offending 
Quaker is now disowned by the society, so at that time an offending Christian was 
no longer a member of the' church. — English Churchman. 

Bv repenting of his misdeeds, however, he would again be entitled to all the 
privileges of church communion. Christ taught the doctrine of unbounded for- 

§iveness, and that we should forgive our erring brother not only seven times, 
ut "seventy times seven." — E. 



SELF MORTIFICATION. I57 

the suspicions which the profane are too apt to conceive 
against the appearances of sanctity. The contempt of the 
world exercised them in the habits of humility, meekness, 
and patience. The more they were persecuted, the more 
closely they adhered to each other. Their mutual charity 
and unsuspecting confidence has been remarked by infidels, 
and was too often abused by perfidious friends. 56 

It is a very honorable circumstance for the 
morals of the primitive Christians, that even Morality 
their faults, or rather errors, were derived from fathers, 
an excess of virtue. The bishops and doctors 
of the church, whose evidence attests, and whose authority 
might influence, the professions, the principles, and even the 
practice of their contemporaries, had studied the Scriptures 
with less skill than devotion ; and they often received, in 
the most literal sense, those rigid precepts of Christ and the 
apostles, to which the prudence of succeeding commentators 
has applied a looser and more figurative mode of interpre- 
tadon. Ambitious to exalt the perfection of the gospel 
above the wisdom of philosophy, the zealous fathers have 
carried the duties of self-mortification, of purity, and of 
patience, to a height which it is scarcely possible to attain, 
and much less to preserve, in our present state of weakness 
and corruption. A doctrine so extraordinary and so sublime 
must inevitably command the veneration of the people; but 
it was ill calculated to obtain the suffrage of those worldly 
philosophers who, in the conduct of this transitory life, con- 
sult only the feelings of nature and the interest of society." 

There are two very natural propensities which 
we may distinguish in the most virtuous and Principles of 
liberal dispositions, the love of pleasure and the nature. 
love of action. If the former be refined by art 
and learning, improved by the charms of social intercourse, 
and corrected by a just regard to economy, to health, and 
to reputation, it is productive of the greatest part of the 
happiness of private life. The love of action is a principle 
of a much stronger and more doubtful nature. It often leads 
to anger, to ambition, and to revenge; but when it is guided 
by the sense of propriety and benevolence, it becomes the 
parent of every virtue, and if those virtues are accompanied 

83 The philosopher Peregrinus (of whose life and death Lucian has left us so 
entertaining an account) imposed, for a long time, on the credulous simplicity of 
the Christians of Asia. 

87 See a very judicious treatise of Barbeyrac sur la Morale des Peres. 



158 OPPOSITION TO LUXURY. 

with equal abilities, a family, a state, or an empire may be 
indebted for their safety and prosperity to the undaunted 
courage of a single man. To the love of pleasure we may 
therefore ascribe most of the agreeable, to the love of action 
we may attribute most of the useful and respectable qualifica- 
tions. The character in which both the one and the other 
should be united and harmonized would seem to constitute 
the most perfect idea of human nature. The insensible and 
inactive disposition, which should be supposed alike desti- 
tute of both, would be rejected, by the common consent of 
mankind, as utterly incapable of procuring any happiness 
to the individual, or any public benefit to the world. But 
it was not in this world that the primitive Christians were 
desirous of making themselves either agreeable or useful.* 
The acquisition of knowledge, the exercise of 
Christians' 6 our reason or fancy, and the cheerful flow of un- 
condemn guarded conversation, may employ the leisure 
P fuxury an of a liberal mind. Such amusements, however, 
were rejected with abhorrence, or admitted with 
the utmost caution, by the severity of the fathers, who 
despised all knowledge that was not useful to salvation, and 
who considered all levity of discourse as a criminal abuse 
of the gift of speech. In our present state of existence the 
body is so inseparably connected with the soul, that it seems 
to be our interest to taste, with innocence and moderation, 
the enjoyments of which that faithful companion is sus- 
ceptible. Very different was the reasoning of our devout 
predecessors; vainly aspiring to imitate the perfection of 
angels, they disdained, or they affected to disdain, every 
earthly and corporeal delight. 88 Some of our senses indeed 
are necessary for our preservation, others for our subsist- 
ence, and others again for our information; and thus far 
it was impossible to reject the use of them. The first sensa- 
tion of pleasure was marked as the first moment of their 

83 Lactant. Institut. Divin. 1. vi. c. 20, 21, 22. 



* Et que me fait cette homelie semi-stoicienne, semi-epicurienne ? A-t-on jamais 
regarde l'amour du plaisir comme l'un des principes de la perfection morale? Et 
de quel droit faites vous de l'amour de Paction, et de l'amour du plaisir, les seuls 
elemens de l'etre humain ? Est ce que vous faites abstraction de la verite en elle- 
nieme, de la conscience et du sentiment du devoir? Est ce que vous ne sentez 
point, par example, que le sacrifice du moih la justice et a la verite, est aussi dans 
le cceur de l'homme : que tout n'est pas pour lui action ou plaisir, et que dans le 
bien ce n'est par le mouvement, mais la verite, qu'il cherche ? Et puis * * Thucy- 
dide et Tacite, ces maitres de l'histoire, ont ils jamais introduits dans leur recits 
un fragment de dissertation sur le plaisir et sur Taction ? Villemain, Cours de Lit. 
Fran?, part ii. Leijon v. — Milman. 



CHRISTIAN ASCETICISM. 



J 59 



abuse. The unfeeling candidate for heaven was instructed, 
not only to resist the grosser allurements of the taste or 
smell, but even to shut his ears against the profane har- 
mony of sounds, and to view with indifference the most 
finished productions of human art.* Gay apparel, magnificent 
houses, and elegant furniture, were supposed to unite the 
double guilt of pride and of sensuality ; a simple and morti- 
fied appearance was more suitable to the Christian who was 
certain of his sins, and doubtful of his salvation. In their 
censures of luxury the fathers are extremely minute and cir- 
cumstantial f 9 and among the various articles which excite 
their pious indignation we may enumerate false hair, gar- 
ments of any color except white, instruments of music, vases 
of gold or silver, downy pillows (as Jacob reposed his head 
on a stone), white bread, foreign wines, public salutations, 
the use of warm baths, and the practice of shaving the 
beard, which, according to the expression of Tertullian, is a 
lie against our own faces, and an impious attempt to im- 
prove the works of the Creator. 90 When Christianity was 
introduced among the rich and the polite, the observation 
of these singular laws was left, as it would be at present, to 
the few who were ambitious of superior sanctity. But it is 
always easy, as well as agreeable, for the inferior ranks of 

89 Consult a work of Clements of Alexandria, entitled The Pedagogue, which 
contains the rudiments of ethics, as they were taught in the most celebrated of the 
Christian schools. 

90 Tertullian, de SpeSlaculis, c. 23. Clemens Alexandrin. Pcedagog. 1. iii. c. 8. 



* Another proof of the monkish origin of Christianity, Asceticism, self humilia- 
tion, penance and prayer were the first requisites for salvation : and these doctrines 
originated in Alexandria, and were taught by the monks called Essenesor Thera- 
peuts. "Jesus or Jeshua, called Christ," says Biichner, in the Appendix to his 
work entitled Man in the Past, Present and Future, " was not and did not desire 
' to be the founder of a new religion, and least of all a world-religion, although 
' millions and millions of men have regarded and still regard him as such, He 
1 was merely a Jewish religious reformer, and his original doctrine is neither more 
' nor less than an improved and purified Judaism. His whole efforts were in the 
'direction of the religious sect of the Essenes, from which he arose, who were 
' directed to get rid of, or repress those externals which were then so highly 
1 valued and to render religion more internal. Moreover after the death of Jesus 
1 the first community of Christians still lived quite in the Jewish fashion, observed 
' the Sabbath and the Jewish laws, practiced circumcision, and respected Jerusa- 
lem and the Temple. It was Saul of Tarsus, afterwards called Paul, originally 
1 the most zealous persecutor of the Jewish Christians, but afterwards converted, 
' who first made out of Christianity an opposition to Judaism and gave it great 
' extension by his travels and indefatigable activity. Nevertheless the original 
'pure doctrine was continued among the Jewish Christians as what is called 
' Petrinism, which remained strictly faithful to the teachings of the Master, but 
' very soon came near its end with the fall of Judaism, and was completely sup- 
' pressed by the gradually developing Paulinism or religion of the Gentile Chris- 
tians, who hated and despised the Jews and their doctrine. This Paulinism 
' speedily ruled the world. Paul is therefore the true founder of Christianity. 
' (See for details the little work by R. W. Kunis, Vernunft mid Offenbarung, 
' Leipzig, 1870)." — E. 



l6o TOLERATION OF MARRIAGE. 

mankind to claim a merit from the contempt of that pomp 
and pleasure which fortune has placed beyond their reach. 
The virtue of the primitive Christians, like that of the first 
Romans, was very frequently guarded by poverty and 
ignorance. 

The chaste severity of the fathers, in whatever 
setSments related to the commerce of the two sexes, flowed 
concerning from the same principle ; their abhorrence of 
ma C hSfft^ nd every enjoyment which might gratify the sensual, 
and degrade the spiritual nature of man. It was 
their favorite opinion, that if Adam had preserved his 
obedience to the creator, he would have lived forever in a 
state of virgin purity, and that some harmless mode of vege- 
tation* might have peopled Paradise with a race of innocent 
and immortal beings. 91 The use of marriage was permitted 
only to his fallen posterity, as a necessary expedient to con- 
tinue the human species, and as a restraint, however imper- 
fect, on the natural licentiousness of desire. The hesitation 
of the orthodox casuists on this interesting subject betrays 
the perplexity of men unwilling to approve an institution 
which they were compelled to tolerate. 92 The enumeration 
of the very whimsical laws which they most circumstantially 
imposed on the marriage-bed would force a smile from the 
young and a blush from the fair. It was their unanimous 
sentiment that a first marriage was adequate to all the pur- 
poses of nature and of society. The sensual connection was 
refined into a resemblance of the mystic union of Christ with 
his church, and was pronounced to be indissoluble either by 
divorce or by death. The practice of second nuptials was 
branded with the name of a legal adultery ; and the persons 

91 Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, 1. vii. c. 3. Justin, Gregory of 
Nyssa, Augustin, &c, strongly inclined to this opinion.! 

92 Some of the Gnostic heretics were more consistent ; they rejected the use of 
marriage. 

* Milton alone, among the poets, was in sympathy with the monks in their 
aversion to the feminine gender. In Paradise Lost he has repeated the complaint 
of the Christian fathers, who presumed to question the wisdom of their Creator, 
and would have preferred to generate the human race in the interesting and 
poetic manner that farmers now employ to propagate potatoes. 

" Oh! why did God, 

" Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven 

" With spirits masculine, create at last 

" This novelty on Earth, this fair defect 

"Of nature? — And not fill the earth at once 

" With Men as Angels, without feminine ? 

"Or find some other way to generate mankind."— E. 
t But these were Gnostic or Manichean opinions. Beausobre distinctly ascribes 
Augustin's bias to his recent escape from Manicheism ; and adds that he after- 
wards changed his views. — Milman. 



CHRISTIAN ASCETICISM. l6l 

who were guilty of so scandalous an offence against Christian 
purity were soon excluded from the honors, and even from 
the alms, of the church. 53 Since desire was imputed as a 
crime, and marriage was tolerated as a defecl:, it was con- 
sistent with the same principles to consider a state of celibacy 
as the nearest approach to the divine perfection.* It was with 
the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the 
institution of six vestals ; 94 but the primitive church was filled 
with a great number of persons of either sex, who had de- 
voted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity. 95 
A few of these, among whom we may reckon the learned 
Origen, judged it the most prudent to disarm the tempter. 96 
Some were insensible and some were invincible against the 
assaults of the flesh. Disdaining an ignominious flight, the 
virgins of the warm climate of Africa encountered the 
enemy in the closest engagement ; they permitted priests 
and deacons to share their bed, and gloried amidst the 
flames in their unsullied purity. But insulted Nature some- 

93 See a chain of tradition, from Justin Martyr to Jerome, in the Morale des Pires, 
c. iv. 6—26. 

94 See a very curious Dissertation on the Vestals, in the Memoires de T Acadimie 
des Inscriptions , torn. iv. pp. 161-227. Notwithstanding- the honors and rewards 
which were bestowed on those virgins, it was difficult to procure a sufficient 
number; nor could the dread of the most horrible death always restrain their 
incontinence. 

95 Cupiditatem procreandi aut unam scimus aut nullam. Minucius FceUx, c. 31. 
Justin. Apolog, Major. Athenagofas in Legal, c. 28. Tertullian de Cultu 
Fcemin. 1. ii. 

96 Eusebius, 1. vi. 8. Before the fame of Origen had excited envy and persecu- 
tion, this extraordinary action was rather admired than censured. As it was his 
general practice to allegorize Scripture, it seems unfortunate that, in this instance 
only, he should have adopted the literal sense. f 



* The monkish doctrine that we best fit ourselves for happiness hereafter by a 
life of penitence and suffering on earth, was held in great esteem by the early 
fathers of the church. These stern ascetics never heartily approved, and, indeed, 
scarcelv tolerated the institution of marriage, and the sacred home of happiness and 
love. The prison-like seclusion of a convent's walls, the gloomy cells of a monas- 
tery, a life of celibacv and denial, the crucifixion of the passions, the martyrdom of 
humanitv, were the unnatural aims and desires of the Alexandrian fanatics, called 
Essenes'or Therapeuts, who early overran the East and filled the forests and 
deserts with hermits and mendicants, who, in their degradation, disputed with 
wild beasts the occupancy of caves and caverns. John the Baptist, "crying in the 
"wilderness, clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of skin about his 
"loins," eating " locusts and wild honey," was a notable example of this monkish 
folly. His object was to gain converts to his particular sect, and, like our modern 
revivalists, he baptized all whom he could influence or convert. Even Jesus per- 
mitted himself to be won over and baptized by the rude and uncivilized monk. 
The disciples and early Christians, who " had" all things in common," were un- 
doubtedly members of some monastic order, and the Catholic church of to-day 
still boasts an army of priests and nuns who teach, by practice and precept, the 
dogma of celibacy and the holiness of asceticism. — E. 

t " He made himself a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven's sake," which duty was 
inculcated by Christ, in Matt, xix, 12, and was also taught by the Essenes and 
Therapeuts of Alexandria. This horrible rite and revolting crime against nature, 
while it demonstrated Origen's sanctity, also illustrated his ignorance and 
fanaticism.— E. 



1 62 AVERSION TO CIVIL EMPLOYMENT. 

times vindicated her rights, and this new species of martyr- 
dom served only to introduce a new scandal into the 
church. 97 Among the Christian ascetics, however (a name 
which they soon acquired from their painful exercise), many, 
as they were less presumptuous, were probably more suc- 
cessful. The loss of sensual pleasure was supplied and com- 
pensated by spiritual pride. Even the multitude of Pagans 
were inclined to estimate the merit of the sacrifice by its 
apparent difficulty; and it was in the praise of these chaste 
spouses of Christ that the fathers have poured forth the 
troubled stream of their eloquence. 9s Such are the early 
traces of monastic principles and institutions, which, in a 
subsequent age, have counterbalanced all the temporal ad- 
vantages of Christianity. 99 

The Christians were not less averse to the 

aversion to business than to the pleasures of this world. 

the business The defence of our persons and property they 
government, knew not how to reconcile with the patient 
doctrine which enjoined an unlimited forgive- 
ness of past injuries, and commanded them to invite the 
repetition of fresh insults. Their simplicity was offended by 
the use of oaths, by the pomp of magistracy, and by the 
active contention of public life ; nor could their humane 
ignorance be convinced that it was lawful on any occasion to 
shed the blood of our fellow-creatures, either by the sword 
of justice or by that of war, even though their criminal or 
hostile attempts should threaten the peace and safety of the 
whole community. 100 It was acknowledged that, under a less 
perfect, law, the powers of the Jewish constitution had been 
exercised, with the approbation of heaven, by inspired 
prophets and by anointed kings. The Christians felt and 
confessed that such institutions might be necessary for the 
present system of the world, and they cheerfully submitted 
to the authority of their Pagan governors. But while they 
inculcated the maxims of passive obedience, they refused to 

o" Cyprian. Epist. 4, and Dodwell, Dissertat. Cyprianic. iii. Something: like this 
rash attempt was long afterwards imputed to the founder of the order of Fontev- 
rault. Bayle has amused himself and his readers on that very delicate subject. 

98 Dupin {Bibilotheque Ecclesiastique, torn. i. p. 195) gives a particular account 
of the dialogue of the ten virgins, as it was composed by Methodius, Bishop of 
Tyre. The praises of virginity are excessive. 

99 The Ascetics (as early as the second century) made a public profession of 
mortifying their bodies, and of abstaining from the use of flesh and wine. Mosheim, 
p. 310. 

100 See the Morale des Peres. The same patient principles have been revived 
since the Reformation by the Socinians. the modern Anabaptists, and the Quakers. 
Barclay, the apologist of the Quakers, has protected his brethren by the authority 
of the primitive Christians ; pp. 542 — 549. 



OBJECTION TO MILITARY SERVICE. 1 63 

take any active part in the civil administration or the mili- 
tary defence of the empire. Some indulgence might, 
perhaps, be allowed to those persons who, before their con- 
version, were already engaged in such violent and sanguinary 
occupations; 101 but it was impossible that the Christians, 
without renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume the 
character of soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes. 102 This 
indolent or even criminal disregard to the public welfare, 
exposed them to the contempt and reproaches of the 

ioi Tertullian. Apolog. c. 21. De Idololatria, c. 17, 18. — Origen contra Celsum, 
1. v. p. 253, 1. vii. p. 348, I- viii. pp. 423 — 428. 

102 Tertullian {de Corona Militis, c. 11) suggests to them the expedient of de- 
serting ; a counsel, which, if it had been generally known, was not very proper to 
conciliate the favor of the emperors towards the Christian sect.* 

* There is nothing which ought to astonish us in the refusal of the primitive 
Christians to take part in public affairs ; it was the natural consequence of the 
contrariety of their principles to the customs, laws, and active life of the Pagan 
world. As Christians, they could not enter into the senate, which, according to 
Gibbon himself, always assembled in a temple or consecrated place, and where 
each senator, before he took his seat, made a libation of a few drops of wine, and 
burnt incense on the altar ; as Christians, they could not assist at festivals and 
banquets, which always terminated with libations, &c. ; finally, as " the innumer- 
" able deities and rites of polytheism were closely interwoven with every circum- 
" stance of public and private' life," the Christians could not participate in them 
without incurring, according to their principles, the guilt of impiety. It was then 
much less by an effect of their doctrine, than by the consequence of their situation, 
that they stood aloof from public business. Whenever this situation offered no 
impediment, they showed as much activity as the Pagans. _ Proinde, says Justin 
Martyr (Apol. c. 17), nos solum Deum adoramus, et vobis in rebus aliis lasti in- 
servimus. — Guizot. 

This quotation Dean Milman reminds M. Guizot is irrelevant, for it merely re- 
lates to the pavment of taxes. — English Chucrhman. 

Tertullian does not suggest to the soldiers the expedient of deserting ; he says, 
that the} r ought to be constantly on their guard to do nothing during their service 
contrary to the law of God, and to resolve to suffer martyrdom rather than submit 
to a base compliance, or openly to renounce the service. {De Cor. Mil. ii. p. 127). 
He does not positively decide that the military service is not permitted to Chris- 
tians : he ends, indeed, by saying, Puta denique licere militiam usque ad causam 
coronas. — Guizot. 

M. Guizot is, I think, again unfortunate in his defence of Tertullian. That father 
says, that many Christian soldiers had deserted, aut deserendum statim sit, ut a 
multis adtum. The latter sentence, Puta, &c, &c, is a concession for the sake of 
argument : what follows is more to the purpose. — Milman. 

Many other passages of Tertullian prove that the army was full of Christians, 
Hesterni sumus et vestra omnia implevimus, urbes, insulas, castella. municipia, 
conciliabula. castra ipsa. {Apol. c. 37.) Navigamus et nos vobiscum et militamus. 
(c 42.) Origen, in truth, appears to have maintained a more rigid opinion {Cont. 
Cels. 1. viii.); but he has often renounced this exaggerated severity, perhaps 
necessary to produce great results, and he speaks of the profession of arms as an 
honorable one. (1. iv. c. 218.) — Guizot. 

On these points Christian opinion, it should seem, w r as much divided. Tertul- 
lian. when he wrote the De Cor. Mil., was evidently inclining to more ascetic 
opinions, and Origen was of the same class. See Neander, vol. i. part ii. p. 305, 
edit. 1828. — Milman. 

This passage was not included, even by Mr. Davis,fin the " misrepresentations 
•'of Tertullian," which he laid to Gibbon's charge, and Dean Milman admits, that 
M. Guizot is " unfortunate in the defence" which he attempts. The distinction 
between telling soldiers " openly to quit the service," and suggesting " the expedi- 
" ent of deserting," is difficult to discern. — English Churchman. 

tSee Gibbon's Vindication and answer to Mr. Davis, at the close of this 
volume — E. 



164 ORIGIN OF THE CHRISTIAN HIERARCHY. 

Pagans, who very frequently asked, what must be the fate 
of the empire, attacked on every side by the barbarians, if 
all mankind should adopt the pusillanimous sentiments of 
the new sect. 103 To this insulting question the Christian 
apologists returned obscure and ambiguous answers, as they 
were unwilling to reveal the secret cause of their security ; 
the expectation that, before the conversion of mankind was 
accomplished, war, government, the Roman empire, and 
the world itself, would be no more. It may be observed 
that, in this instance likewise, the situation of the first 
Christians coincided very happily with their religious scru- 
ples, and that their aversion to an active life contributed 
rather to excuse them from the service, than to exclude 
them from the honors, of the state and army. 

V. But the human character, however it may 
T 'cause™ be exalted or depressed by a temporary enthusi- 
P h T h< : asm, will return by degrees to its proper and 

active il? the natural level, and will resume those passions 
of the church tnat seem tne m ost adapted to its present con- 
dition. The primitive Christians were dead to 
the business and pleasures of the world ; but their love of 
action, which could never be entirely extinguished, soon 
revived, and found a new occupation in the government of 
the church. A separate society, which attacked the estab- 
lished religion of the empire, was obliged to adopt some 
form of internal policy, and to appoint a sufficient number 
of ministers, intrusted not only with the spiritual functions, 
but even with the temporal direction of the Christian com- 
monwealth. The safety of that society, its honor, its ag- 
grandizement, were productive, even in the most pious 
minds, of a spirit of patriotism, such as the first of the 
Romans had felt for the republic, and sometimes of a similar 
indifference in the use of whatever means might probably 
conduce to so desirable 'an end. The ambition of raising 
themselves or their friends to the honors and offices of the 
church was disguised by the laudable intention of devoting 
to the public benefit the power and consideration which, for 
that purpose only, it became their duty to solicit. In the 
exercise of their functions they were frequently called upon 
to detect the errors of heresy or the arts of faction, to oppose 
the designs of perfidious brethren, to stigmatize their 
characters with deserved infamy, and to expel them from the 

103 As well as we can judge from the mutilated representation of Origen (1. viii. 
P« 423). his adversary, Celsus, had urged this objection with great force and candor. 



HERESY. 165 

bosom of a society whose peace and happiness they had at- 
tempted to disturb.* The ecclesiastical governors of the 
Christians were taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent 
with the innocence of the dove ; but as the former was re- 
fined, so the latter was insensibly corrupted, by the habits 
of government. In the church as well as in the world, the 
persons who were placed in any public station rendered 
themselves considerable by their eloquence and firmness, by 
their knowledge of mankind, and by their dexterity in 
business ; and while they concealed from others, and perhaps 
from themselves, the secret motives of their conduct, they too 
frequently relapsed into all the turbulent passions of active 
life, which were tinctured with an additional degree of 
bitterness and obstinacy from the infusion of spiritual zeal. 

The government of the church has often been 
the subject, as well as the prize, of religious con- its primitive 
tendon. The hostile disputants of Rome, of Equality: 
Paris, of Oxford, and of Geneva, have alike 

*" The learned," says the Rev. Robert Taylor, in Diegesis, p. 366," have reckoned 
" upwards of ninety different heresies which arose within the first three centuries ; 
" nor does it appear that even the most early and primitive preachers of Christian- 
" ity, were able to keep the telling of the Christian story in their own hands, or to 
" provide any sort of security for having it told in the same way. 

" The very earliest Christian writings that have come down to us, are of a con- 
" troversial character, and written in attempted refutation of heresies. These 
"heresies must therefore have been of much earlier date and prior prevalence ; 
" they could not have been considered of sufficient consequence to have called (as 
" they seem to have done) for the entire devotion and enthusiastic zeal of the 
" orthodox party to extirpate, or keep them under, if they had not acquired deep 
" root, and become of serious notoriety — an inference which leads directly to the 
" conclusion that they were of anterior origination to any date that has hitherto 
" been ascribed to the gospel history. 

" Tertullian speaks of only two heresies, that existed in the time of the Apostles, 
" i. e. the Docet/E, so called from the Greek Aoh/liSlc opinion, suspicion, appear- 
" ance merely, as expressive of their opinion that Christ had existed in appear- 
" ance only, and not in realitv : and the Ebionites, so called from the Hebrew 
" word abionim, in expression of their poverty, ignorance, and vulgarity. (Quoted 
" in Lardner, vol. iv. p. 512.) ' Docetism,' says Dr. Lardner, ' seems to have de- 
" ' rived its origin from the Platonic philosophy. For the followers of this opinion 
" ' were principally among the higher classes of men, and were chiefly those who 
" ' had been converted from heathenism to Christianity.' (Lardner. vol. iv. p. 628.) 
" Not only among the Apostles, but by those who were called Apostles them- 
" selves, was the reality of the crucifixion steadily denied. In the gospel of the 
" Apostle Barnabas, of which there is extant an Italian translation written in 1470, 
"which Toland (Toland's Nazarenus, Letter I. Chap. 5, p. 17.) himself saw, and 
" which was sold by Cramer to Prince Eugene, it is explicitly asserted, that 'Jesus 
" ' Christ was not crucified, but that he was taken up into the third heavens by the 
" ' ministry of four angels, Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel ; that he should 
" ' not die till the very end of the world, and that it was Judas Iscariot, who was 
" ' crucified in his stead.' . . , 

" This account of the matter entirely squares with the account which we have 
"of the bitter and unappeasable quarrel which took place between Paul and 
" Barnabas, in the Acts of the Apostles, (Acts xv. 39. ' And the contention was so 
" ' sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other:) Vve never 
"hear of their being reconciled again. We have no satisfactory account of 
" the around of that quarrel ; Paul lavs a significant emphasis on the distinction 
" that he preached ' Tesus Christ, and Him crucified; as if in marked opposition to 
" his former patron," Barnabas, who preached Jesus Christ, but not crucified.' — E. 



1 66 FIRST SCHEME OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 

struggled to reduce the primitive and apostolic model 104 to 
the respective standards of their own policy. The few who 
have pursued this inquiry with more candor and impartiality 
are of opinion 105 that the apostles declined the office of 
legislation, and rather chose to endure some partial scandals 
and divisions, than to exclude the Christians of a future age 
from the liberty of varying their forms of ecclesiastical 
government according to the changes of times and circum- 
stances. The scheme of policy which, under their appro- 
bation, was adopted for the use of the first century, may be 
discovered from the practice of Jerusalem, of Ephesus, or of 
Corinth. The societies which were instituted in the cities of 
the Roman empire were united only by the ties of faith and 
charity. Independence and equality formed the basis of 
their internal constitution. The want of discipline and 
human learning was supplied by the occasional assistance of 
the prophets™ who were called to that function without 
distinction of age, of sex,* or of natural abilities, and who, 
as often as they felt the divine impulse, poured forth the 
effusions of the Spirit in the assembly of the faithful. But 
these extraordinary gifts were frequently abused or misap- 
plied by the prophetic teachers. They displayed them at 
an improper season, presumptuously disturbed the service 
of the assembly, and, by their pride or mistaken zeal, they 
introduced, particularly into the apostolic church at Corinth, 
a long and melancholy train of disorders. As the institution 
of prophets became useless, and even pernicious, their powers 
were withdrawn, and their office abolished. The public 
functions of religion were solely intrusted to the established 
ministers of the church, the bishops and the presbyters ; two 
appellations which, in their first origin, appear to have dis- 
tinguished the same office and the same order of persons. 107 
The name of presbyter was expressive of their age, or rather 

i^The aristocratical party in France, as well as in England, has strenuously 
maintained the divine origin of bishops. But the Calvinistieal presbyters were 
impatient of a superior ; and the Roman Pontiff refused to acknowledge an equal. 
See Fra Paolo. 

105 in the history of the Christian hierarchy I have, for the most part, followed 
the learned and candid Mosheim. 

106 For the prophets of the primitive church, see Mosheim, Dis sertationes ad 
Hist. Eccles. pertinentes, torn. ii. pp. 132 — 208. 

10; See the epistles of St. Paul, and of Clemens, to the Corinthians.f 

*St. Paul distinctly reproves the intrusion of females into the prophetic office. 
I Cor. xiv. 34, 35. 7 Tim. ii. n. — Milman. 

t The first ministers established in the church were the deacons, appointed at 
Jerusalem, seven in number ; they were charged with the distribution of the alms ; 
even females had a share in this employment. After the deacons came the elders 
or priests (TrptoftvTepoi), charged with the maintenance of order and decorum in 



THE EPISCOPAL OFFICE. 167 

of their gravity and wisdom. The title of bishop denoted their 
inspection over the faith and manners of the Christians who 
were committed to their pastoral care. In proportion to the 
respective numbers of the faithful, a larger or smaller number 
of these episcopal presbyters guided each infant congregation 
with equal authority and with united counsels. 108 
But the most perfect equality of freedom re- 
quires the directing hand of a superior magis- ^ishops ^ 
trate : and the order of public deliberations soon presidents of 
introduces the office of a president, invested at presbyters. 
least with the authority of collecting the senti- 
ments, and of executing the resolutions, of the assembly. 
A regard for the public tranquility, which would so fre- 
quently have been interrupted by annual or by occasional 
elections, induced the primitive Christians to constitute an 
honorable and perpetual magistracy, and to chose one of 
the wisest and most holy among their presbyters to execute, 
during his life, the duties of their ecclesiastical governor. 
It was under these circumstances that the lofty title of 
Bishop began to raise itself above the humble appellation of 
Presbyter ; and while the latter remained the most natural 
distinction for the members of every Christian senate, the 
former was appropriated to the dignity of its new pres- 
ident. 109 The advantages of this episcopal form of govern- 
ment, which appears to have been introduced before the end 

108 Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity \ 1. vii. 

109 See Jerome ad Titiwi, c. i. and Epistol. 85 (in the Benedictine edition, 101), 
and the elaborate apology of Blondel, pro sententia Hieronymi. The ancient state, 
as it is described by Jerome, of the bishop and presbyters of Alexandria, receives 
a remarkable confirmation from the patriarch Eutychius, {Annal. torn. i. p. 330, 
Vers. Pocock,) whose testimony I know not how to reject, in spite of all the ob- 
ections of the learned Pearson in his Vindicitz Ignatiance, part i. c. 11. 

the community, and to aft everywhere in its name. The bishops were afterwards 
charged to watch over the faith and the instruction of the disciples ; the apostles 
themselves appointed several bishops. Tertullian {adv. Marium, c. v.) Clement 
of Alexandria, and many fathers of the second and third century, do not permit us 
to doubt this fact. The equality of rank between these different functionaries did 
not prevent their functions being, even in their origin, distinct ; they became sub- 
sequently still more so. See Plank. Gesch. der Christ. Kirch. Verf., vol. i. p. 24.— G. 

On this extremely obscure subject, which has been so much perplexed by passion 
and interest, it is impossible to justify any opinion without entering into long and 
controversial details. It must be admitted, in opposition to Plank, that in the 
New Testament, the words 7rpeoj3vTEpoc and etugkoitoc are sometimes indis- 
criminately used. (Acts xx. v. 17, comp. with 28 Tit. i. 5 and 7. Philip i. 1.) But it 
is as clear, that as soon as we can discern the form of church government, at the 
period closely bordering upon, if not within, the apostolic age, it appears with a 
bishop at the head of each community, holding some superiority over the pres- 
byters. Whether he was, as Gibbon from Mosheim supposes, merely an elective 
head of the college of Presbyters (for this we have, in fact, no valid authority), 
or whether his distinct functions were established on apostolic authority, is still 
contested. The universal submission to this episcopacy, in every part of the 
Christian world, appears to me strongly to favor the latter view. — Milman. 

The instructions which Paul gave to Titus for choosing bishops, or, more cor- 
rectly, "overlookers," were soon disregarded. — English Churchman. 



168 DUTIES OF BISHOPS. 

of the first century, 110 were so obvious and so important for the 
future greatness, as well as the present peace, of Christianity, 
that it was adopted without delay by all the societies which 
were already scattered over the empire, had acquired in a 
very early period the sanction of antiquity, 111 and is still re- 
vered by the most powerful churches, both of the East and of 
the West, as a primitive and even as a divine establishment. 112 
It is needless to observe that the pious and humble presbyters 
who were first dignified with the episcopal title could not 
possess, and would probably have rejected, the power and 
pomp which now encircles the tiara of the Roman Pontiff, or 
the mitre of a German prelate. But we may define, in a few 
words, the narrow limits of their original jurisdiction, which 
was chiefly of a spiritual, though in some instances of a 
temporal nature. 113 It consisted in the administration of the 
sacraments and discipline of the church, the superintendency 
of religious ceremonies, which imperceptibly increased in 
number and variety ; the consecration of ecclesiastical minis- 
ters, to whom the bishop assigned their respective functions ; 
the management of the public fund ; and the determination of 
all such differences as the faithful were unwilling to expose be- 
fore the tribunal of an idolatrous judge. These powers, during 
a short period, were exercised according to the advice of the 
presbyterial college, and with the consent and approbation of 
the assembly of Christians. The primitive bishops were con- 
sidered only as the first of their equals, and the honorable 
servants of a free people. Whenever the episcopal chair be- 
came vacant by death, a new president was chosen among the 
presbyters by the suffrage of the whole congregation, every 
member of which supposed himself invested with a sacred 
and sacerdotal character. 114 

no See the introduction to the Apocalypse. Bishops, under the name of angels, 
were alreadv instituted in the seven cities of Asia. And yet the epistle of Clemens 
(which is probably of as ancient a date) does not lead us to discover any traces of 
episcooacy either* at Corinth or Rome. 

in Nulla Ecclesia sine Episcopo, has been a fact as well as a maxim since the 
time of Tertullian and Ireneeus. 

112 After we have passed the difficulties of the first century, we find the epis- 
copal government universally established, till it was interrupted by the republican 
genius of the Swiss and German reformers. 

us See Mosheim in the first and second centuries. Ignatius (ad Smyrnczos , c. 3, 
&c ) is fond of exalting the episcopal dignitv. Le Clerc (Hist. Eccles. p. 569) very 
bluntly censures his conduct. Mosheim, with a more critical judgment (p. 161) 
suspects the purity even of the smaller epistles. 

114 Nonne et Laici sacerdotes sumus?* Tertullian, Exhort, ad Castttat. c. 7. 
As the human heart is still the same several of the observations which Mr. Hume 
has made on Enthusiasm (Essays, vol. i. p. 76, quarto edit.) may be applied even 
to real inspiration. ...... • . **. 

* This expression was emploved by the earlier Christian writers in the sense 
used by St. Peter, 1 Ep. ii. 9. It was the sanctity and virtue, not the power of the 
priesthood, in which all Christians were to be equally distinguished. — Milman. 



PROVINCIAL SYNODS. ^9 

Such was the mild and equal constitution by 
which the Christians were governed more than ^SSSJSj! 
a hundred years after the death of the apostles. 
Every society formed within itself a separate and indepen- 
dent republic ; and although the most distant of these little 
states maintained a mutual as well as friendly intercourse of 
letters and deputations, the Christian world was not yet con- 
nected by any supreme authority or legislative assembly. 
As the numbers of the faithful were gradually multiplied, 
they discovered the advantages that might result from a 
closer union of their interest and designs. Towards the end 
of the second century, the churches of Greece and Asia 
adopted the useful institutions of provincial synods,* and 
they may justly be supposed to have borrowed the model of 
a representative council from the celebrated examples of 
their own country, the Amphictyons, the Achaean league, 
or the assemblies of the Ionian cities. It was soon established 
as a custom and as a law, that the bishops of the independ- 
ent churches should meet in the capital of the province at 
the stated periods of spring and autumn. Their delibera- 
tions were assisted by the advice of a few distinguished 
presbyters, and moderated by the presence of a listening 
multitude. 115 Their decrees, which were styled canons, 
regulated every important controversy of faith and disci- 
pline ; and it was natural to believe that a liberal effusion 
of the Holy Spirit would be poured on the united assembly 
of the delegates of the Christian people. The institution of 

us Acla Condi. Carthag. apud Cyprian, edit. Fell. p. 158. The council was com- 
posed of eighty-seven bishops from the provinces of Mauritania, Numidia, and 
Africa ; some pr esbyters and deacons assisted at the assembly ; praesente plebis 
maxima parte. 

* The synods were not the first means taken by the insulated churches to enter 
into communion and assume a corporate character. The dioceses were first formed 
by the union of several country churches with a church in a city ; many churches 
in one city uniting among themselves, or joining a more considerable church, be- 
came metropolitan. The dioceses were not formed before the beginning of the 
second century ; before that time the Christians had not established sufficient 
churches in the country to stand in need of that union. It is towards the middle 
of the same century that we discover the first traces of the metropolitan constitu- 
tion. (Probably the country churches were founded by missionaries from those 
in the city, and would preserve a natural connection with the parent church.) — M. 

The provincial synods did not commence till towards the middle of the third 
century, and were not the first synods. History gives us distinct notions of the 
synods, held towards the end of the second century, at Ephesus, at Jerusalem, at 
Pontus, and at Rome, to put an end to the disputes which had arisen between the 
Latin and Asiatic churches about the celebration of Easter. But these synods 
were not subject to any regular form or periodical return ; this regularity was first 
established with the provincial synods, which were formed by a union of the bishops 
of a district, subject to a metropolitan. Planck, p 90. Gesdiichte der Christ. 
Kirdi. Verfassung. — Guizot. 

This gradual organization of the church was more probably suggested by Plato's 
Republic than by the Greek Leagues and assemblies, to which it is attributed by 
Gibbon. — English Churchman. 



170 COUNCILS AND THEIR CANONS. 

synods was so well suited to private ambition, and to public 
interest, that in the space of a few years it was received 
throughout the whole empire. A regular cor- 
Ul church the respondence was established between the provin- 
cial councils, which mutually communicated and 
approved their respective proceedings ; and the Catholic 
church soon assumed the form, and acquired the strength, 
of a great federative republic. 116 

Pro ress of ^- s tne legislative authority of the particular 
episcopal churches was insensibly superseded by the use 
authority. Q f counc ii Si the bishops obtained by their alliance 
a much larger share of executive and arbitrary power ; and 
as soon as they were connected by a sense of their common 
interest, they were enabled to attack, with united vigor, the 
original rights of their clergy and people. The prelates of 
the third century imperceptibly changed the language of 
exhortation into that of command, scattered the seeds of 
future usurpations, and supplied by Scripture allegories and 
declamatory rhetoric, their deficiency of force and of reason. 
They exalted the unity and power of the church, as it was 
represented in the episcopal office, of which every bishop 
enjoyed an equal and undivided portion. 117 Princes and 
magistrates, it was often repeated, might boast an earthly 
claim to a transitory dominion ; it was the episcopal author- 
ity alone which was derived from the Deity, and extended 
itself over this and over another world. The bishops were 
the vicegerents of Christ, the successors of the apostles, and 
the mystic substitutes of the high priest of the Mosaic law. 
Their exclusive privilege of conferring the sacerdotal 
character invaded the freedom both of clerical and of popular 
elections ; and if, in the administration of the church, they 
still consulted the judgment of the presbyters, or the inclina- 
tion of the people, they most carefully inculcated the merit 
of such a voluntary condescension. The bishops ac- 
knowledged the supreme authority which resided in the 
assembly of their brethren ; but in the government of his 
peculiar diocese, each of them exacted from his flock the 
same implicit obedience as if that favorite metaphor had been 
literally just, and as if the shepherd had been of a more ex- 

us Aguntur praeterea per Grsecias Mas, certis in locis concilia, &c. Tertullian 
ate Jejuni} s, c. 13, The African mentions it as a recent and foreign institution. 
1 hejx>ahtion of the Christian churches is very ably explained by Mosheim, p. 

u? Cyprian, in his admired treatise De Unitate Ecclesia:, p. 75 — 86. 



INCREASE OF THE EPISCOPAL DIGNITY. 171 

alted nature than that of his sheep. 118 This obedience, how- 
ever, was not imposed without some efforts on one side, and 
some resistance on the other. The democratical part of the 
constitution was, in many places, very warmly supported by 
the zealous or interested opposition of the inferior clergy, 
But their patriotism received the ignominious epithets of 
faction and schism ; and the episcopal cause was indebted 
for its rapid progress to the labors of many active prelates, 
who, iike Cyprian of Carthage, could reconcile the arts of 
the most ambitious statesmen with the Christian virtues 
which seem adapted to the character of a saint and martyr. 113 

The same causes which at first had destroyed 
the equality of the presbyters introduced among pre-eminence 
the bishops a pre-eminence of rank, and from f oflh f f „ 

. r .* . . . n . ' metropolitan 

thence a superiority of jurisdiction. As often as churches. 
in the spring and autumn they met in provincial 
synod, the difference of personal merit and reputation was 
very sensibly felt among the members of the assembly, and 
the multitude was governed by the wisdom and eloquence 
of the few. But the order of public proceedings required a 
more regular and less invidious distinction ; the office of 
perpetual presidents in the councils of each province was 
conferred on the bishops of the principal city; and these 
aspiring prelates, w r ho soon acquired the lofty titles of 
metropolitans and primates, secretly prepared themselves 
to usurp over their episcopal brethren the same authority 
wtich the bishops had so lately assumed above the college 
of presbyters. 120 Nor was it long before an emulation of 
pre-eminence and power prevailed among the metropolitans 
themselves, each of them affecting to display, in the most 
pompous terms, the temporal honors and advantages of the 
city over which he presided ; the numbers and opulence of 
the Christians who were subject to their pastoral care; the 
saints and martyrs who had arisen among them ; and the 
purity with which they preserved the tradition of the faith, 
as it had been transmitted through a series of orthodox 
bishops from the apostle or the apostolic disciple to whom 

us We may appeal to the whole tenor of Cyprian's conduft, of his do6trine, and 
of his epistles. Le Clerc, in a short life of Cyprian (Bibliothique UniverseUe, torn, 
xii. p. 207 — 378), has laid him open with great freedom and accuracy. 

119 If Novatus, Felicissimus, &c, whom the bishop of Carthage expelled from 
his church and from Africa, were not the most detestable monsters of wickedness, 
the zeal of Cvprian must occasionally have prevailed over his veracity. For a 
very just account of these obscure quarrels, see Mosheim, p. 497 — 512. 

120 Mosheim, p. 269, 574. Dupin, Antiques Eccles. Disciplm. p. 19, 20. 



172 THE BISHOPS OF ROME. 

the foundation of their church was ascribed. 121 From every 

cause, either of a civil or of an ecclesiastical nature, it was 

easy to foresee that Rome must enjoy the respecl:, and would 

soon claim the obedience, of the provinces. The 

A of b the n society of the faithful bore a just proportion to 

Rom . a " the capital of the empire; and the Roman church 
pontiff. £ *.*''*£■■* j • 

was the greatest, the most numerous, and, in 

regard to the West, the most ancient of all the Christian 
establishments, many of which had received their religion 
from the pious labors of her missionaries. Instead of one 
apostolic founder, the utmost boast of Antioch, of Ephesus, 
or of Corinth, the banks of the Tiber were supposed to 
have been honored with the preaching and martyrdom of 
the two most eminent among the apostles ; m and the 
bishops of Rome very prudently claimed the inheritance of 
whatsoever prerogatives were attributed either to the per- 
son or to the office of St. Peter. 123 The bishops of Italy and 
of the provinces were disposed to allow them a primacy of 
order and association (such was their very accurate expres- 
sion) in the Christian aristocracy. 124 But the power of a 
monarch was rejected with abhorrence; and the aspiring 
genius of Rome experienced, from the nations of Asia and 
Africa, a more vigorous resistance to her spiritual, than she 
had formerly done to her temporal, dominion. The patriotic 
Cyprian, who ruled with the most absolute sway the church 
of Carthage and the provincial synods, opposed with reso- 
lution and success the ambition of the Roman pontiff, 

121 Tertullian in a distinct treatise, has pleaded against the heretics, the right of 
prescription, as it was held by the apostolic churches. 

J 22 The journey of St. Peter to Rome is mentioned by most of the ancients (see 
Eusebius, ii. 25), maintained by all the Catholics, allowed by some Protestants 
(see Pearson and Dodwell de Success. Episcop. Roman?), but has been vigorously 
attacked by Spanheim {Miscellanea Sacra, iii. 3). According to father Hardouin, 
the monks of the thirteenth century, who composed the ^Eneid, represented St. 
Peter under the allegorical character of the Troian hero.* 

123 It is in French only that the famous allusion to St. Peter's name is exact. Tu 
es Pierre, et sur cette pierre. — The same is imperfect in Greek, Latin, Italian, &c, 
and totally unintelligble in our Teutonic languages.! 

12 1 Irenczus adv. Hczreses, iii. 3. Tertullian de Prescription, c. 36, and Cyprian, 
Epistol. 27, 55, 71, 75. Le Clerc {Hist. Eccles. p. 764) and Mosheim (p. 258. 278) 
labor in the interpretation of these passages. But the loose and rhetorical style of 
the fathers often appears favorable to the pretensions of Rome. 

* It is quite clear that, strictly speaking, the church of Rome was not founded 
by either of these apostles. St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans proves undeniably 
the flourishing state of the church before his visit to the city ; and many Roman 
Catholic writers have given up the impracticable task of reconciling with chro- 
nology any visit of St. Peter to Rome before the end of the reign of Claudius, or 
the beginning of that of Nero. — Milman. 

fit is exact in Syro-Chaldaic, the language in which it was spoken by Jesus 
Christ. (St. Matt. xvi. 17.) Peter was called Cephas ; and the word cepha signi- 
fies base, foundation, rock. — Guizot. 



EARLY CLAIMS OF SUPREMACY. 173 

artfully connected his own cause with that of the eastern 
bishops, and, like Hannibal, sought out new allies in the 
heart of Asia. 125 If this Punic war was carried on without 
any effusion of blood, it was owing much less to the modera- 
tion than to the weakness of the contending prelates. Invec- 
tives and excommunications were their only weapons ; and 
these, during the progress of the whole controversy, they 
hurled against each other with equal fury and devotion.* 
The hard necessity of censuring either a pope, or a saint 
and martyr, distresses the modern Catholics, whenever they 
are obliged to relate the particulars of a dispute in which 
the champions of religion indulged such passions as seem 
much more adapted to the senate or to the camp. 126 

The progress of the ecclesiastical authority 
gave birth to the memorable distinction of the L ciS g ^ d 
laity and of the clergy, which had been unknown 
to the Greeks and Romans. 127 The former of these appella- 
tions comprehended the body of the Christian people ; the 
latter, according to the signification of the word, was appro- 
priated to the chosen portion that had been set apart for the 
service of religion ; a celebrated order of men, which has 
furnished the most important, though not always the most 
edifying, subjects for modern history. Their mutual hostili- 
ties sometimes disturbed the peace of the infant church, but 
their zeal and activity were united in the common cause, 
and the love of power, which (under the most artful dis- 
guises) could insinuate itself into the breasts of bishops and 
martyrs, animated them to increase the number of their sub- 
jects, and to enlarge the limits of the Christian empire. They 
were destitute of any temporal force, and they were for a 

125 See the sharp epistle from Firmilianus, bishop of Caesarea, to Stephen, bishop 
of Rome, ap. Cyprian. Epistol. 75. 

12s Concerning this dispute of the rebaptism of heretics, see the epistles of 
Cyprian, and the seventh book of Eusebius. 

127 For the origin of these words, see Mosheim, p. 141. Spanheim, Hist. Eccle- 
siast. p. 633. The distinction of Clerus and Laicus was established before the 
time of Tertullian. 



* Nothing can exceed in intensity the hatred and ferocity engendered between 
Christians by a difference in creeds and dogmas. Religious'wars have ever proved 
the most bloody and cruel in the history of mankind. When blind fanaticism is 
aroused, reason is dethroned, love is quenched, mercy is forgotten, and the mis- 
taken enthusiast sincerely believes he is doing a service to a wise and merciful God 
by cruelly injuring and murdering his fellow men. Says Moore, in Lalla Rookh : 
" * * * Oh! the lover may 
" Distrust that look which steals his soul away; — 
" The babe may cease to think that it can play 
" With heaven's rainbow ; — alchymists may doubt 
" The shining gold their crucibles give out ; 
" But Faith, fanatic Faith, once wedded fast 
" To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last." — E. 



174 COMMUNITY OF GOODS. 

long time discouraged and oppressed, rather than assisted, 
by the civil magistrate ; but they had acquired, and they 
employed within their own society, the two most efficacious 
instruments of government, rewards and punishments ; the 
former derived from the pious liberality, the latter from the 
devout apprehensions, of the faithful. 

I. The community of goods, which had so 
Oblations agreeably amused the imagination of Plato, 128 
revenue of an d which subsisted in some degree among the 
the church, austere sect of the Essenians, 129 was adopted for 
a short time in the primitive church. The fervor 
of the first proselytes prompted them to sell those worldly 
possessions which they despised, to lay the price of them at 
the feet of the apostles, and to content themselves with re- 
ceiving an equal share out of the general distribution. 130 The 
progress of the Christian religion relaxed, and gradually 
abolished, this generous institution, which, in hands less 
pure than those of the apostles, would too soon have been 
corrupted and abused by the returning selfishness of human 
nature ; and the converts who embraced the new religion 
were permitted to retain the possession of their patrimony, 
to receive legacies and inheritances, and to increase their 
separate property by all the lawful means of trade and indus- 
try. Instead of an absolute sacrifice, a moderate proportion 
was accepted by the ministers of the gospel; and in their 
weekly or monthly assemblies, every believer, according to 

128 The community instituted by Plato is more perfect than that which Sir 
Thomas More has imagined for his Utopia. The community of women, and that 
of temporal goods, may be considered as inseparable parts of the same system. 

129 Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 2. Philo, de Vit. Contemplativ . 

130 See the Acls of the Apostles, c. 2,4, 5. with Grotius 's Commentary. Mosheim, 
in a particular dissertation, attacks the common opinion with very inconclusive 
arguments.* 

* This is not the general judgment on Mosheim's learned dissertation. There 
is no trace in the latter part of the New Testament of this community of goods, 
and many distinct proofs of the contrary. All exhortations to almsgiving would 
have been unmeaning if property had been in common. — Milman. 

Dean Milman has here told the exact truth. The doctrines and teachings of 
Jesus were soon perverted. The Community he established was soon suppressed. 
The great and powerful church founded in his name was diametrically opposed 
to the principles he inculcated. " And all that believed were together, and had 
" all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to 
" all men, as every man had need." (Acts ii. 44-45.) " And the multitude of 
" them that believed were of one heart and of one soul ; neither said any of them 
" that aught of the things which he possessed was his own : but they had all things 
" common. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were 
" possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things 
" that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was 
" made unto every man according as he had need." (Acts iv. 32, 34, 35.) This is the 
doctrine taught by the Communist Mazdak, in Persia ; by Pythagoras in Greece; 
by the Essenes in Alexandria ; and by Jesus in Palestine : but it was not, and it is 
not the doctrine of the Church of Rome. — E. 



AMONG THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. I75 

the exigency of the occasion, and the measure of his wealth 
and piety, presented his voluntary offering for the use of the 
common fund. 131 Nothing, however inconsiderable, was re- 
fused ; but it was diligently inculcated that, in the article of 
Tithes, the Mosaic law was still of divine obligation ; and 
that, since the Jews, under a less perfect discipline, had been 
commanded to pay a tenth part of all that they possessed, 
it would become the disciples of Christ to distinguish them- 
selves by a superior degree of liberality, 132 and to acquire 
some merit by resigning a superfluous treasure, which must 
so soon be annihilated with the world itself. 133 It is almost 
unnecessary to observe the revenue of each particular church, 
which was of so uncertain and fluctuating a nature, must have 
varied with the poverty or the opulence of the faithful, as 
they were dispersed in obscure villages, or collected in the 
great cities of the empire. In the time of the emperor 
Decius it was the opinion of the magistrates, that the Chris- 
tians of Rome were possessed of very considerable wealth ; 
that vessels of gold and silver were used in their religious 
worship ; and that many among their proselytes had sold 
their lands and houses to increase the public riches of the 
seel; ; at the expense, indeed, of their unfortunate children, 
who found themselves beggars because their parents had 
been saints. 134 We should listen with distrust to the suspicions 

131 Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, c. 89. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 39. 

132 IrencEus ad Htzres, 1. iv. c. 27, 34. Origen in Num. Horn. ii. Cyprian de 
Unitat. Eccles. Constitut. Apostol. 1. ii. c. 34, 35, with the notes of Cotelerius. The 
Constitutions introduce this divine precept, by declaring that priests are as much 
above kings as the soul is above the body. Among the tithable articles, they 
enumerate corn, wine, oil, and wool. On this interesting subject, consult Prideaux's 
History of Tithes, and Fra Paolo delle Materie B eneficiarie ; two writers of a very 
different character. 

133 The same opinion, which prevailed about the year one thousand, was pro- 
ductive of the same effects. Most of the Donations express their motive. " ap- 
" propinquante mundi fine." See Mosheim's General History of the Church, vol. 
i. p. 457. 

134 Turn summa cura est fratribus 

(Ut sermo testatur loquax), 

Offerre fundis venditis 

Sestertiorum millia 

Addicta avorum praedia 

Fcedis sub auctionibus, 

Successor exheres gemit 

Sanctis egens Parentibus. 

Haec occuluntur abditis 

Ecclesiarum in angulis ; 

Et summa pietas creditur 

Nudare dulces liberos. 

Prudent. <jrepl GTefcivov. Hymn 2. 
The subsequent conduct of the deacon Laurence only proves how proper a use 
was made of the wealth of the Roman church ; it was undoubtedly very consider- 
able ; but Fra Paolo (c. 3) appears to exaggerate, when he supposes that the suc- 
cessors of Commodus were urged to persecute the Christians by their own avarice, 
or that of their Praetorian praefects. 



I7 6 OBLATIONS OF THE FAITHFUL. 

of strangers and enemies : on this occasion, however, they 
receive a very specious and probable color from the two 
following circumstances, the only ones that have reached our 
knowledge, which define any precise sums, or convey any 
distinct idea. Almost at the same period, the bishop of 
Carthage, from a society less opulent than that of Rome, 
collected a hundred thousand sesterces (above eight hundred 
,and fifty pounds sterling), on a sudden call of charity to 
redeem the brethren of Numidia, who had been carried away 
captives by the barbarians of the desert. 135 About a hundred 
years before the reign of Decius, the Roman church had 
received, in a single donation, the sum of two hundred 
thousand sesterces from a stranger of Pontus, who proposed 
to fix his residence in the capital. 136 These oblations, for the 
most part, were made in money ; nor was the society of 
Christians either desirous or capable of acquiring, to any 
considerable degree, the encumbrance of landed property. 
It had been provided by several laws, which were enacted 
with the same design as our statutes of mortmain, that no 
real estates should be given or bequeathed to any corporate 
body, without either a special privilege or a particular dis- 
pensation from the emperor or from the senate ; 13T who were 
seldom disposed to grant them in favor of a sect, at first the 
object of their contempt, and at last of their fears and jealousy. 
A transaction, however, is related under the reign of Alex- 
ander Severus, which discovers that the restraint was some- 
times eluded or suspended, and that the Christians were 
permitted to claim and to possess lands within the limits of 
Rome itself. 138 The progress of Christianity, and the civil 
confusion of the empire, contributed to relax the severity 
of the laws ; and, before the close of the third century, many 
considerable estates were bestowed on the opulent churches 
of Rome, Milan, Carthage, Antioch, Alexandria, and the 
other great cities of Italy and the provinces. 

The bishop was the natural steward of the 
church ; the public stock was intrusted to his Distribution 
care without account or control ; the presbyters revenue, 
were confined to their spiritual functions ; and 

135 Cyprian, Epistol. 62, 136 Tertullian de Prczscriptione, c. 30. 

^ 137 Diocletian gave a rescript, which is only a declaration of the old law; " Col- 
' legium, si nullo speciali privilegio subnixum sit, hsereditatem capere non posse, 
" dubium non est." Fi-a Paolo (c. 4) thinks that these regulations had been much 
neglected since the reign of Valerian. 

138 Hist. August, p. 131. The ground had been public; and was now disputed 
between the society of Christians and that of butchers.* 

*Popinarii, rather victuallers. — Milman. 



DISTRIBUTION OF CHURCH REVENUE. 1 77 

the more dependent order of deacons was solely employed 
in the management and distribution of the ecclesiastical 
revenue. 139 If we may give credit to the vehement declama- 
tions of Cyprian, there were too many among his African 
brethren, who, in the execution of their charge, violated 
every precept, not only of evangelic perfection, but even of 
moral virtue. By some of these unfaithful stewards the 
riches of the church were lavished in sensual pleasures ; by 
others they were perverted to the purposes of private gain, 
of fraudulent purchases, and of rapacious usury. 140 But as 
long as the contributions of the Christian people were free 
and unconstrained, the abuse of their confidence could not 
be very frequent ; and the general uses to which their 
liberality was applied, reflected honor on the religious 
society. A decent portion was reserved for the maintenance 
of the bishop and his clergy ; a sufficient sum was allotted 
for the expense of the public worship, of which the feasts of 
love, the agap<z, as they were called, constituted a very 
pleasing part. The whole remainder was the sacred patri- 
mony of the poor. According to the discretion of the bishop, 
it was distributed to support widows and orphans, the lame, 
the sick, and the aged, of the community ; to comfort 
strangers and pilgrims, and to alleviate the misfortunes of 
prisoners and captives, more especially when their sufferings 
had been occasioned by their firm attachment to the cause 
of religion. 141 A generous intercourse of charity united the 
most distant provinces, and the smaller congregations were 
cheerfully assisted by the alms of their more opulent 
brethren. 112 Such an institution, which paid less regard to 
the merit than to the distress of the object, very materially 
conduced to the progress of Christianity. The Pagans, who 
were actuated by a sense of humanity, while they derided 
the doctrines, acknowledged the benevolence of the new 
sect. 143 The prospect of immediate relief and of future pro- 
tection allured into its hospitable bosom many of those 

139 Constitut. Apostol. ii. 35. 

1*0 Cyprian de Lapsis, p. 89. Epistol. 65. The charge is confirmed by the nine- 
teenth and twentieth canon of the council of Illiberis. 

141 See the apologies of Justin, Tertullian, &c. 

142 The wealth and liberality of the Romans to their most distant brethren is 
gratefully celebrated by Dionysius of Corinth, ap. Enseb. 1. iv. c. 23.* 

i^See'Lucian in Peregrin. 'Julian (Epist. 49) seems mortified that the Chris- 
tian charity maintains not only their own, but likewise the heathen poor. 

* There can be no doubt, that the progress of Christianity was much assisted by 
these ample funds, But they parented also many of the mischiefs, by which it was 
corrupted. See how sharply, in the fifth century^ Salvianus of Marseilles reproved 
them in his treatise de Avaritia, praesertim Clericorum et Sacerdotum. — En*g. Ch. 



I78 EXCOMMUNICATION. 

unhappy persons whom the neglect of the world would have 
abandoned to the miseries of want, of sickness, and of old 
age. There is some reason likewise to believe, that great 
numbers of infants, who, according to the inhuman practice 
of the times, had been exposed by their parents, were fre- 
quently rescued from death, baptized, educated, and main- 
tained, by the piety of the Christians, and at the expense of 
the public treasure. 144 

II. It is the undoubted right of every society 
Ex cation!" 1 " to exclude from its communion and benefits such 
among its members as reject or violate those 
regulations which have been established by general consent. 
In the exercise of this power the censures of the Christian 
church were chiefly directed against scandalous sinners, and 
particularly those who were guilty of murder, of fraud, or of 
incontinence ; against the authors, or the followers of any 
heretical opinions which had been condemned by the judg- 
ment of the episcopal order ; and against those unhappy 
persons, who, whether from choice or from compulsion, had 
polluted themselves, after their baptism, by an act of idola- 
trous worship. The consequences of excommunication were 
of a temporarl, as well as a spiritual, nature. The Christian 
against whom it was pronounced was deprived of any part 
in the oblations of the faithful ; the ties both of religious and 
of private friendship were dissolved ; he found himself a 
profane object of abhorrence to the persons whom he most 
esteemed, or by whom he had been the most tenderly 
beloved; and as far as an expulsion from a respectable 
society could imprint on his character a mark of disgrace, 
he was shunned or suspected by the generality of mankind. 
The situation of these unfortunate exiles was in itself very 
painful and melancholy ; but, as it usually happens, their 
apprehensions far exceeded their sufferings. The benefits 
of the Christian communion were those of eternal life, nor 
could they erase from their minds the awful opinion, that to 
those ecclesiastical governors by whom they were con- 
demned, the Deity had committed the keys of hell and of 
paradise. The heretics, indeed, who might be supported 
by the consciousness of their intentions, and by the flattering 
hope that they alone had discovered the true path of salva- 
tion, endeavored to regain, in their separate assemblies, 

14-tSuch. at least, has been the laudable condudl of more modern missionaries, 
under the same circumstances. Above three thousand new-born infants are 
annually exposed in the streets of Pekin. See Le Comte, Memo ire s sur la Chine , 
and the Recherches sur les Chinois et les Egyptiens, torn. i. p. 61. 



PUBLIC PENANCE. I79 

those comforts, temporal as well as spiritual, which they no 
longer derived from the great society of Christians. But 
almost all those who had reluctantly yielded to the power of 
vice or idolatry were sensible of their fallen condition, and 
anxiously desirous of being restored to the benefits of the 
Christian communion. 

With regard to the treatment of these penitents, two op- 
posite opinions, the one of justice, the other of mercy, divided 
the primitive church. The more rigid and inflexible casuists 
refused them forever, and without exception, the meanest 
place in the holy community which they had disgraced or 
deserted ; and leaving them to the remorse of a guilty con- 
science, indulged them only with a faint ray of hope that 
the contrition of their life and death might possibly be ac- 
cepted by the Supreme Being. 145 A milder sentiment was 
embraced, in practice as well as in theory, by the purest and 
most respectable of the Christian churches. 146 The gates of 
reconciliation and of heaven were seldom shut against the 
returning penitent ; but a severe and solemn form of disci- 
pline was instituted, which, while it served to expiate his 
crime, might powerfully deter the spectators from the imita- 
tion of his example. Humbled by a public 
confession, emaciated by fasting, and clothed in penance 
sackcloth, the penitent lay prostrate at the door 
of the assembly, imploring with tears the pardon of his 
offences, and soliciting the prayers of the faithful. 147 If the 
fault was of a very heinous nature, whole years of penance 
were esteemed an inadequate satisfaction to the divine justice ; 
and it was always by slow and painful gradations that the 
sinner, the heretic, or the apostate, was readmitted into the 
bosom of the church. A sentence of perpetual excommuni- 
cation was, however, reserved for some crimes of an extra- 
ordinary magnitude, and particularly for the inexcusable 
relapses of those penitents who had already experienced and 
abused the clemency of their ecclesiastical superiors. Ac- 
cording to the circumstances or the number of the guilty, 
the exercise of the Christian discipline was varied by the 
discretion of the bishops. The councils of Ancyra and 
Illiberis were held about the same time, the one in Galatia, 

143 The Montanists and the Novatians, who adhered to this opinion with the 
greatest rigor and obstinacy, found themselves at last in the number of excom- 
municated heretics. See the learned and copious Mosheim, Secul. ii. and iii. 

146 Dionysius ap. Eiiseb. iv. 23. Cyprian, de Lapsis. 

1*1 Cave's Primitive Christianity, part iii. c. 5. The admirers of antiquity regret 
the loss of this public penance. 



l8o EPISCOPAL PRIDE. 

the other in Spain; but their respective canons, which are 
still extant, seem to breathe a very different spirit. The 
Galatian, who after his baptism had repeatedly sacrificed to 
idols, might obtain his pardon by a penance of seven years ; 
and if he had seduced others to imitate his example, only 
three years more were added to the term of his exile. But 
the unhappy Spaniard who had committed the same offence 
was deprived of the hope of reconciliation, even in the 
article of death ; and his idolatry was placed at the head of 
a list of seventeen other crimes, against which a sentence 
no less terrible was pronounced. Among these we may 
distinguish the inexpiable guilt of calumniating a bishop, a 
presbyter, or even a deacon. 148 

The well-tempered mixture of liberality and 
The dignity rigor, the judicious dispensation of rewards and 
government, punishments, according to the maxims of policy 
as well as justice, constituted the human strength 
of the church. The bishops, whose paternal care extended 
itself to the government of both worlds, were sensible of 
the importance of these prerogatives ; and, covering their 
ambition with the fair pretence of the love of order, they 
were jealous of any rival in the exercise of a discipline 
so necessary to prevent the desertion of those troops which 
had enlisted themselves under the banner of the cross, 
and whose numbers every day became more considerable. 
From the imperious declamations of Cyprian we should 
naturally conclude that the doctrines of excommunication 
and penance formed the most essential part of religion ;* 

148 See in Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, torn. ii. pp. 304 — 313, a short but 
rational exposition of the canons of those councils, which were assembled in the 
first moments of tranquillity after the persecution of Diocletian. This persecution 
had been much less severely felt in Spain than in Galatia ; a difference which may, 
in some measure, account for the contrast of their regulations. 



*"St. Cyprian, (Thascius Ccecilius Cyprianus,) Bishop of Carthage," says the 
Rev. Robert Taylor, in The Diegesis, p. 343, " was an African, who was converted 
" from Paganism to Christianity, in the year 246, and suffered martyrdom in the year 
" 258. So that the greatest part of his life was spent in heathenism. Cyprian had 
" a good estate, which he sold and gave to the poor immediately upon his con- 
" version. His advancement to the highest offices of the church was strikingly 
" rapid ; he was made presbyter the year after his conversion, and bishop of Car- 
" thage, the year after that. And let it not seem invidious to state, what may be 
" a characteristic truth, in the words of Dr. Lardner himself, ' The estate which 
" ' Cyprian had sold for the benefit of the poor, was by some favorable providence 
"'restored to him again.' He was bishop of a most flourishing church, the 
" metropolis of a province, and neither in fame nor fortune a loser by his conver- 
" sion. Cyprian had rendered himself obnoxious to the government under which 
" he had long enjoyed his episcopal dignity in peace and safety. [' The constitu- 
" tion of every particular church in those 'times was a well-tempered monarchy. 
" ' The bishop was the monarch, and the presbytery was his senate.' *■ * ' Cyprian 
" ' carried his spiritual authority to such a pitch, as to claim the riarht of putting 
" ' his rebellious and unruly deacon to death.'— Principles of the Cyprianic age, by 



CYPRIAN. l8l 

and that it was much less dangerous for the disciples of 
Christ to neglect the observance of the moral duties, than 
to despise the censures and authority of their bishops. Some- 
times we might imagine that we were listening to the voice 
of Moses, when he commanded the earth to open, and to 
swallow up, in consuming flames, the rebellious race which 
refused obedience to the priesthood of Aaron ; and we 
should sometimes suppose that we heard a Roman consul 
asserting the majesty of the republic, and declaring his 
inflexible resolution to enforce the rigor of the laws.* " If 
such irregularities are suffered with impunity" (it is thus 
that the bishop of Carthage chides the lenity of his col- 
league), " If such irregularities are suffered, there is an end 
of episcopal vigor; 149 an end of the sublime and divine 
power of governing the Church, an end of Christianity it- 
self." Cyprian had renounced those temporal honors which 
it is probable he would never have obtained ; but the ac- 
quisition of such absolute command over the consciences 
and understanding of a congregation, however obscure or 

149 Cyprian. Epist. 69. 

"John Sage, a Scottish bishop, 1695, pp. 32, 33.] And it is impossible not to see 
"from the intolerant turbulence of his character, his restless ambition, and his 
" inordinate claims of more than human authority ; that more than human patience 
" would have been required on the part of any government on earth, to have 
" brooked the eternal clashings of the civil administration with his assumed 
" superior authority over the minds of the subjects of the empire. He had been 
"twice banished, and subsequently recalled, and reinstated in his possessions 
" and dignities, but again and again persisting in holding councils and assemblies, 
" and enacting decrees, in defiance and actual solicitation of martyrdom, he was 
"judicially sentenced to be beheaded, upon which, he exclaimed, God be thanked, 
" and suffered accordingly, on the 14th of September, in the year 258. ' It is need- 
" ' less,' says St. Jerom, ' to give a catalogue of his works, they are brighter than 
" ' the sun? St. Austin calls him a blessed martyr, and there can be no doubt that 
" he has as good a claim, as any other tyrant who ever expiated his tyranny in 
" the same way, to that title." — E. 

* Gibbon has been accused of injustice to the character of Cyprian, as exalting 
the " censures and authority of the church above the observance of the moral 
" duties." Felicissimus had been condemned by a synod of bishops (non tantum 
mea, sed plurimorum coepiscorum, sententia condemnatum), on the charge not 
only of schism, but of embezzlement of public money, the debauching of virgins, 
and frequent acts of adulters-. His violent menaces had extorted his readmission 
into the church, against which Cyprian protests with much vehemence : ne pe- 
cuniae commissae sibi fraudator, lie stuprator virginum, ne matrimoniorum mul- 
torum depopulator et corruptor, ultra adhuc sponsam Christi incorruptam 
praesentias suae dedecore, et impudica atque incesta contagione, violaret. See 
Chels-am's remarks, p. 134. If these charges against Felicissimus were true, they 
were something more than " irregularities." A Roman censor would have been 
a fairer subject of comparison than a consul. On the other hand it must be ad- 
mitted that the charge of adultery deepens very rapidly, as the controversy 
becomes more violent. It is first represented as a single act, recently detected, 
and which men of character were prepared to substantiate : adulterii etiam crimen 
accedit, quod patres nostri graves viri deprehendisse se nuntiaverunt, et probaturos 
se asseverarunt. Epist. xxxviii. The heretic has now darkened into a man of 
notorious and general profligacy. Nor can it be denied that of the whole long 
epistle, very far the larger and the more passionate part dwells on the breach of 
ecclesiastical unity, rather than on the violation of Christian holiness. — Milman. 



1 82 STRENGTH OF CHRISTIANITY. 

despised by the world, is more truly grateful to the pride oi 
the human heart than the possession of the most despotic 
power, imposed by arms and conquest on a reluctant people.* 
In the course of this important, though per- 
Recapituiation haps tedious, inquiry, I have attempted to display 
five causes, the secondary causes which so efficaciously as- 
sisted the truth of the Christian religion. If 
among these causes we have discovered any artificial orna- 
ments, any accidental circumstances, or any mixture of 
error and passion, it cannot appear surprising that mankind 
should be the most sensibly affected by such motives as 
were suited to their imperfect nature. It was by the aid of 
these causes, exclusive zeal, the immediate expectation 
of another world, the claim of miracles, the practice of rigid 
virtue, and the constitution of the primitive church, that 
Christianity spread itself with so much success in the Roman 
empire. To the first of these the Christians were indebted for 
their invincible valor, which disdained to capitulate with 
the enemy whom they were resolved to vanquish. The 
three succeeding causes supplied their valor with the most 
formidable arms. The last of these causes united their 
courage, directed their arms, and gave their efforts that 
irresistible weight which even a small band of well-trained 
and intrepid volunteers has so often possessed over an un- 
disciplined multitude, ignorant of the object, and careless of 
the event of the war. In the various religions 
Weakness G f Polytheism, some wandering fanatics of Egypt 
polytheism, and Syria who addressed themselves to the cred- 
ulous superstition of the populace, were perhaps 
the only order of priests 150 that derived their whole support 
and credit from their sacerdotal profession, and were very 

iso The arts, the manners, and the vices of the priests of the Syrian goddess are 
very humorously described by Apuleius, in the eight book of his Metamorphoses. 

* This supposition appears unfounded : the birth and the talents of Cyprian 
might make us presume the contrary. Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus, Carthagi- 
nensis, artis oratorise professione clarus, magnam sibi gloriam, opes, honores 
acquisivit, epularibus caenis et largis dapibus assuetus, pretiosa veste conspicuus, 
auro atque purpura fulgens, fascibus oblectatus et honoribus, stipatus clientium 
cuneis, frequentiore comitatu officii agminis honestatus, ut ipse de se loquitur in 
Epistola ad Donatum. See Dr. Cave, Hist. Liter, b. i. p. 87. — Guizot. 

Cave has rather embellished Cyprian's language. — Milman. 

Cyprian's language respecting himself was, as Dean Milman admits, "rather 
"embellished." by Dr. Cave. Gibbon has been accused of misrepresenting the 
character of Cyprian. It will come more fully forward in the next chapter. In 
the mean time it is sufficient to remark, that this prelate had formed himself by 
the writings of Tertullian. whose vehemence all moderate Christians lament and 
disavow. — English Churchman. 



WEAKNESS OF POLYTHEISM. 1 83 

deeply affected by a personal concern for the safety or pros- 
perity of their tutelar deities. The ministers of Polytheism, 
both in Rome and in the provinces, were, for the most part, 
men of a noble birth, and of an affluent fortune, who received, 
as an honorable distinction, the care of a celebrated temple, 
or of a public sacrifice ; exhibited, very frequently at their 
own expense, the sacred games ; 151 and with cold indifference 
performed their ancient rites, according to the laws and 
fashion of their country. As they were engaged in the or- 
dinary occupations of life, their zeal and devotion were 
seldom animated by a sense of interest, or by the habits of 
an ecclesiastical character. Confined to their respective 
temples and cities, they remained without any connection of 
discipline or government ; and whilst they acknowledged the 
supreme jurisdiction of the senate, of the college of pontiffs, 
and of the emperor, those civil magistrates contented them- 
selves with the easy task of maintaining in peace and dignity 
the general worship of mankind. We have already seen 
how various, how loose, and how uncertain were the religious 
sentiments of Polytheists. They were abandoned, almost 
without control, to the natural workings of a superstitious 
fancy. The accidental circumstances of their life and situ- 
ation determined the object as well as the degree of their 
devotion ; and as long as their adoration was successively 
prostituted to a thousand deities, it was scarcely possible 
that their hearts could be susceptible of a very sincere or 
lively passion for any of them. 

When Christianity appeared in the world, even 
these faint and imperfect impressions had lost , T . 1 ? e . 

, r . . • ■ 1 v tt skepticism 

much of their original power. Human reason, of the 
which by its unassisted strength is incapable of Pa f rovId rld 
perceiving the mysteries of faith, had already favorable to 
obtained an easy triumph over the folly of Pagan- religion! 
ism ; and when Tertullian or Laclantius employ 
their labors in exposing its falsehood and extravagance, they 
are obliged to transcribe the eloquence of Cicero or the wit 
of Lucian. The contagion of these sceptical writings had 
been diffused far beyond the number of their readers. The 
fashion of incredulity was communicated from the philos- 

i5i The office of Asiarch was of this nature, and it is frequently mentioned in 
Aristides, the Inscriptions, &c. It was annual and elective. None but the vainest 
citizens could desire the honor : none but the most wealthy could support the 
expense. See, in the Patres Apostol. torn. ii. p. 200. with how much indifference 
Philip the Asiarch conducted himself in the martyrdom of Polycarp. There were 
likewise Bithyniarchs, Lyciarchs, &c. 



184 PREVALENCE OF SKEPTICISM. 

opher to the man of pleasure or business, from the noble to 
the plebeian, and from the master to the menial slave who 
waited at his table, and who eagerly listened to the freedom 
of his conversation. On public occasions the philosophic 
part of mankind affected to treat with respect and decency 
the religious institutions of their country ; but their secret 
contempt penetrated through the thin and awkward dis- 
guise ; and even the people, when they discovered that their 
deities were rejected and derided by those whose rank or 
understanding they were accustomed to reverence, were 
filled with doubts and apprehensions concerning the truth 
of those doctrines to which they had yielded the most im- 
plicit belief. The decline of ancient prejudice exposed a 
very numerous portion of human kind to the danger of a 
painful and comfortless situation. A state of scepticism and 
suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the 
practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that 
if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of 
their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and 
supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, 
and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears 
beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal 
causes which favored the establishment of Polytheism. So 
urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the 
fall of any system of mythology will most probably be 
succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of su- 
perstition. Some deities of a more recent and fashionable 
cast might soon have occupied the deserted temples of 
Jupiter and Apollo, if, in the decisive moment, the wisdom 
of Providence had not interposed a genuine revelation, 
fitted to inspire the most rational esteem and conviction, 
whilst, at the same time, it was adorned with all that could 
attract the curiosity, the wonder, and the veneration of the 
people. In their actual disposition, as many were almost 
disengaged from their artificial prejudices, but equally sus- 
ceptible and desirous of a devout attachment, an object much 
less deserving would have been sufficient to fill the vacant 
place in their hearts, and to gratify the uncertain eagerness 
of their passions. Those who are inclined to pursue this 
reflection, instead of viewing with astonishment the rapid 
progress of Christianity, will perhaps be surprised that its 
success was not still more rapid and still more universal.* 

* Gibbon has here glanced at what he ought to have made the first and chief 
natural cause of the success of Christianity.— English Churchman. 



CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE JEWS. 1 85 

It has been observed, with truth as well as 
propriety, that the conquests of Rome prepared A pelceand he 
and facilitated those of Christianity. In the union of the 
second chapter of this work, we have attempted empire! 
to explain in what manner the most civilized 
provinces of Europe, Asia, and Africa, were united under 
the dominion of one sovereign, and gradually connected by 
the most intimate ties of laws, of manners, and of language. 
The Jews of Palestine, who had fondly expected a temporal 
deliverer, gave so cold a reception to the miracles of the 
divine Prophet,* that it was found unnecessary to publish, 
or at least to preserve, any Hebrew gospel. 152 The authentic 

152 The modern critics are not disposed to believe what the fathers almost unani- 
mously assert, that St. Matthew composed a Hebrew gospel, of which only the 
Greek translation is extant. It seems, however, dangerous to reject their testi- 
mony.! 

* The reception was not so cold as Gibbon seems to think. In the space of two 
days, eight thousand Jewish converts were baptized. (Acts ii. 27 — 40; iv. 4.) 
They formed the first Christian church. — Guizot. 

This was before the reception of the new religion among the Greeks. Subse- 
quently to that change, Christianity, as is well known, made little progress in 
Judaea, but, on the contrary, was everywhere resisted by the Jews, while the 
Gentiles welcomed it gladly. The Apostles soon quitted their own country, and 
foreign lands were the theatres of their exertions and the scenes of their triumph. — 
English Churchman. 

f Strong reasons appear to confirm this testimony. Papias, contemporary of the 
apostle St. John, says positively that Mathew had written the discourses of Jesus 
Christ in Hebrew, and that each interpreted them as he could. This Hebrew was 
the Syro-Chaldaic dialect, then in use at Jerusalem : Origen, Irenaeus, Eusebius, 
Jerome, Epiphanius, confirm this statement. Jesus Christ preached himself in 
Syro-Chaldaic, as is proved by many words which he used, and which the Evan- 
gelists have taken the pains to translate. St. Paul, addressing the Jews, used the 
same language: Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 2, xxvi 14. The opinions of some critics 
prove nothing against such undeniable testimonies. Moreover their principal 
objection is, that St. Matthew quotes the Old Testament according to the Greek 
version of the LXX., which is inaccurate; for of ten quotations, found in his 
Gospel, seven are evidently taken from the Hebrew text; the three others offer 
little that differ : moreover, the latter are not literal quotations. St. Jerome says 
positively, that, according to a copy which he had seen in the library of Csesarea, 
the quotations were made in Hebrew (in Catal). More modern critics, among 
others Michaelis, do not entertain a doubt on the subject. The Greek version 
appears to have been made in the time of the apostles, as St. Jerome and 
St. Augustine affirm, perhaps by one of them.— Guizot. 

Among modern critics, Dr. Hug has asserted the Greek original of St. Matthew, 
but the general opinion of the most learned biblical writers supports the view 
of M. Guizot. — Milman. 

The concurrent testimony of so many early writers leaves no reasonable ground 
to doubt the fact, that there was a Hebrew original of Matthew's gospel. Eusebius 
repeats it no less than six times ; and all assert it so positively, that to question it 
is, as Gibbon hints, to shake the very foundation of all primitive ecclesiastical 
history. Papias, who is the chief authority for it, has been called a weak man and 
of small capacity. Yet he was considered in his days competent to be a bishop, 
he is confidently quoted by those nearest to his time; and Eusebius not onlv 
praises his abilities, and particularly his knowledge of the Scriptures (lib. iii. c. 
36), but devotes also a long chapter (39) to the information derived from him.— E. C 

Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, the first of the fathers of the second century, is 
supposed to have flourished between the years no and 116 He is the author of 
five books, entitled An Explication of the Oracles of the Lord. " Dr. Lardner 
" considers him " says Taylor, in The Diegesis, p. 305, " a man of small capacity, 
1 but esteems his testimony to the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark as very 



1 86 CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE GENTILES. 

histories of the actions of Christ were composed in the 
Greek language, at a considerable distance from Jerusalem, 
and after the Gentile converts were grown extremely 
numerous. 153 As soon as those histories were translated into 
the Latin tongue, they were perfectly intelligible to all the 
subjects of Rome, excepting only to the peasants of Syria 
and Egypt, for whose benefit particular versions were after- 
wards made. The public highways, which had been con- 
structed for the use of the legions, opened an easy passage 
for the Christian missionaries from Damascus to Corinth, 
and from Italy to the extremity of Spain or Britain ; nor did 
those spiritual conquerors encounter any of the obstacles 
which usually retard or prevent the introduction of a foreign 
religion into a distant country. There is the strongest reason 
to believe, that before the reigns of Diocletian and Constan- 
tine, the faith of Christ had been preached in every province, 
and in all the great cities of the empire ; but the 
Historical foundation of the several congregations, the 
progress^ numbers of the faithful who composed them, and 
Christianity, their proportion to the unbelieving multitude, 
are now buried in obscurity, or disguised by 

153 Under the reigns of Nero and Domitian, and in the cities of Alexandria, 
Antioch, Rome and Ephesus. See Mill, Prolegomena ad Nov. Testament, and Dr. 
Lardner's fair and extensive collection, vol. xv.* 



" valuable," and significally adds : ' If Papias had been a wiser man, he had left 
" us a confirmation of many more books of the New Testament.' 

" It is perhaps a very different impression of the character of this primitive 
" bishop, and of the value of his testimony, which the reader would be led to form, 
" upon consideration of the evidence arising from his writings themselves as pre- 
" served to us on the authority of his admirer and disciple Irenaeus, in which he 
" gravely assures us, t h at he had immediately learned from the Evangelist St. John 
" himself, that ' the Lord taught and said, that the days shall come in which vines 
" ' shall spring up, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch shall be 
" ' ten thousand arms, and on each arm of a branch ten thousand tendrils, and on 
" ' each tendril ten thousand bunches, and on each bunch ten thousand grapes, 
" ' and each grape, on being pressed, shall yield five and twenty gallons of wine; 
" 'and when any one of the saints shall take hold of one of these bunches, another 
" ' shall cry out, I am a better bunch, take me, and bless the Lord by me.' The 
"same infinitely silly methaphors of multiplication by ten thousand, are continued 
" with respect to grains of wheat, apples, fruits, flowers, and animals beyond all 
" endurance, precisely after the fashion of that famous sorites of the nursery upon 
" the House that Jack built, the malt, the rat, the cat, the dog, the cow, &c. : all 
"which Jesus concluded by saying, 'And these things are believable by all be- 
" ' lievers ; but Judas, the traitor, not believing, asked him, But how shall things 
" ' that shall propagate thus be brought to an end by the Lord? And the Lord 
" ' answered him and said, Those who shall live in those times shall see.' Papias, 
"however, notwithstanding his intimacy with the Evangelist St. John, and the 
" value of his testimony to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, fell into the slight 
" error of believing that no such an event as the crucifixion ever happened, but 
" that Jesus Christ lived to be a very old man, and died in peace in the bosom of 
" his own family. Papias, with all his absurdities, had some respecl. for poetical 
"justice. — E. 

* This question has, it is well known, been most elaboratelv discussed since the 
time of Gibbon. The Preface to the Translation of Schleiermacher's Version of 
St. Luke contains a very able summary of the various theories.— M. 



THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 187 

fiction and declamation. Such imperfect circumstances, 
however, as have reached our knowledge concerning the 
increase of the Christian name in Asia and Greece, in Egypt, 
in Italy, and in the West, we shall now proceed to relate, 
without neglecting the real or imaginary acquisitions which 
lay beyond the frontiers of the Roman empire. 
The rich provinces that extend from the 
Euphrates to the Ionian Sea were the principal in the East, 
theatre on which the apostle of the Gentiles 
displayed his zeal and piety. The seeds of the gospel, 
which he had scattered in a fertile soil, were diligently cul- 
tivated by his disciples ; and it should seem that, during 
the two first centuries, the most considerable body of 
Christians was contained within those limits. Among the 
societies which were instituted in Syria, none were more 
ancient or more illustrious than those of Damascus, of 
Berea or Aleppo, and of Antioch. The prophetic introduc- 
tion of the Apocalypse has described and immortalized the 
seven churches of Asia; Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, 
Thyatira, 154 Sardes, Laodicea, and Philadelphia ; and their 
colonies were soon diffused over that populous country. 
In a very early period, the islands of Cyprus and Crete, the 
provinces of Thrace and Macedonia, gave a favorable re- 
ception to the new religion ; and Christian republics were 
soon founded in the cities of Corinth, of Sparta, and of 
Athens. 155 The antiquity of the Greek and Asiatic churches 
allowed a sufficient space of time for their increase and mul- 
tiplication; and even the swarms of Gnostics and other 
heretics serve to display the flourishing condition of the 
orthodox church, since the appellation of heretics has always 
been applied to the less numerous party. To these domestic 
testimonies we may add the confession, the complaints, and 
the apprehensions of the Gentiles themselves. From the 
writings of Lucian, a philosopher who had studied mankind, 
and who describes their manners in the most lively colors, 
we may learn that, under the reign of Commodus his native 
country of Pontus was filled with Epicureans and Chris - 

131 The Alogians ( Epiphanius de Hcsres 51 ) disputed the genuineness of the 
Apocalypse, because the church of Thyatira was not yet founded. Epiphanius, 
who allows the fact, extricates himself from the difficulty by ingeniously sup- 
posing that St. John wrote in the spirit of prophecy. See Abauzit, Discours sur 
T Apocalypse. 

155 The epistles of Ignatius and Dionysius (ap. Euseb. iv. 23) point out many 
churches in Asia and Greece. That of Athens seems to have been one of the least 
flourishing. 



188 NUMBERS OF THE CHRISTIANS. 

Hans™ Within fourscore years after the death of Christ, 157 
the humane Pliny laments the magnitude of the evil which 
he vainly attempted to eradicate. In his very curious 
epistle to the emperor Trajan, he affirms that the temples 
were almost deserted, that the sacred victims scarcely found 
any purchasers, and that the superstition had not only in- 
fected the cities, but had even spread itself into the villages 
and the open country of Pontus and Bithynia. 158 

Without descending into a minute scrutiny of 
Th lntioch h ° f the expressions, or the motives, of those writers, 
who either celebrate or lament the progress of 
Christianity in the East, it may in general be observed, that 
none of them have left us any grounds from whence a just 
estimate might be formed of the real numbers of the faith- 
ful in those provinces. One circumstance, however, has 
been fortunately preserved, which seems to cast a more 
distinct light on this obscure but interesting subject. Under 
the reign of Theodosius, after Christianity had enjoyed 
during more than sixty years the sunshine of imperial favor, 
the ancient and illustrious church of Antioch consisted of 
one hundred thousand persons, three thousand of whom 
were supported out of the public oblations. 159 The splendor 
and dignity of the queen of the East, the acknowledged 
populousness of Csesarea, Seleucia, and Alexandria, and the 
destruction of two hundred and fifty thousand souls in the 
earthquake which afflicted Antioch under the elder Justin, 160 
are so many convincing proofs that the whole number of its 
inhabitants was not less than half a million, and that the 
Christians, however multiplied by zeal and power, did not 
exceed a fifth part of that great city. How different a pro- 
portion must we adopt when we compare the persecuted 
with the triumphant church, the west with the east, remote 

i56Lucian.in Alexandro, c. 25. Christianity, however, must have been very 
unequally diffused over Pontus ; since, in the middle of the third century, there 
were no more than seventeen believers in the extensive diocese of Neo-Cassarea. 
See M. de Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. torn. iv. p. 675, from Basil and Gregory 
of Nyssa, who were themselves natives of Cappadocia.* 

157 According to the ancients, Jesus Christ suffered under the consulship of 
the two Gemini, in the year 29 of our present era. Pliny was sent into Bithynia 
(according to Pagi) in the year no.f 

158 piin. Epist. x. 97. 

159 Chrysostom. Opera, torn. vii. pp. 658, 810 [edit. Savil. ii. 422, 529]. 

160 John Malala, torn. ii. p. 144. He draws the same conclusion with regard to 
the populousness of Antioch. 

* Gibbon forgot the conclusion of this story, that Gregory left only seventeen 
heathens in his diocese. The antithesis is suspicious, and both numbers may 
have been chosen to magnify the spiritual fame of the wonder-worker. — M. 

t Clinton (F. R. i. 89^has corrected this date to 103. — English Churchman. 



THE THERAPEUTAE. 189 

villages with populous towns, and countries recently con- 
verted to the faith, with the place where the believers first 
received the appellation of Christians ! It must not, how- 
ever, be dissembled, that, in another passage, Chrysostom, 
to whom we are indebted for this useful information, com- 
putes the multitude of the faithful as even superior to that 
of the Jews and Pagans. 161 But the solution of this apparent 
difficulty is easy and obvious. The eloquent preacher draws 
a parallel between the civil and the ecclesiastical constitution 
of Antioch ; between the list of Christians who had acquired 
heaven by baptism, and the list of citizens who had a right 
to share the public liberality. Slaves, strangers, and infants, 
were comprised in the former ; they were excluded from the 
latter. 

The extensive commerce of Alexandria, and 
its proximity to Palestine, gave an easy entrance in Egypt, 
to the new religion. It was at first embraced by 
great numbers of the Therapeutae, or Essenians of the lake 
Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much of its rever- 
ence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The austere life of the 
Essenians, their fasts and excommunications, the community 
of goods, the love of celibacy, their zeal for martyrdom, and 
the warmth though not the purity of their faith, already 
offered a very lively image of the primitive discipline. 162 It 
was in the school of Alexandria that the Christian theology 
appears to have assumed a regular and scientific form ; and 
when Hadrian visited Egypt, he found a church composed 
of Jews and of Greeks, sufficiently important to attract the 
notice of that inquisitive prince. 163 But the progress of 
Christianity was for a long time confined within the limits 
of a single city, which was itself a foreign colony, and till 

161 Chrysostom. torn. i. p. 592. I am indebted for these passages, though not for 
my inference, to the learned Dr. Lardner. Credibility of the Gospel History, vol. 
xii. p. 370.* 

162 Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, 1. 2, e. 20, 21, 22, 23, has examined with the most 
critical accuracy the curious treatise of Philo, which describes the Therapeutae. 
By proving that it was composed as early as the time of Augustus, Basnage has 
demonstrated, in spite of Eusebius (1. ii. c. 17) and a crowd of modern Catholics, 
that the Theraputae were neither Christians nor monks. It still remains propable 
that they changed their name, preserved their manners, adopted some new 
articles of faith, and gradually became the fathers of the Egyptian Ascetics. 

163 See a letter of Hadrian in the Augustan History, p. 245. 

* The statements of Chrysostom with regard to the population of Antioch, what- 
ever may be their accuracy, are perfectly consistent. In one passage he reckons 
the population at 200,000. In a second the Christians at 100.000. In a third he 
states that the Christians formed more than half the population. Gibbon has 
neglected to notice the first passage, and has drawn his estimate of the population 
of Antioch from other sources. The 3,000 maintained by alms were widows and 
virgins alone. — Milman. 



I90 THE CHRISTIANS IN ROME. 

the close of the second century the predecessors of Demetrius 
were the only prelates of the Egyptian church. Three 
bishops were consecrated by the hands of Demetrius, and 
the number was increased to twenty by his successor 
Heraclas. 164 The body of the natives, a people distinguished 
by a sullen inflexibility of temper, 105 entertained the new 
doctrine with coldness and reluctance ; and even in the 
time of Origen it was rare to meet with an Egyptian who 
had surmounted his early prejudices in favor of the sacred 
animals of his country. 106 As soon, indeed, as Christianity 
ascended the throne, the zeal of those barbarians obeyed 
the prevailing impulsion ; the cities of Egypt were filled 
with bishops, and the deserts of Thebais swarmed with 
hermits. 

A perpetual stream of strangers and provin- 
in Rome, cials flowed into the capacious bosom of Rome. 
Whatever was strange or odious, whoever was 
guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that 
immense capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such 
a various conflux of nations, every teacher, either of truth 
or of falsehood, every founder, whether of a virtuous or a 
criminal association, might easily multiply his disciples or 
accomplices. The Christians of Rome, at the time of the 
accidental persecution of Nero, are represented by Tacitus 
as already amounting to a very great multitude, 167 and the 
language of that great historian is almost similar to the 
style employed by Livy, when he relates the introduction 
and the suppression of the rites of Bacchus. After the 
Bacchanals had awakened the severity of the senate, it was 
likewise apprehended that a very great multitude, as it were 
another people, had been initiated into those abhorred mys- 
teries. A more careful inquiry soon demonstrated that the 
offenders did not exceed seven thousand ; a number indeed 
sufficiently alarming, when considered as the object of public 
justice. 168 It is with the same candid allowance that we 

l6f For the succession of Alexandrian bishops, consult _RenaudoP 's History, p. 
24, &c. This curious tact is preserved by the patriarch Eutychius, (Anna/, torn, 
h P- 334. vers. Pocock.) and its internal evidence would alone be a sufficient answer 
to all trie objections which Bishop Pearson has urged in the Vi?idicicz Ignctiancz.* 

!65 Ammian. Marcellhu xxii. 16. 166 Origen contra Celsum, lib. i. p. 40. 

167 Ingens multitudo is the expression of Tacitus, xv. 44. 

168 7". Liv. xxxix. 13, 15, 16, 17. Nothing could exceed the horror and con- 
sternation of the senate on the discovery of the Bacchanalians, whose depravity 
is described, and perhaps exaggerated, by Livy. 

* See Clinton's Catalogue ; (F. R. ii, 535.) Demetrius became bishop of Alexan- 
dria, a. d. 190, and Heracias succeeded him in 223. — English Churchman. 



CHURCHES OF GAUL AND AFRICA. 191 

should interpret the vague expressions of Tacitus, and in a 
former instance of Pliny, when they exaggerate the crowds 
of deluded fanatics who had forsaken the established wor- 
ship of the gods. The church of Rome was undoubtedly 
the first and most populous of the empire ; and we are 
possessed of an authentic record which attests the state of 
religion in that city about the middle of the third century, 
and after a peace of thirty-eight years. The clergy, at that 
time, consisted of a bishop, forty-six presbyters, seven dea- 
cons, as many sub-deacons, forty-two acolythes, and fifty 
readers, exorcists, and porters. The number of widows, of 
the infirm, and of the poor, who were maintained by the 
oblations of the faithful, amounted to fifteen hundred. 169 
From reason, as well as from the analogy of Antioch, we 
may venture to estimate the Christians of Rome at about 
fifty thousand. The populousness of that great capital can- 
not perhaps be exactly ascertained; but the most modest 
calculation will not surely reduce it lower than a million of 
inhabitants, of whom the Christians might constitute at the 
most a twentieth part. 170 

The western provincials appeared to have de- 
rived the knowledge of Christianity from the In Africa an d 
same source which had diffused among them the western 
the language, the sentiments, and the manners plovmce ^ 
of Rome. In this more important circumstance, 
Africa, as well as Gaul, was gradually fashioned to the 
imitation of the capital. Yet notwithstanding the many 
favorable occasions which might invite the Roman mission- 
aries to visit the Latin provinces, it was late before they 
passed either the sea or the Alps ; 1T1 nor can we discover 
in those great countries any assured traces either of faith 

169 Eusebius, lib. vi. c. 43. The Latin translator (M. de Valois) has thought 
proper to reduce the number of presbyters to forty- four. 

110 This proportion of the presbyters and of the poor, to the rest of the people, 
was originally fixed by Burnet {Trails into Italy, p. 168), and is approved by 
Movie (vol. ii. p. 151). They were both unacquainted with the passage of Chry- 
sostom, which converts their conjecture almost into a fact. 

171 Serius trans Alpes, religione Dei suscepta. Sulpicius Severus, 1. ii. These 
were the celebrated martyrs of Lyons. See Eusebius, v. i. Tillemont, Mem. 
Ecclesiast. torn, ii, p. 316. According to the Donatists, whose assertion is con- 
firmed by the tacit acknowledgment of Augustin, Africa was the last of the prov- 
inces which received the Gospel. Tillemout, Mem. Ecclsiast. torn, i, p. 754.* 

* It was natural that Christianity should advance slowly in the west, where the 
way had not been opened for it by philosophy. The doctrines of the Greek 
schools, which had been for four centuries working onward round their birth- 
places, had only been recently introduced into Rome, and were still but " a more 
'refined species of luxury, and a kind of table furuiture, set apart for the enter- 
" tainment of the great." (Div. JLeg. book iii, sec. iii.)— English Churchman. 



I92 CHURCHES OF SPAIN AND BRITAIN. 

or of persecution that ascend higher than the reign of the 
Antonines. 172 The slow progress of the gospel in the cold 
climate of Gaul was extremely different from the eagerness 
with which it seems to have been received on the burning 
sands of Africa. The African Christians soon formed one 
of the principal members of the primitive church. The 
practice introduced into that province of appointing bishops 
to the most inconsiderable towns, and very frequently to the 
most obscure villages, contributed to multiply the splendor 
and importance of their religious societies, which during the 
course of the third century were animated by the zeal of 
Tertullian, directed by the abilities of Cyprian, and adorned 
by the eloquence of Lactantius. But if, on the contrary, we 
turn our eyes toward Gaul, we must content ourselves with 
discovering, in the time of Marcus Antoninus, the feeble and 
united congregations of Lyons and Vienna ; and even as 
late as the reign of Decius we are assured that in a few 
cities only, Aries, Narbonne, Thoulouse, Limoges, Clermont, 
Tours, and Paris, some scattered churches were supported 
by the devotion of a small number of Christians. 173 Silence 
is indeed very consistent with devotion ; but as it is seldom 
compatible with zeal, we may perceive and lament the 
languid state of Christianity in those provinces which had 
exchanged the Celtic for the Latin tongue, since they did 
not, during the three first centuries, give birth to a single 
ecclesiastical writer. From Gaul, which claimed a just pre- 
eminence and authority over all the countries on this side 
of the Alps, the light of the gospel was more faintly reflected 
on the remote provinces of Spain and Britain ; and if we may 
credit the vehement assertions of Tertullian, they had already 
received the first rays of the faith, when he addressed his 
Apology to the magistrates of the emperor Severus. 174 But 
the obscure and imperfect origin of the western churches of 
Europe has been so negligently, recorded, that if we would 
relate the time and manner of their foundation, we must 

i"2 Turn primum intra Gallias martyria visa. Sulp. Severus, 1. ii. With regard 
to Africa, see Tertullian ad Scapuldm, c. iii. It is imagined, that the Seyllitan 
martyrs were the first. (Acta Sincera, Ruinart. p. 34.) One of the adversaries 
of Apuleius seems to have been a Christian. Apolog. p. 496, 497, edit. Delphin. 

i"3 Rarae in aliquibus civitatibus ecclesiee, paucorum Christianorum devotione, 
resurgerent. Acta Sincera, p. 130. Gregory of Tours, 1. i. e. 28. Mosheim, pp. 
207, 449. There is some reason to believe that, in the beginning of the fourth 
century, the extensive dioceses of Liege, of Treves, and of Cologne, composed a 
single bishopric, which had been very recently founded. See Memories de Tille- 
mont, torn. vi. part i. pp. 43, 411. 

i"i The date of Tertullian's Apology is fixed, in a dissertation of Mosheim, to 
the year 198. 



EXAGGERATED STATEMENTS. I93 

supply the silence of antiquity by those legends which 
avarice or superstition long afterwards dictated to the monks 
in the lazy gloom of their convents. 175 Of these holy ro- 
mances, that of the apostle St. James can alone, by its singu- 
lar extravagance, deserve to be mentioned. From a peaceful 
fisherman of the Lake of Gennesareth, he was transformed 
into a valorous knight, who charged at the head of the 
Spanish chivalry in their battles against the Moors. The 
gravest historians have celebrated his exploits ; the miracu- 
lous shrine of Compostella displayed his power; and the 
sword of a military order, assisted by the terrors of the 
Inquisition, was sufficient to remove every objection of 
profane criticism. 176 

The progress of Christianity was not confined 
to the Roman empire ; and according to the Beyond the 
primitive fathers, who interpret facts by pro- h ™om° a f n the 
phecy, the new religion, within a century after empire, 
the death of its divine Author, had already vis- 
ited every part of the globe. " There exists not," says 
Justin Martyr, " a people, whether Greek or Barbarian, or 
" any other race of men, by whatsoever appellation or man- 
" ners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts 
" or agriculture, whether they dwell under tents, or wander 
" about in covered wagons, among whom prayers are not 
" offered up in the name of a crucified Jesus to the Father 
" and Creator of all things." 177 But this splendid exaggera- 
tion, which even at present it would be extremely difficult 
to reconcile with the real state of mankind, can be consid- 
ered only as the rash sally of a devout but careless writer, 
the measure of whose belief was regulated by that of his 
wishes. But neither the belief nor the wishes of the fathers 
can alter the truth of history. It will still remain an un- 
doubted fact, that the barbarians of Scythia and Germany, 
who afterwards subverted the Roman monarchy, were 
involved in the darkness of paganism ; and that even the 
conversion of Iberia, of Armenia, or of Ethiopia, was not 

175 In the fifteenth century, there were few who had either inclination or 
courage to question, whether Joseph of Arimathea founded the monastery of 
Glastonbury, and whether Dionysius the Areopagite preferred the residence of 
Paris to that of Athens. 

n6 The stupendous metamorphosis was performed in the ninth century. See 
Mariana, {Hist. Hispan. 1. vii. c. 13, torn, i p. 285, edit. Hag. Com. 1733), who, in 
every sense, imitates Livy, and the honest detection of the legend of St. James by 
Dr. Geddes, Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 221. 

i" Justin Martyr, Dialog, cum Tryphon, p. 341. Irencsus adv. Hczres, 1. i. c. 
10. Tertullian adv.Jud. c. 7. See Mosheim, p. 203. 



194 STATISTICS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

attempted with any degree of success till the sceptre was 
in the hands of an orthodox emperor. 178 Before that time, 
the various accidents of war and commerce might indeed 
diffuse an imperfect knowledge among the tribes of Cale- 
donia, 179 and among the borderers of the Rhine, the Danube, 
and the Euphrates. 180 Beyond the last-mentioned river, 
Edessa was distinguished by a firm and early adherence to 
the faith. 181 From Edessa the principles of Christianity 
were easily introduced into the Greek and Syrian cities 
which obeyed the successors of Artaxerxes ; but they do 
not appear to have made any deep impression on the minds 
of the Persians, whose religious system, by the labors of a 
well-disciplined order of priests, had been constructed with 
much more art and solidity than the uncertain mythology 
of Greece and Rome. 182 

From this impartial though imperfect survey 
General pro- of the progress of Christianity, it may perhaps 
ch P r? s r tVan\°and seem probable that the number of its proselytes 
pagans. has been excessively magnified by fear on the 
one side, and by devotion on the other. Accord- 
ing to the irreproachable testimony of Origen, 183 the propor- 
tion of the faithful was very inconsiderable, when compared 
with the multitude of an unbelieving world ; but, as we are 
left without any distinct information, it is impossible to 
determine, and it is difficult even to conjecture, the real 

178 See the fourth century of Mosheim's History of the Church. Many, though 
very confused circumstances, that relate to the conversion of Iberia and Armenia, 
may be found in Moses of Chorene, lib. ii. c. 78-89.* 

i"9 According to Tertullian, the Christian faith had penetrated into parts of 
Britain inaccessible to the Roman arms. About a century afterwards, Ossian, 
the son of Fingal, is said to have disputed, in his extreme old age, with one of 
the foreign missionaries, and the dispute is still extant, in verse, and in the Erse 
language. See Mr. Macpherson's Dissertation on the Antiquity of Ossiari's 
Poems, p. 10. 

180 The Goths, who ravaged Asia in the reign of Gallienus, carried away great 
numbers of captives; some of whom were Christians, and became missionaries. 
See Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiast. torn. iv. p. 44. 

181 The legend of Abgarus, fabulous as it is, affords a decisive proof, that many 
years before Eusebius wrote his history, the greatest part of the inhabitants of 
Edessa had embraced Christianity. Their rivals, the citizens of Carrhae, adhered, 
on the contrary, to the cause of Paganism, as late as the sixth century. 

182 According to Bardesanes (ap. Eusebius Prczpar. Evangel.) there were some 
Christians in Persia before the end of the second century. In the time of Con- 
stantine, (see his epistle to Sapor. Vit. 1. iv. c. 13) they composed a flourishing 
church. Consult Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, torn. i. p. 180, and 
the Bibliotheca Orientalis of Assemani. 

183 Origen contra Celsum, I. viii. p. 424. 

* Mons. St. Martin has shown that Armenia was the first nation that embraced 
Christianity. Memoires sur rArraenie, vol. i, p. 306, and notes to Le Beau. 
Gibbon, indeed, had expressed his intention of withdrawing the words "of 
"Armenia" from the text of future editions. {Vindication, Works, iv. 577.) He 
was bitterly taunted by Porson for neglecting or declining to fulfill his promise. 
Preface to Letters to Travis. — Milman. 



EARLY REPROACHES. 195 

numbers of the primitive Christians. The most favorable 
calculation, however, that can be deduced from the exam- 
ples of Antioch and of Rome, will not permit us to imagine 
that more than a twentieth part of the subjects of the empire 
had enlisted themselves under the banner of the cross before 
the important conversion of Constantine. But their habits 
of faith, of zeal, and of union, seemed to multiply their 
numbers ; and the same causes which contributed to their 
future increase served to render their actual strength more 
apparent and more formidable. 

Such is the constitution of civil society, that, 
whilst a few persons are distinguished by riches, Whether 
by honors, and by knowledge, the body of the christians 
people is condemned to obscurity, ignorance wer | n ™ ean 
and poverty. The Christian religion, which ad- ignorant, 
dressed itself to the whole human race, must 
consequently collect a far greater number of proselytes from 
the lower than from the superior ranks of life. This inno- 
cent and natural circumstance has been improved into a 
very odious imputation, which seems to be less strenuously 
denied by the apologists than it is urged by the adversaries 
of the faith ; that the new sect of Christians was almost 
entirely composed of the dregs of the populace ; of peasants 
and mechanics, of boys and women, of beggars and slaves, 
the last of whom might sometimes introduce the mission- 
aries into the rich and noble families to which they belonged. 
These obscure teachers (such was the charge of malice and 
infidelity) are as mute in public as they are loquacious and 
dogmatical in private. Whilst they cautiously avoid the 
dangerous encounter of philosophers, they mingle with the 
rude and illiterate crowd, and insinuate themselves into 
those minds whom their age, their sex, or their education, 
has the best disposed to receive the impression of supersti- 
tious terrors. 184 

This unfavorable picture, though not devoid of 
a faint resemblance, betrays, by its dark coloring Some exeep- 
and distorted features, the pencil of an enemy. ^egarTto 
As the humble faith of Christ diffused itself learning, 
through the world, it was embraced by several 
persons who derived some consequence from the advan- 
tages of nature or fortune. Aristides, who presented an 
eloquent apology to the emperor Hadrian, was an Athenian 

is* Minucins Felix, c. S, with Wouwerus's notes. Cehus ap. Origen, 1. iii. pp. 
138, 142. Julian ap. Cyril. 1. vi. p. 206, edit. Spanheim. 



I96 LEARNING OF THE EARLY FATHERS. 

philosopher. 185 Justin Martyr had sought divine knowledge 
in the schools of Zeno, of Aristole, of Pythagoras, and of 
Plato, before he fortunately was accosted by the old man, 
or rather the angel, who turned his attention to the study 
of the Jewish prophets. 186 Clemens of Alexandria had ac- 
quired much various reading in the Greek, and Tertullian 
in the Latin, language. Julius Africanus and Origen pos- 
sessed a very considerable share of the learning of their 
times ; and although the style of Cyprian is very different 
from that of Lactantius, we might almost discover that both 
those writers had been public teachers of rhetoric. Even 
the study of philosophy was at length introduced among 
the Christians, but it was not always productive of the 
most salutary effects ; knowledge was as often the parent 
of heresy as of devotion, and the description which was 
designed for the followers of Artemon may, with equal 
propriety, be applied to the various sects that resisted the 
successors of the apostles. " They presume to alter the 
" Holy^ Scriptures, to abandon the ancient rule of faith, 
" and to form their opinions according to the subtile pre- 
" cepts of logic. The science of the church is neglected 
" for the study of geometry, and they lose sight of heaven 
" while they are employed in measuring the earth. Euclid 
" is perpetually in their hands. Aristotle and Theophrastus 
" are the objects of their admiration ; and they express an 
" uncommon reverence for the works of Galen. Their 
" errors are derived from the abuse of the arts and sciences 
" of the infidels, and they corrupt the simplicity of the 
" gospel by the refinements of human reason." 187 

Nor can it be affirmed with truth that the 
With regard advantages of birth and fortune were always 

to rank and j r 1 r r ^1 • • • 

fortune. separated from the profession of Christianity. 

Several Roman citizens were brought before 

the tribunal of Pliny, and he soon discovered that a great 

number of persons of every order of men in Bithynia had 

deserted the religion of their ancestors. 188 His unsuspected 

iss Euseb. His. Eccles. iv. 3. Hieronym. Epist. 83. 
_ isg The story is prettily told in Justin's Dialogues. Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn, 
ii. p. 334), who relates it after him, is sure that t^ie old man was a disguised angel. 

181 Eusebius, v. 28. It may be hoped, that none, except the heretics, gave 
occasion to the complaint of Celsus (ap. Origen, 1. ii. p. 77), that the Christians 
were perpetually correcting and altering their gospels.* 

188 Plin. Epist. x. 97. Fuerunt alii similis amentiae, cives Romani . . . Multi 
enim omnis setatis, otnnis ordinis, utriusque sexus, etiam vocantur in periculum 
et vocabuntur. 

*Origen states in reply, that he knows of none who had altered the Gospels except 
the Marcionites, the Valentinians, and perhaps some followers of Lucanus. — M. 



STATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 197 

testimony may, in this instance, obtain more credit than the 
bold challenge of Tertullian, when he addresses himself to 
the fears as well as to the humanity of the pro -consul of 
Africa, by assuring him that if he persists in his cruel inten- 
tions he must decimate Carthage, and that he will find 
among the guilty many persons of his own rank, senators 
and matrons of noblest extraction, and the friends or rela- 
tions of his most intimate friends. 189 It appears, however, that 
about forty years afterward the emperor Valerian was per- 
suaded of the truth of this assertion, since in one of his re- 
scripts he evidently supposes that senators, Roman knights, 
and ladies of quality, were engaged in the Christian sect. 190 
The church still continued to increase its outward splendor 
as it lost its internal purity, and, in the reign of Diocletian, 
the palace, the courts of justice, and even the army, concealed 
a multitude of Christians, who endeavored to reconcile the 
interests of the present with those of a future life. 

And yet these exceptions are either too few 
in number, or too recent in time, entirely to Christianity 
remove the imputation of ignorance and ob- favorably 
scurity which has been so arrogantly cast on received by 

, J , r „. . . *? ± J , , the poor and 

the first proselytes of Christianity.* Instead simple. 

of employing in our defence the fictions of later 

ages, it will be more prudent to convert the occasion of 

189 Tertullian ad Scapulam. Yet even his rhetoric rises no higher than to claim 
a tenth part of Carthage. iso Cyprian. Epist. 79. 

* To this imperfect list ought to be added the names of many Pagans, whose 
conversion, in the very dawn of Christianity, lessens the force of the historian's 
imputation. Among these are the pro-consul Sergius Paulus, converted at Paphos. 
{Acts, c. 13, v. 7 and 12.) Dionysius the Areopagite, who, with many others, 
was converted by Paul, at Athens {Acts, c. 17, v. 34). Several persons in the court 
of Nero {Philipp. c. 4, v. 22). Erastus the revenue officer at Corinth, {Romans, 
c. 16, v. 23). Some Asiarchs {Acts, c. 19, v. 31)- To the philosophers may also be 
added Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Hegesippus, Melito, Miltiades, 
Pantcenus, Ammonius Saccas, and others, all distinguished by their talents. — G. 

M. Guizot's own list is far from complete. He has omitted such names as 
Polycarp, Hippolytus Africanus, and Irenaeus. He might also have inserted in 
it the two brothers, Theodorus and Athendorus, whose conversion by Origen, 
through the influence of his Platonic philosophy, is fully related by Jerome, {De 
Vir. III. c. 65), and the former of whom became Gregory Thaumaturgus, the 
zealous bishop of Neo-Caesarea. It is a very erroneous notion, that Christianity 
was the " most favorably received by the poor and simple." Facts prove that its 
earliest friends were rich and educated. The church of Antioch, while yet only a 
3'ear old, had funds to spare for the poor at Jerusalem ; and the rapid growth of 
ecclesiastical wealth, already noticed, could not have taken place if the first 
proselytes had been mostly ignorant and obscure. The Gnostics, who, though 
heretics, were Christians, are admitted to have been generally of the higher 
orders. The eminent men, to whom Gibbon points out as still a'dhering to hea- 
thenism, prove nothing in anyway, but the common force of accidental contingen- 
cies or habitual adherence to opinions adopted in early life. — Eng. Churchman. 

It is no disgrace to Christianity that it originated among the poor and op- 
pressed, and that Jesus, its most prominent advocate, was poorer, to quote his 
own words, than the birds of the air and the beasts of the field ; but this fact seems 
very repugnant to M. Guizot and the English Churchman, whose aristocratic 



I98 LEARNED PAGANS. 

scandal into a subject of edification. Our serious thoughts 
will suggest to us that the apostles themselves were chosen 
by Providence among the fishermen of Galilee, and that, 
the lower we depress the temporal condition of the first 
Christians, the more reason we shall find to admire their 
merit and success. It is incumbent on us diligently to 
remember, that the kingdom of heaven was promised to 
the poor in spirit, and that minds afflicted by calamity and 
the contempt of mankind, cheerfully listen to the divine 
promise of future happiness ; while, on the contrary, the 
fortunate are satisfied with the possession of this world; 
and the wise abuse in doubt and dispute their vain superi- 
ority of reason and knowledge. 

We stand in need of such reflections to com- 

Rejefted by fort us for the loss of some illustrious characters, 
eminenTmen which in our eyes might have seemed the most 
and Second wor thy of the heavenly present. The names of 

centuries. Seneca, of the elder and the younger Pliny, of 
Tacitus, of Plutarch, of Galen, of the slave Epic- 
tetus, and of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, adorn the age 
in which they flourished, and exalt the dignity of human 
nature. They filled with glory their respective stations, 
either in active or in contemplative life; their excellent 
understandings were improved by study ; philosophy had 
purified their minds from the prejudices of the popular 
superstition ; and their days were spent in the pursuit of 
truth and the practice of virtue. Yet all these sages (it is 
no less an object of surprise than of concern) overlooked 
or rejected the perfection of the Christian system. Their 
language or their silence equally discover their contempt 
for the growing sect, which in their time had diffused itself 
over the Roman empire. Those among them who con- 
descend to mention the Christians consider them only as 
obstinate and perverse enthusiasts, who exacted an implicit 
submission to their mysterious doctrines, without being 
able to produce a single argument that could engage the 
attention of men of sense and learning. 191 

191 Dr. Lardner, in his first and second volumes of Jewish and Christian testi- 
monies, collects and illustrates those of Pliny the younger, of Tacitus, of Galen, 
of Marcus Antoninus, and perhaps of Epictetus (for it is doubtful whether that 
philosopher means to speak of the Christians). The new sect is totally unnoticed 
by Seneca, the elder Pliny, and Plutarch. 

tastes instinctively repudiate this plebian origin. On page 131 we have quoted 
Luther and Feuerbach as authority on this subject. On page 125 a sketch is 
given of the eunuch Origen and his tutor, Ammonius Saccus, who taught that 
Christianity and paganism, when properly understood, were identical.— E. 



THE CHRISTIAN APOLOGIES. I99 

It is at least doubtful whether any of these 
philosophers perused the apologies * which the T h e i r neglect 
primitive Christians repeatedly published in be- of prophecy. 
half of themselves and of their religion ; but it 
is much to be lamented that such a cause was not defended 
by abler advocates. They expose with superfluous wit and 
eloquence the extravagance of Polytheism. They interest 
our compassion by displaying the innocence and sufferings 
ol their injured brethren. But when they would demon- 
strate the divine origin of Christianity, they insist much 
more strongly on the predictions which announced, than 
on the miracles which accompanied, the appearance of the 
Messiah.f Their favorite argument might serve to edify a 
Christian or to convert a Jew, since both the one and the 
other acknowledge the authority of those prophecies, and 
both are obliged, with devout reverence, to search for their 
sense and their accomplishment. But this mode of per- 
suasion loses much of its weight and influence, when it is 
addressed to those who neither understand nor respect the 
Mosaic dispensation and the prophetic style. 193 In the 

192 If the famous prophecy of the Seventy Weeks had been alleged to a Roman 
philosopher, would he not have replied in the words of Cicero." Quae tandem ista 
_' auguratio est, annorum potius quam aut mensium aut dierum ? " Be Divinatione, 
ii. 30. Observe with what irreverence Lucian (jn Alexandro, c. 13) and his friend 
Celsus ap. Origen (l.vii. p. 327) express themselves concerning the Hebrew prophets. 

* The emperors Hadrian, Antoninus, &c., read with wonder the Apologies for 
their taith, which Justin Martyn, Aristides, Melito, and others addressed to them. 
(See Hieron. ad Mag. and Orosius, lib. 8, c. 13, p. 488.) Eusebius says expressly, 
that the cause of Christianitv was defended in the presence of the senate by 
Apollonius the martyr, in a very elegant oration. "Cum judex multis cum pre- 
cibus obsecrasset petiisset que ab ilio, uti coram senatu rationem fidei suae red- 
dent, elegantissima oratione pro defensione fidei pronuntiata &e. (Euseb 
Latine, lib. 5, c. 21, p. 154.)— Guizot. 

Gibbon, in his severer spirit of criticism, may have questioned the authority of 
Jerome and Eusebius. There are some difficulties about Apollonius, which 
Heinichen (note in loc. Eusebii) would solve, by supposing him to have been as 
Jerome states, a senator.— Milman. 

It is not very clear, either from this Latin version, or the original Greek or the 
senatfor^ud^ 1 u V° n » de «d, whether this 'oration was held before Se 
Sn&fe T H- la " x r See ? 1S the most P^able, and would get rid of 
S e :SS ^ d i; J, fficmt ll S • U oug , ht not to excite any surprise, that the A P olo- 
i% S J h li a " le ° n the . mir aculous evidence of the writers' faith, in an age 
tlt^ h ' 6 dls P utants ascribed all such works to magic, and when the belief 7n 

aolinlt^^^ 

a! 1 S iri ff ? haV V n £ employed it, to win the affections of a wealthy widow. 
anHnhilntn^ defe "£ ers £ ^istianity insist on its realization both of prophecy 
?rri£n h &■'■ That (l whlch the emperor Hadrian received from Aristides is de- 
nSSnl t f' aS c °ntextum Philosophorum sententiis." Gibbon estimated 
thS S % k ?W ' and anc ' ent Philosophy too high, to take correct views of 

xVi ^l^ 1 ^ 1 bea nngs and concurrent action.— English Churchman 
rAw ^ m ? St candld and learned even of Christian inquirers." says the Rev. 
" ?vw ■ a . ylor ' t . have admitted, that antiquity is most deficient just exactly 
n £ here it is most important ; that there is absolutely nothing known of the church 
« 7hV?3 m u e tl7 ? es 2" ™ h,ch a rational man could place anv reliance ; and 
tna. the epocha when Christian truth first dawned upon the world is appropri- 
ately designated as the Age of Fable."— E. 



200 PIOUS FORGERIES. 

unskillful hands of Justin and the succeeding apologists, the 
sublime meaning of the Hebrew oracles evaporates in dis- 
tant types, affected conceits, and cold allegories ; and even 
their authenticity was rendered suspicious to an unenlight- 
ened Gentile, by the mixture of pious forgeries, which, under 
the names of Orpheus, Hermes, and the Sibyls, 193 were 
obtruded on him as of equal value with the genuine inspira- 
tion of Heaven. The adoption of fraud and sophistry in the 
defence of revelation too often reminds us of the injudicious 
conduct of those poets who load their invulnerable heroes 
with a useless weight of cumbersome and brittle armor. 
Ne^iea of But how shall we excuse the supine inatten- 
miracies. tion of the Pagan and philosophic world, to 
those evidences which were presented by the hand of 
Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses ? 
During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first 
disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed 
bv innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, 
the sick were healed, the dead were raised, demons were 
expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended 
for the benefit of the church. But the sages of Greece and 

Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, 

General si- an< ^' P ursum g" the ordinary occupations of life 

lence concern- and study, appeared unconscious of any altera - 

'"fiessof the" tions in the moral or physical government of 

Passion. the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the 

whole earth, 194 or at least a celebrated province 
of the Roman empire, 195 was involved in a preternatural 
darkness of three hours.* Even this miraculous event, 

193 The philosophers who derided the more ancient predictions of the Sibyls 
would easily have detected the Jewish and Christian forgeries, which have been 
so triumphantly quoted by the fathers, from Justin Martyr to Lactantius. When 
the Sibylline verses had performed their appointed task, they, like the system of 
the millennium, were quietly laid aside. The Christian Sibyl had unluckily fixed 
the ruin of Rome for the year 195, A. u. c. 948. 

is* The fathers, as they are drawn out in battle array by Dom Calmet (Disser- 
tations sur la Bible, torn. iii. pp. 295-308), seem to cover the whole earth with 
darkness, in which they are followed by most of the moderns. 

195 Oiigen ad Matth. c. 27, and a few modern critics, Beza, Le Clerc, Lardner, 
&c, are desirous of confining it to the land of Judea. 

* As the " darkness of the Passion " produced, in an age of credulity, no effect 
upon the people who are supposed to have witnessed the occurrence, it seems 
strange that, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, it should be regarded as 
miraculous by those who claim to be illumined by the light of modern science 
and to have outgrown the errors and superstitions of the obsolete past. 

The arrest and crucifixion of the carpenter's son, by the fanatical and intolerant 
people he endeavored to instruct, illustrates the fact that the benefactors of 
mankind are often the victims of religious frenzy and sectarian zeal. Tna * 
Jesus, in the last moments of his troubled life, realized the fatal mistake he had 
made in his enthusiastic but mistaken belief in his own divinity, seems almost 



INATTENTION TO CHRISTIAN MIRACLES. 201 

which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, 
and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an 
age of science and history. 196 It happened during the life- 
time of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experi- 

196 The celebrated passage of Phlegon is now wisely abandoned. When Ter- 
tuilian assures the Pagans that the mention of the prodigy is found in Arcanis 
(not Archivis) vestris (see his Apology, c. 21), he probably appeals to the Sibylline 
verses, which relate it exactly in the words of the Gospel.f 

certain, if we may judge by his dying words of bitter and hopeless sorrow ; but 
he could not have realized nor even imagined the ferocity — the horrible bar- 
barity that during the dark ages of ecclesiastical supremacy inspired the 
sectarian massacres, wars and cruelties that were perpetrated in his name. 
Himself a victim of religious persecution — a martyr for the liberty of thought — 
suffering death for opinion's sake — a friend to the lowly and despised — who, 
in his sermon on the mount, blessed the poor in spirit, those that mourn, the 
meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted, — he 
never could have believed that his followers would in turn become persecutors — 
would torture the noble and the brave — burn at the stake those who dared to 
think — imprison in dungeons the friends and benefactors of humanity — destroy 
both old and young — murder babes in their mother's arms — redden the earth 
with human blood, and do all this in his name, and for exercising the right of 
freethought for which he was crucified. 

Socrates, the Pagan, " died like a philosopher," while Jesus, the reformer, . 
expired in sorrow and in sadness. " He was oppressed and afflicted," says the 
prophet Isaiah, " yet he opened not his mouth." And yet, when hope and courage 
had fled, when death and despair confronted the victim on the cross, when the 
humane and loving Jesus realized the fallacy of his own cherished faith, and 
knew that he was but human and was not divine — that he was but a man and not 
a god, — this consciousness of his own fatal deception wrung from his dying lips 
that most sad and mournful cry — the pathetic and hopeless wail of a deceived 
and despairing soul,—" Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? My God, my God, why 
" hast thou forsaken me? " — E. 

f According to some learned theologians a misunderstanding of the text in 
the Gospel has gi%-en rise to this mistake, which has employed and wearied so 
many laborious commentators, though Origen had already taken the pains to 
preinform them. The expression cKoroq kyevero does not mean, they assert, an 
eclipse, but anv kind of obscurity occasioned in the atmosphere, whether by 
clouds or anv other cause. As this obscuration of the sun rarely took place in 
Palestine, where in the middle of April the sky was unusually clear, it assumed, 
in the eyes of the Jews and Christians, an importance conformable to the received 
notion, that the sun concealed at middav was a sinister presage. See Amos viii. 
o, 10. The word ckotoc is often taken in this sense by contemporary writers ; the 
Apocalypse says, Igkotcg67] 6 ijliog the sun was concealed, when speaking of an 
obscuration caused by smoke and dust. {Revel, ix. 2.) Moreover, the Hebrew 
word oDhal, which in the LXX. answers to the Greek okotcs, signifies any dark- 
ness: and the Evangelists, who have modeled the sense of their expressions by 
those of the LXX., must have taken it in the same latitude. This darkening 01 
the skv usuallv precedes earthquakes. {Matt, xxvii. 51.) The Heathen authors 
furnish us a number of examples, of which a miraculous explanation was gi\en 
at the time. See Ovid-, ii. v. 33, 1. xv. v. 785. Pliny, Hist. Nat. 1. a c. 30. Wetstein 
has collected all these examples in his edition of the New Testament. 

We need not, then, be astonished at the silence of the Pagan authors concerning 
a phenomenon which did not extend beyond Jerusalem, and which might have 
nothing contrarv to the laws of nature ; although the Christians and the Jews 
raav have regarded it as a sinister presage. See Michaelis, Notes on New Testa- 
merit, v. i. p. 290. Paulus, Commentary on New Testament, iii. p. 760.— Guizot. 

* As the above explanation of M. F. Guizot, was copied by both Dean Milman 
and the English Churchman, it evidently met with their approval. It agrees with 
the views of the " most learned theologians." and is fortified by reference to the 
writings of the learned Michaelis and the devout Paulus. It is the best explana- 
tion that can be given, because it explains the event on purely natural principles, 
without resorting to supernatural aid. . 

The "darkness of the Passion" was no miracle, as ignorant and superficial 
theologians sometimes assert, but merely a passing cloud ; a rising mist ; a column 



202 MIRACLES NOT RECORDED BY PAGAN WRITERS. 

enced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelli- 
gence, of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a 
laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of 
nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which 
his indefatigable curiosity could collect. 197 Both the one 
and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phe- 
nomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since 
the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny 198 is 
designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and un- 
usual duration ; but he contents himself with describing 
the singular defect of light which followed the murder of 
Caesar,* when, during the greatest part of a year, the orb 
of the sun appeared pale and without splendor. This 
season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with 
the preternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already 
celebrated by most of the poets 199 and historians of that 
memorable age. 200 

197 Seneca, Quczst. Natur. 1. i. 15, vi. 1. vii. 17. Plin. Hist. Natur. 1. ii. 

198 Plin. Hist. Natur. ii. 30. 

199 Virgil. Georgic. i. 466. Tibullus, 1. i. Eleg. v. ver. 75. Ovid. Metamorph. 
xv. 782. Lucan. Pharsal. i. 540. The last of these poets places this prodigy be- 
fore the civil war. 

2uo See a public epistle of M. Antony in Josephi. Antiquit. xiv. 12. Pluturch in 
Ccssar, p. 471. Appian. Bell. Civil. 1. iv. Dion Cassius, 1. xlv. p. 431. Julius 
Obsequens, c. 128. His little treatise is an abstract of Livy's prodigies. 



of smoke; an eruption of a distant volcano ; a swarm of bees or locusts, that ob- 
scured the direct rays of the sun. There was nothing supernatural involved — it 
was purely a natural event. Matthew xxvii : 45, when properly translated, "does 
" not mean an eclipse," — does not mean a miracle. It is merely an interesting ob- 
servation on the weather, and is no proof of the divinity of Christ, or of any thing 
else. How could the "sages of Greece and Rome" — the eminent historians, 
Seneca and Pliny— be expected to record so trivial an event ? To St. Matthew 
alone belongs the honor of chronicling the atmospheric illusions. 

The same style of reasoning would explain, on natural principles, all the 
miracles that are quoted as a proof of the divinity of Jesus. " The lame walked," 
after they had been cured. " The blind saw," after the proper remedies were 
applied. "The sick were healed," by a skillful physician. "The dead were 
" raised," or rather those who had swooned or fallen in a trance were revived 
by stimulants. " Demons were expelled,"— that is, the priests so asserted. " The 
" laws of nature were suspended for the benefit of the church," that is to say: 
the church was benefited by claiming dominion over nature's laws. — E. 

* The credulous belief that the births and deaths of celebrated persons, as well 
as the occurrence of remarkable events, were accompanied bv visible convulsions 
of nature, was admirably ridiculed by Shakespeare, who w'a# too intelligent to 
reverence this ancient superstition. In King Henry IV. he represents Owen 
Glendower as boasting that : 

" At my nativity 
" The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes 
" Of burning cressets ; know, that at my birth, 
" The frame and huge foundation of the earth 
" Shook like a coward ! " 
To which bombast the unbelieving Hotspur irreverently replies : 
" Why, so it would have done 
" At the same season, if your mother's cat 
" Had kittened, though yourself had ne'er been born."— E. 



COUNCIL OF THE GODS. 

MOUNT OLYMPUS was the favorite abode of the gods, and it was there the 
twelve celestials assembled to deliberate on mundane affairs. Their names 
were, according to Ennius. Juno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, 
Mercury, Jovi, Neptunus, Vulcanus, and Apollo. 

The Jews peopled their heaven only with " spirits masculine," entirely ex- 
cluding the feminine. The Greeks and Romans, who entertained more rational 
ideas of happiness, included, like the Christians and Mahometans, both sexes in 
their " abodes of the blest " 

The barbarous Jewish belief, which exalts man and oppresses woman, found in 
Milton an able interpreter. So great was his repugnance to the female sex that he 
censures the Jewish deity for having created woman, and objects to the plan 
adopted for replenishing the earth. In the spirit of true monkish asceticism he 
mournfully sings : 

" Oh! why did God, 

" Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven 
"With spirits masculine, create at last 
" This novelty on Earth, this fair defect 
"Of nature? — And not fill the world at once 
"With Men as Angels, without feminine? 
" Or find some other way to generate mankind." 
Homer shines resplendent in contrast with the English bard. The Pagan poet 
o'ertops the Christian misogynist. His invocation to the Muses attests his ap- 
preciation and reverence for " lovely woman, God's last, best gift to man." 
" Achilles wrath to Greece, the direful spring 
"Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly Goddess sing!" 
Again, in describing the Council of the Gods :— 

" Immortal Hebe, fresh with bloom divine, 
" The golden goblet crowns with purple wine." 
Jupiter presided with august dignity at these councils, and the gods and god- 
desses discussed with intelligence and decorum the most momentous affairs of the 
human race. It is a significant fact, showing the origin of these myths, that the 
number of these deities corresponds with the twelve signs of the zodiac ; and 
also, with the twelve lunar months, which compose the lunar cycle or year. This 
natural truth, underlying a mass of fable, is the key which unlocks many Pagan 
and Jewish mysteries. These mysteries can be explained in a rational manner 
by calling to mind the Astronomical, or rather Astrological belief of the Egyptians, 
and remembering the mystic language the priests employed in teaching to the 
neophytes and explaining to the initiated, the sacred mysteries of Eleusis. This 
mystic lore admitted of two distinct and often opposite interpretations, like the 
Delphian oracles, or the prophecy of the witches in Macbeth, 

"That palter with us in a double sense," 
and the learned and initiated understood and approved what the ignorant and 
vulgar believed and adored. 

There were twelve tribes of Israel, twelve labors of Hercules, and twelve 
members composed the Amphictyonic Council of the Delphian Oracle. There 
were twelve articles in the apostle's creed, — twelve signs in the zodiac, — twelve 
months in the year, twelve hours in the day. The twelve great apostles of 
Christianity, correspond with the twelve gods of Olympus. There were twelve 
gates in the heavenly Jerusalem, and twelve pillars in the temple of Heliopolis. 
There were twelve shields of Mars, and twelve altars were erected to Janus, (one 
for each month). The twelve foundations for the walls of the New Jerusalem were 
garnished with twelve different precious stones, and twelve angels presided in 
heaven over the twelve gates named after the twelve tribes of Israel. — E. 



L ^r$& 



(Oceanus.*) 

m.t 

THE CONDUCT OF THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT TOWARD 
THE CHRISTIANS, FROM THE REIGN OF NERO TO 
THAT OF CONSTANTINE. 

IF we seriously consider the purity of the 
Christian religion, the sanctity of its moral £££jJ!2f 
precepts, and the innocent as well as au- by the 
stere lives of the greater number of those who, emperors, 
during the first ages, embraced the faith of the 
gospel, we should naturally suppose that so benevolent a 
doctrine would have been received with due reverence even 
by the unbelieving world ; that the learned and the polite, 
however they might deride the miracles, would have 
esteemed the virtues, of the new sect ; and that the magis- 

*Oceanus, according to Hesiod, was one of the Titans, and ruler of the exterior 
waters encompassing the earth, while the interior seas were assigned to Neptune. 
The above engraving is from a statue dug up in Rome in the 16th century, and 
represents the god as an old man, reclining on the waves, with a sceptre in his 
right hand and a sea monster by his side. — E. 

t Chap. XVI. t Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

X The following note by Mackintosh is copied without comment by Dean 
Milman. It is perhaps too coarse for this learned author to have written, but 
not too coarse for him to publish ; and illustrates the Christian spirit that per- 
vades his criticisms. Bohn's edition and that of Guizot are both free from this 
blemish. The great merit of Gibbon's writings consists in the fact that he was 
strictly impartial, and wrote as a historian, not as an advocate. — E. 

The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering as a very ingenious and 
specious, but very disgraceful extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the 

(203) 



204 ALLEGED PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS. 

trates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an 
order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to 
the laws, though they declined the active cares of war and 
government. If, on the other hand, we recollect the 
universal toleration of Polytheism, as it was invariably 
maintained by the faith of the people, the incredulity of 
philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and 
emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new offence 
the Christians had committed, what new provocation could 
exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new 
motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without 
concern a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace 
under their gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on 
any part of their subjects who had chosen for themselves a 
singular but an inoffensive mode of faith and worship. 

The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have 
assumed a more stern and intolerant character to oppose 
the progress of Christianity. About fourscore years after 
the death of Christ, his innocent disciples were punished 
with death by the sentence of a proconsul of the most 
amiable and philosophic character, and according to the 
laws of an emperor distinguished by the wisdom and justice 
of his general administration. The apologies which were 
repeatedly addressed to the successors of Trajan are filled 
with the most pathetic complaints, that the Christians who 
obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty of conscience, 
were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire, 
excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious 
government. The deaths of a few eminent martyrs have 
been recorded with care ; and from the time that Chris- 
tianity was invested with the supreme power, the governors 
of the church have been no less diligently employed in dis- 

Roman magistrates against the Christians. It is written in the most contemptihly 
factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers ; it is unworthy of a philosopher 
and of a man of humanity. Let the narrative of Cyprian's death be examined. 
He had to relate the murder of an innocent man of advanced age, and in a 
station deemed venerable by a considerable body of the provincials of Africa, 
put to death because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing the 
indignation of posterity against such an atrocious act of tyranny, he dwells, with 
visible art, on the small circumstances of decorum and politeness which attended 
this murder, and which he relates with as much parade as if they were the most 
important particulars of the event. 

Dr. Robertson has been the subject of much blame for his real or supposed 
lenity towards the Spanish murderers and tyrants in America. That the sixteenth 
chapter of Mr G. did not excite the same or greater disapprobation, is a proof of 
the unphilosophical and indeed fanatical animosity against Christianity, which 
was so prevalent during the latter part of the eighteenth century. — Mackintosh : 
see Life, i. pp. 244, 245.— Milman. 



THE TRUE CAUSES FOR REPRESSION. 205 

playing the cruelty, than in imitating the conduct, of their 
Pagan adversaries. To separate (if it be possible) a few 
authentic as well as interesting facts from an undigested 
mass of fiction and error, and to relate, in a clear and 
rational manner, the causes, the extent, the duration, and 
the most important circumstances of the persecutions to 
which the first Christians were exposed, is the design of 
the present chapter.* 

The sectaries of a persecuted religion, de- . . 

pressed by fear, animated with resentment, and th"?rmotives. 
perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are seldom in a 
proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or candidly to 
appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often escape 
the impartial and discerning view even of those who are 
placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. 
A reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors 
toward the primitive Christians, which may appear the 
more specious and probable, as it is drawn from the 
acknowleged genius of Polytheism. It has already been 
observed, that the religious concord of the world was 
principally supported by the implicit assent and reverence 
which the nations of antiquity expressed for their respective 
traditions and ceremonies. It might, therefore, be expected 
that they would unite with indignation, against any sect of 
people which should separate itself from the communion 
of mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of divine 
knowledge, should disdain every form of worship except 
its own, as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration 
were held by mutual indulgence ; they were justly forfeited 



* The history of the first age of Christianity is only found in the Acts of the 
Apostles, and in order to speak of the first persecutions experienced by the Chris- 
tians, that book should naturally have been consulted ; those persecutions, then 
limited to individuals and to a narrow sphere, interested only the persecuted, 
and have been related by them alone. Gibbon, making the persecutions ascend 
no higher than Nero, has entirely omitted those which preceded this epoch, and 
of which St. Luke has preserved the memory. The only way to justify this 
omission was, to attack the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles ; for, if 
authentic, they must necessarily be consulted and quoted. Now, antiquity has 
left very few works of which the authenticity is so well established as that of the 
Acts of the Apostles. (See Lardner's Cred. of Gospel His. part ii.) It is, there- 
fore, without sufficient reason, that Gibbon has maintained silence concerning 
the narrative of St. Luke, and this omission is not without importance. — Guizot. 

Gibbon did not question the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles, for he has 
quoted facts from them. He did not consider the transactions there related to be 
any evidence of a public and general persecution, nor have the} - been so consid- 
ered by ecclesiastical historians. M. Guizot alone thinks that'proofs are to be 
found there of the repression of Christianity by imperial mandate and official 
cruelty, from which it again came forth unsubdued. This note was intended by 
him, as introductory to some which follow, and in which it will be seen that he 
maintains such an opinion. — English Churchman. 



206 REBELLIOUS SPIRIT OF THE JEWS. 

by a refusal of the accustomed tribute. As the payment of 
this tribute was inflexibly refused by the Jews, and by them 
alone, the consideration of the treatment which they experi- 
enced from the Roman magistrates will serve to explain 
how far these speculations are justified by facts, and will 
lead us to discover the true causes of the persecution of 
Christianity. 
Rebellious Without repeating what has been already 
spirit of the mentioned of the reverence of the Roman 
princes and governors for the temple of Jeru- 
salem, we shall only observe that the destruction of the 
temple and city was accompanied and followed by every 
circumstance that could exasperate the minds of the con- 
querors, and authorize religious persecution by the most 
specious arguments of political justice and the public safety. 
From the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews 
discovered a fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, 
which repeatedly broke out in the most furious massacres 
and insurrections. Humanity is shocked at the recital of 
the horrid cruelties which they committed in the cities of 
Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where they dwelt in 
treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting natives ; 1 and 
we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation which 
was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of 
fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to 
render them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman 
government, but of human kind. 2 The enthusiasm of the 

i In Cyrene they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000; in Egypt, a 
very great multitude. Many of these unhappy victims were sawn asunder, 
according to a precedent to which David * had given the sanction of his example. 
The victorious Jews devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the 
entrails like a girdle, round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, 1. lxviii. p. 1145.! 

2 Without repeating the well-known narratives of Josephus, we may learn from 
Dion (1. lxix. p. 1162), that in Hadrian's war 580,000 Jews were cut off by the sword, 
besides an infinite number which perished by famine, by disease, and by fire. 

* The conduct of David cannot always be commended as an example worthy of 
imitation. On a certain occasion, recorded in II. Samuel, vi., 14-22, his wife Michal 
espied, " though a window," her liege lord, clothed in his curious " linen ephod," 
immodestly, " in the eyes of the handmaids," "leaping and dancing before the 
'* Lord; and," her education as the daughter of a king having taught her better 
manners, instinctively " she despised him in her heart." When she rebuked this 
lewd conduct, the " anointed of the Lord," shamelessly replied : " I will yet be more 
" vile than thus, and will be base in mine own sight : and of the maidservants," 
&c. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that king David rigidly executed this threat, 
and fully demonstrated his veracity at the expense of his morality. — E. 

fSome commentators, among them Reimarus, in his notes on Dion Cassius, think 
that the hatred of the Romans against the Jews has led that historian to exag- 
gerate the cruelties committed by the latter. Dion Cass, lxviii. p. 1146.— Guizot. 

To this must be added, the proneness of the ancients to magnify calamities. 
Their means of information were too scanty and vague to be accurate. Rumor 
alone supplied them with intelligence, and we know how that grows larger at 
every step, especially when dealing with numbers.— English Churchman. 



TOLERATION OF THE JEWISH RELIGION. 207 

Jews was supported by the opinion that it was unlawful for 
them to pay taxes to an idolatrous master; and by the 
nattering promise which they derived from their ancient 
oracles, that a conquering Messiah would soon arise, des- 
tined to break their fetters, and to invest the favorites of 
heaven with the empire of the earth. It was by announcing 
himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by calling on 
all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of Israel, 
that the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable army, 
with which he resisted during two years the power of the 
emperor Hadrian. 3 

Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, To i eration 
the resentment of the Roman princes expired of the 
after the victory; nor were their apprehensions rifigjon. 
continued beyond the period of war and danger. 
By the general indulgence of polytheism, and by the mild 
temper of Antoninus Pius, the Jews were restored to their 
ancient privileges, and once more obtained the permission 
of circumcising their children, with the easy restraint that 
they should never confer on any foreign proselyte that 
distinguishing mark of the Hebrew race. 4 The numerous 
remains of that people, though they were still excluded 
from the precincts of Jerusalem, were permitted to form 
and to maintain considerable establishments both in Italy 
and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of Rome, to 
enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time an 
exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of 
society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans 
gave a legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police 
which was instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, 
who had fixed his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to 
appoint his subordinate ministers and apostles, to exercise 
a domestic jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed 
brethren an annual contribution. 5 New synagogues were 
frequently erected in the principal cities of the empire; 
and the sabbaths, the fasts, and the festivals, which were 

> For the sect of the Zealot's, see Basnage, Histovre des Juifs, 1. i. c. 17 ; for the 
character of the Messiah, according to the Rabbis, 1. v. c. 11, 12, 13; for the 
actions of Barchochebas, 1. vii. c. 12.* ^ f 

4 It is to Modestinus, a Roman lawyer (1. vi. regular.) that we are indebted for a 
distinct knowledge of the edict of Antoninus. See Casaubo?i ad Hist. August. P . 27. 

5 See Basnage. Histoire des yuifs, 1. iii. c. 2, 3. The office of Patriarch was 
suppressed by Theodosius the younger. 

*This war lasted three years and a half, from the spring of 132 to August, 135. 
See Dio and Jerome, as quoted by Clinton, F. R. i, 122.— English Churchman. 



208 THE JEWS SUCCESSFUL AS MERCHANTS. 

either commanded by the Mosaic law, or enjoined by the 
traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in the most 
solemn and public manner. 6 Such gentle treatment in- 
sensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews. Awakened 
from their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed 
the behavior of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their 
irreconcilable hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in 
acts of blood and violence, evaporated in less dangerous 
gratifications. They embraced every opportunity of over- 
reaching the idolators in trade ; and they pronounced secret 
and ambiguous imprecations against the haughty kingdom 
of Edom. 7 

Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence 

werea people the deities adored by their sovereign and by 

which their fellow-subjects, enjoyed, however, the free 

followed, the . r . J . ' J , i. '. . ' 

christians a exercise of their unsocial religion, there must 
desertecf^the have existed some other cause, which exposed 

religion of the disciples of Christ to those severities from 
which the posterity of Abraham was exempt. 
The difference between them is simple and obvious ; but, 
according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the 
highest importance. The Jews were a nation; the Chris- 
tians were a sect; and if it was natural for every community 
to respect the sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was 
incumbent on them to persevere in those of their ancestors. 
The voice of oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the 
authority of the laws, unanimously enforced this national 
obligation. By their lofty claim of superior sanctity, the 
Jews might provoke the Polytheists to consider them as 
an odious and impure race. By disdaining the intercourse 
of other nations, they might deserve their contempt. The 

6 We need only mention the Purim, or deliverance of the Jews from the rage of 
Haman, which, till the reign of Theodosius, was celebrated with insolent triumph 
and riotous intemperance. Basnage, His. des Juifs, 1. vi. c. 17, 1. viii. c. 6. 

" According to the false Josephus, Tsepho, the grandson of Esau, conducted 
into Italy the army of ^Eneas, king of Carthage. Another colony of Idumaeans, 
flying from the sword of David, took refuge in the dominions of Romulus. For 
these, or for other reasons of equal weight, the name of Edom was applied by the 
Jews to the Roman empire.* 

* The false Josephus is a romancer of very modern date, though some of these 
legends are probably more ancient. It may be worth considering whether many 
of the stories in the Talmud are not history in a figurative disguise, adopted from 
prudence. The Jews might dare to say many things of Rome, under the signifi- 
cant appellation of Edom, which they feared' to utter publicly. Later and more 
ignorant ages took literally, and perhaps embellished, what was intelligible 
among the generation to which it was addressed. (Hist, of yews, iii. 131.) 

The false Josephus has the inauguration of the emperor, with the seven electors 
and apparently the pope assisting at the coronation ! Pref. page, xxvi.— Milman. 



CHRISTIANS DISTINGUISHED FROM JEWS. 200, 

laws of Moses might be for the most part frivolous or 
absurd ; yet, since they had been received during many 
ages by a large society, his followers were justified by the 
example of mankind ; and it was universally acknowledged 
that they had a right to practice what it would have been 
criminal in them to neglect. But this principle, which pro- 
tected the Jewish synagogue, afforded not any favor or 
security to the primitive church. By embracing the faith 
of the gospel the Christians incurred the supposed guilt of 
an unnatural and unpardonable offence. They dissolved 
the sacred ties of custom and education, violated the relig- 
ious institutions of their country, and presumptuously 
despised whatever their fathers had believed as true, or 
had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we 
may use the expression) merely of a partial or local kind ; 
since the pious deserter who withdrew himself from the 
temples of Egypt or Syria would equally disdain to seek 
an asylum in those of Athens or Carthage. Every Chris- 
tian rejected with contempt the superstitions of his family, 
his city, and his province. The whole body of Christians 
unanimously refused to hold any communion with the gods 
of Rome, of the empire, and of mankind. It was in vain 
that the oppressed believer asserted the inalienable rights 
of conscience and private judgment. Though his situation 
might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach the 
understanding, either of the philosophic or of the believing 
part of the Pagan world. To their apprehensions, it was no 
less a matter of surprise that any individuals should enter- 
tain scruples against complying with the established mode 
of worship, than if they had conceived a sudden abhorrence 
to the manners, to the dress, or to the language of their 
native country. 8 

The surprise of the Pagans was soon sue- Christianity 
ceeded by resentment ; and the most pious of accused of 

1 , 1 1 1 L Atheism, and 

men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous mistaken by 
imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice p^K^IS^ 
concurred in representing the Christians as a 

s From the arguments of Celsus, as they are represented and refuted by Origen 
(I. v. pp. 247-259), we may clearly discover the distinction that was made between 
the Jewish people and the Christian sect. See, in the Dialogue of ' Minucius Felix 
(c. 5, 6), a fair and not inelegant description of the popular sentiments, with 
regard to the desertion of the established worship.* 



* In all this there is doubtless much truth ; yet does not the more important 
difference lie on the surface? The Christians made many converts, the Jews 
but few. Had the Jewish been equally a proselytizing religion, would it not have 
encountered as violent persecution ? — Milman. 



2IO THE ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS. 

society of atheists, who, by the most daring attack on the 
religious constitution of the empire, had merited the severest 
animadversion of the civil magistrate. They had separated 
themselves (they gloried in the confession) from every mode 
of superstition which was received in any part of the globe 
by the various temper of polytheism : but it was not alto- 
gether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they 
had substituted for the gods and temples of antiquity. The 
pure and sublime idea which they entertained of the 
Supreme Being escaped the gross conception of the Pagan 
multitude, who were at a loss to discover a spiritual and 
solitary God, that was neither represented under any cor- 
poreal figure or visible symbol, nor was adored with the 
accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of altars and 
sacrifices. 9 The sages of Greece and Rome, who had 
elevated their minds to the contemplation of the existence 
and attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason 
or by vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen 
disciples the privilege of this philosophical devotion. 10 
They were far from admitting the prejudices of mankind as 
the standard of truth, but they considered them as flowing 
from the original disposition of human nature ; and they 
supposed that any popular mode of faith and worship 
which presumed to disclaim the assistance of the senses, 

9 Cur nullas aras habent ? Templa nulla? nulla nota simulacra? . . . Unde 
autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus, solitarius, destitutus ? Minncius 
Felix, c. 10. The Pagan interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favor of 
the Jews, who had once a temple, altars, victims, &c. 

10 It is difficult (says Plato) to attain, and dangerous to publish, the knowledge 
of the true God. See the Theologie des Philosophes, in the Abbe d'Olivet's 
French translation of Tully de Natura Deurum, torn. i. p. 275.* 

* Nevertheless both he and others did publish their notions, orally to their 
scholars and in books for their readers. We are not to suppose, as many do 
when it suits their argument, that publication in early times was the same as it 
is now. Yet the opinions thus propagated did spread far and wide. In Plato's 
time, those of Socrates had been carried by Aristippus to the very border of the 
African desert, and the two contemporaries rivalled each other in teaching them 
at Syracuse, in the immediate proximity of Latium. Within the next hundred 
years the permanent colleges and public libraries of Alexandria made them more 

fenerally known. Gibbon's observations may apply to Rome, perhaps to Athens, 
ut not to the prevailing sentiment of the educated classes in the East. — Eng. Ch. 
In all the religions of antiquity there were two distinct interpretations to be given 
to every dogma and to every symbol ; — one explanation was for the common 
people, another for the select few, — one for the devout devotee, the other for the 
initiated and learned. In this respect Paganism was quite as deceptive as Judaism 
and Christianity. When Plato told his disciples " It is difficult to attain, and 
" dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God." his language was under- 
stood by them. The Jews understood the meaning of 2 Esdras, xv: 26, " Some 
" things shalt thou publish, and some things shalt thou show secretly to the wise." 
The disciples also understood Jesus when he said : " Unto you it is given to know 
" the mystery of the kingdom of God : but unto them that are without, all these 
" things are done in parables : That seeing they may see, and not perceive ; and 
" hearing they may hear and not understand."— Mark iv. 11, 12.— E. 



PHILOSOPHICAL PREJUDICES. 211 

would, in proportion as it receded from superstition, find 
itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of the fancy, 
and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which 
men of wit and learning condescended to cast on the Chris- 
tian revelation, served only to confirm their hasty opinion, 
and to persuade them that the principle, which they might 
have revered, of the divine unity, was defaced by the wild 
enthusiasm, and annihilated by the airy speculations, of 
the new sectaries. The author of a celebrated dialogue, 
which has been attributed to Lucian, whilst he affects to 
treat the mysterious subject of the Trinity in a style of 
ridicule and contempt,* betrays his own ignorance of the 
weakness of human reason, and of the inscrutable nature 
of the divine perfections. 11 

It might appear less surprising, that the founder of Chris- 
tianity should not only be revered by his disciples as a 
sage and a prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. 
The Polytheists were disposed to adopt every article of 
faith, which seemed to offer any resemblance, however 
distant or imperfect, to the popular mythology; and the 
legends of Bacchus, of Hercules, and of ^Esculapius, had, 
in some measure, prepared their imagination for the appear- 

11 The author of the Philopatris perpetually treats the Christians as a company 
of dreaming enthusiasts daiuovioL didepcoi di&epoSaTOVvrer depofiarovvTer, 
&c. ; and in one place manifestly alludes to the vision in which St. Paul was trans- 
ported to the third heaven. In another place, Triephon, who personates a 
Christian, after deriding the gods of Paganism, proposes a mysterious oath. 

'TiptfieSovra debv, ueyav, u/j.j3porov, ovpaviova, 
Tlbv -izarpbg, Tcvevfta in ftarpbg e/cwopevofievov, 
Ev etc rptuv, ndi e£ evbg rpia. 

'kpidfieeiv fie di5uoiceic (is the profane answer of Critias,) nal bpKor apidfirjTLKff 

ovk olda yap ri Xeyetc' ev Tpia, rpia, ev. 

* The researches of modern scientists have thrown a flood of light upon the 
origin and significance of many ancient myths and symbols ; and the physical 
meaning of the original worship of the trinity — of the trinity in unity — will per- 
haps explain this author's ridicule and contempt for this "mysterious subject." 
Dr Inman, in his Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names, has enabled the 
English scholar to become acquainted with facts well known to French and 
German scientists. This subject has also been ably treated by Taylor in The 
Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries ; by Messrs. Westropp and Wake in Ancient 
Symbol Worship; by Higgins in The Anacalypsis ; by Col. Fanin in Secret 
Museum of Naples ,- by Knight in A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus ; and 
also in many other expensive and privately printed works. 

On page 42, of Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism, Dr. Inman 
says that "When once a person knows the true origin of the doctrine of the 
" ( Trinity — one which is far too improper to have been adopted by the writers of 
" ( the New Testament— it is impossible not to recognize in the signs which are 
" symbolical of it, the thing which is signified. . . . Nor will the most fiery 
" persecution demonstrate that the religion of Christ, as it appears in our churches 

and cathedrals, especially if they are papal, is not tainted by a mass of paganism 
" of disgusting origin."— E. 



212 PAGAN VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY. 

ance of the Son of God under a human form. 12 But they 
were astonished that the Christians should abandon the 
temples of those ancient heroes, who, in the infancy of the 
world, had invented arts, instituted laws, and vanquished 
the tyrants or monsters who infested the earth, in order to 
choose for the exclusive object of their religious worship an 
obscure teacher, who, in a recent age, and among a barbarous 
people, had fallen a sacrifice either to the malice of his own 
countrymen, or to the jealousy of the Roman government. 
The Pagan multitude, reserving their gratitude for temporal 
benefits alone, rejected the inestimable present of life and 
immortality which was offered to mankind by Jesus of 
Nazareth. His mild constancy in the midst of cruel and 
voluntary sufferings, his universal benevolence, and the 
sublime simplicity and innocence of his character, were 
insufficient, in the opinion of those carnal men, to compen- 
sate for the want of fame, of empire, and of success ; and, 
whilst they refused to acknowledge his stupendous triumph 
over the powers of darkness and of the grave, they 
misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal birth, wan- 
dering life, and ignominious death, of the divine author of 
Christianity. 13 

The personal guilt which every Christian had 
contracted in thus preferring his private senti- Sdassem 1 - 
ment to the national religion, was aggravated in biies of the 
a very high degree by the number and union of considered as 
the criminals. It is well known, and has been ^onsmScvf 
already observed, that Roman policy viewed, 
with the utmost jealousy and distrust, any association 
among its subjects ; and that the privileges of private 
corporations, though formed for the most harmless or 
beneficial purpose, were bestowed with a very sparing 
hand. 14 The religious assemblies of the Christians, who 
had separated themselves from the public worship, appeared 
of a much less innocent nature : they were illegal in their 
principle, and in their consequences might become dan- 

12 According to Justin Martyr (Apolog. Major, c. 70-85), the demon who had 
gained some imperfect knowledge of the prophecies, purposely contrived this 
resemblance, which might deter, though by different means, both the people and 
the philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ. 

13 In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus treats the birth and charac- 
ter of our Saviour with the most impious contempt. The orator Libanius praises 
Porphyry and Julian for confuting the folly of a sect, which styles a dead man of 
Palestine, God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. iii. 23. 

M The emperor Trajan refused to incorporate a company of 150 firemen for the use 
of the city of Nicomedia. He disliked all associations. See Plin. Epist. x. 42, 43. 



SUPPOSED SECRET RITES. 213 

gerous ; nor were the emperors conscious that they violated 
the laws of justice, when, for the peace of society, they pro- 
hibited those secret and sometimes nocturnal meetings. 15 
The pious disobedience of the Christians made their con- 
duct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much more 
serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who 
might perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by 
a ready submission, deeming their honor concerned in the 
execution of their commands, sometimes attempted, by 
rigorous punishments, to subdue this independent spirit, 
which boldly acknowledged an authority superior to that 
of the magistrate. The extent and duration of this spiritual 
conspiracy seemed to render it every day more deserving 
of his animadversion. We have already seen that the 
active and successful zeal of the Christians had insensibly 
diffused them through every province and almost every 
city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce 
their family and country, that they might connect them- 
selves in an indissoluble band of union with a peculiar 
society, which everywhere assumed a different character 
from the rest of mankind. Their gloomy and austere aspect, 
their abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of 
life, and their frequent predictions of impending calamities, 16 
inspired the Pagans with the apprehension of some danger, 
which would arise from the new sect, the more alarming 
as it was the more obscure. " Whatever," says Pliny, " may 
I be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible obstinacy 
" appeared deserving of punishment." 17 

The precautions with which the disciples of Their 
Christ performed the offices of religion were at manners 
first dictated by fear and necessity ; but they were calurnmaled - 
continued from choice. By imitating the awful secrecy which 
reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries,* the Christians had 

is The proconsul Pliny had published a general edict against unlawful meetings. 
The prudence of the Christians suspended their Agapae ; but it was impossible for 
them to omit the exercise of public worship. 

16 As the prophecies of the antichrist, approaching conflagration, &c, provoked 
those Pagans whom they did not convert, they were mentioned with caution and 
reserve ; and the Montanists were censured for disclosing too freely the dangerous 
secret. See Mosheim, p. 413. 

M Neque enim dubitabam, quodcumque esset quod faterentur (such are the 
words of Pliny), pervicaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri. 

" * The Eleusinian mysteries; or, sacrament of the Lord's supper." says Rev. 
Robt. Taylor in the Diegesis, " was the most august of all the Pagan ceremonies 
" celebrated, more especially by the Athenians, every fifth year, in honor of Ceres, 
" the goddess of corn, who, in allegorical language, had given us her flesh to eat ; 
" as Bacchus, the god of wine, in a like sense, had given us his blood to drink; 
" though both these mysticisms are claimed by Jesus Christ, (John vi. 55.) They 



214 PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN MYSTERIES. 

flattered themselves that they should render their sacred in- 
stitutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world. 18 
But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtle 
policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was 
concluded that they only concealed what they would have 

is See Mosheira's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. loi, and Spanheim, Remarques 
sur les CcBsars de ?ulien, p. 468, &c. 

" were celebrated every fifth year at Eleusis, a town of Attica, from whence their 
" name; which name, however, both in the word and in the signification of it, is 
'' precisely the same as one of the titles of Jesus Christ. (Eu ei o epxo/nevoc — 
' 'Art thou the he that should come V— Matth. xi. 3. Eyevcric, the Advent, or 
" coming, from the common root.) From these ceremonies, in like manner, is 
" derived the very name attached to our Christian sacrament of the Lord's 
" supper— ' those holy mysteries;' and not one or two, but absolutely all and 
" every one of the observances used in our Christian solemnity. Very many 
" of our forms of expression in that solemnity are precisely the same as those 
" that appertained to the Pagan rite. Nor, notwithstanding all we hear of 
" the rapid propagation of Christianity, and the conversion of Constantine, 
" were these heathen mysteries abolished, till the reign of the elder Theodosius, 
" who had the honor of instituting the Inquisition, which was so great an 
" improvement upon them, in their stead, about the year 440. 

" Mosheim acknowledges (vol. 1, p. 204) that ' the primitive Christians gave the 
" ' name of mysteries to the institutions of the Gospel, and decorated particularly 
" 'the holy sacrament with that title; that they used the very terms employed 
" 'in the heathen mysteries, and adopted some of the rites and ceremonies of 
" ' which those renowned mysteries consisted. This imitation began in the 
" 'eastern provinces; but, after the time of Adrian, who first introduced the 
" ' mysteries among the Latins, it was followed by the Christians who dwelt in 
" ' the western parts of the empire. A great part, therefore, of the service of the 
" ' church in this century (the second) had a certain air of the heathen mysteries, 
" 'and resembled them considerably in many particulars.' 

" If it were possible to be mistaken in the significancy of the monogram of 
" Bacchus, the I H S, to whose honor, in conjunction with Ceres, these holy 
" mysteries were distinctively dedicated, the insertion of those letters in a circle 
" of rays 0/ glory, over the centre of the holy table, is an hieroglyphic that 
" depends not on the fallibility of translation, but conveys a sense that cannot be 
" misread by any eye on which the sun's light shines. I H S are Greek char- 
" acters, by ignorance taken for Roman letters; and Yes, which is the proper 
" reading of those letters, is none other than the very identical name of Bacchus, 
" that is, of the Sun, of which Bacchus was one of the most distinguished per- 
" sonifications ; And Yes, or Ies, with the Latin termination of us, added to it, is 
" Jesus. The surrounding rays of glory, as expressive of the sun's light, make 
" the identity of Christ and Bacchus as clear as the sun. 

" These rays of glory are a sort of universal letter that cannot be misread or 
" misinterpreted ; no written language, no words that man could utter, could so 
" distinctly, so expressively say that it was the Sun, and nothing but the Sun, 
" that was' so emblemized. And these rays are seen alike surrounding the heads 
" of the Indian Chreeshna, as he is exhibited in the beautiful plate engraved by 
" Barlow, and inscribed to the Archbishop of Canterbury; round the Grecian 
" Apollo ; and in all our pictures of Jesus Christ. Nay, more— the epithet The 
" Lord, as we have seen, was peculiarly and distinctively appropriate to the Sun, 
" and to all personifications of the Sun ; so that the Sun and the Lord were per- 
" fectly synonymous, and Sun's day and the Lord's day the same to every nation 
" on whom his light hath shone. 

"As it was especially to the honor of Bacchus, as the Sun, that the mysteries 
" were celebrated, so the bread and wine which the Lord (or Sun) had commanded 
" to be received, was called the Lord's supper. Throughout the whole ceremony, 
" the name of the Lord was many times repeated, and his brightness ox glory, not 
" only exhibited to the eye by the rays which surrounded his name, but was made 
" the peculiar theme or subject of their triumphant exultation. Now bring we 
" up our most sacred Christian ordinance ! That also is designated, as the cere- 
" mony in honor of Bacchus was, the Lord's supper. In that also all other 
" epithets of the deity so honored, are merged in the peculiar appropriation of 



STATEMENTS OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 215 

blushed to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded 
an opportunity for malice to invent, and for suspicious 
credulity to believe, the horrid tales which described the 
Christians as the most wicked of human kind, who practised 
in their dark recesses every abomination that a depraved 
fancy could suggest, and who solicited the favor of their 
unknown God by the sacrifice of every moral virtue. There 
were many who pretended to confess or to relate the cere- 
monies of this abhorred society. It was asserted, " that a 
' new-born infant, entirely covered over with flour, was 
' presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to the 
1 knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many 
1 a secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his 
1 error; that as soon the cruel deed was perpetrated, the 
1 sectaries drank up the blood, greedily tore asunder the 
' quivering members, and pledged themselves to eternal 
1 secrecy, by a mutual consciousness of guilt. It was as 
' confidently affirmed, that this inhuman sacrifice was 
* succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which intem- 
' perance served as a provocative to brutal lust ; till, at 
' the appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extin- 
' guished, shame was banished, nature was forgotten ; and, 
' as accident might direct, the darkness of the night was 
' polluted by the incestuous commerce of sisters and 
' brothers, of sons and of mothers." 19 

But the perusal of the ancient apologies was 
sufficient to remove even the slightest suspicion JentdeKce! 
from the mind of a candid adversary. The 
Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal 

19 See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35, ii. 14. Athenagoras, in Legation, c. 27. 
Tertullian, Apolog. c. 7, 8, 9. Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10, 30, 31. The last of these 
writers relates the accusation in the most elegant and circumstantial manner. 
The answer of Tertullian is the boldest and most vigorous. 



" the term The Lord. It would sound irreverently, even in Christian ears, to 
" call it Jesus's supper, or Jesus's table; it is always termed the Lord's." 

Plate 59 of Moor's Hindu Pantheon contains a representation of Crishna resting 
in the arms and being nursed by Devaki, in which the heads of both are sur- 
rounded with rays of light,— similar to the representations of the Virgin and 
Child in papal paintings. The account of Crishna's birth and early history, as 
given by the above author, is also similar to the New Testament account of 
Mary and Jesus. 

" The Holy Virgin Astarte," says Dr. Wilder in appendix to Ancient Symbol 
Worship, "whose return was announced by Virgil in the days of Augustus, as 
" introducing a new Golden Age, now under her old designation of Blessed 
'' Virgin and Queen of Heaven, receives homage as ' the one whose sole divinity 
"'the whole orb of the earth venerates.' The Mother and Child, the latter 
" adorned with the nimbus or aureole of the ancient sun-gods, are now the object 
H of veneration as much as were Ceres and Bacchus, or Isis and Horus in the 
" Mysteries."— E. 



2l6 IMPRUDENT ADMISSIONS. 

from the voice of rumor to the equity of the magistrates. 
They acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced of the 
crimes which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy 
of the most severe punishment. They provoke the punish- 
ment, and they challenge the proof. At the same time they 
urge, with equal truth and propriety, that the charge is not 
less devoid of probability, than it is destitute of evidence ; 
they ask whether any one can seriously believe that the pure 
and holy precepts of the gospel, which so frequently restrain 
the use of the most lawful enjoyments, should inculcate the 
practice of the most abominable crimes ; that a large society 
should resolve to dishonor itself in the eyes of its own 
members ; and that a great number of persons of either 
sex, and every age and character, insensible to the fear of 
death or infamy, should consent to violate those principles 
which nature and education had imprinted most deeply in 
their minds. 20 Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the 
force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification, 
unless it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists 
themselves, who betrayed the common cause of religion, to 
gratify their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the 
church. It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes 
boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same 
incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the 
orthodox believers, were in reality celebrated by the Mar- 
cionites, by the Carpocratians, and by several other sects 
of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might deviate 
into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by the senti- 
ments of men, and still governed by the precepts of Chris- 
tianity. 21 Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon 
the church by the schismatics who had departed from its 
communion, 22 and it was confessed on all sides that the most 
scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among great 

20 In the persecution of Lyons, some Gentile slaves were compelled, by the fear 
of tortures to accuse their' Christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to 
their brethren of Asia, treat the horrid charge with proper indignation and 
contempt. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. i. 

2L See Justin Martyr, Applog. i. 35. Irenczus adv. Hczres, i. 24. Clemens 
Alexandrin. Stromat. 1. iii. p. 43S. Euseb. iv. 8. It would be tedious and 
disgusting to relate all that the succeeding writers have imagined, all that 
Epiphanius has received, and all that Tillemont has copied. M. de Beausobre 
(Hist, du Manicheisme , 1. ix. c. 8, 9), has exposed, with great spirit, the dis- 
ingenuous arts of Augustin and Pope Leo I. 

— When Tertullian became a Montanist, he aspersed the morals of the church 
which he had so resolutely defended. " Sed majoris est Agape, quia per hanc 
" adoles centes, tui cum sororibus dormiunt, appendices scilicet guise lascivia 
" et luxuria." De Jejuniis, c. 17. The 35th canon of the council of Illiberis pro- 
vides against the scandals which too often polluted the vigils of the church, and 
disgraced the Christian name in the eyes of unbelievers. 



VIEWS OF THE PAGAN MYSTERIES. 217 

numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A 
Pagan magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abili- 
ties to discern the almost imperceptible line which divides 
the orthodox faith from heretical depravity, might easily 
have imagined that their mutual animosity had extorted the 
discovery of their common guilt. It was fortunate for the 
repose, or at least for the reputation, of the first Christians, 
that the magistrates sometimes proceeded with more temper 
and moderation than is usually consistent with religious zeal, 
and that they reported, as the impartial result of their 
judicial inquiry, that the sectaries, who had deserted the 
established worship, appeared to them sincere in their pro- 
fessions, and blameless in their manners; however they 
might incur, by their absurd and excessive superstition, the 
censure of the laws. 23 

History, which undertakes to record the trans- 
actions of the past for the instruction of future C onduc°t f ofthe 
ages, would ill deserve that honorable office if emperorsto- 
she condescended to plead the cause of tyrants, christians. 
or to justify the maxims of persecution. It must, 
however, be acknowledged that the conduct of the emperors 
who appeared the least favorable to the primitive church, is 
by no means so criminal as that of modern sovereigns, who 
have employed the arm of violence and terror against the 
religious opinions of any part of their subjects. From their 
reflections, or even from their own feelings, a Charles V. or 
a Louis XIV. might have acquired a just knowledge of the 
rights of conscience, of the obligation of faith, and of the 
innocence of error. But the princes and magistrates of 
ancient Rome were strangers to those principles which 
inspired and authorized the inflexible obstinacy of the 
Christians in the cause of truth, nor could they themselves 
discover in their own breasts any motive which would have 
prompted them to refuse a legal, and as it were a natural, 
submission to the sacred institutions of their country. The 
same reason which contributes to alleviate the guilt, must 
have tended to abate the rigor of their persecutions. As 
they were actuated, not by the furious zeal of bigots, but by 
the temperate policy of legislators, contempt must often have 
relaxed, and humanity must frequently have suspended, the 
execution of those laws which they enacted against the 

23 Tertullian {Apolog. c. 2) expatiates on the fair and honorable testimony of 
Pliny with much reason, and some declamation. 



2l8 OBSCURITY OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS. 

humble and obscure followers of Christ. From the general 
view of their character and motives we .might naturally 
conclude : I. That a considerable time elapsed before they 
considered the new sectaries as an object deserving of the 
attention of government. II. That in the conviction of 
any of their subjects who were accused of so very singular 
a crime, they proceeded witli caution and reluctance. III. 
That they were moderate in the use of punishments ; and, 
IV. That the afflicted church enjoyed many intervals of 
peace and tranquility. Notwithstanding the careless indif- 
ference which the most copious and the most minute of the 
Pagan writers have shown to the affairs of the Christians, 24 
it may still be in our power to confirm each of these prob- 
able suppositions by the evidence of authentic facts. 

I. By the w r ise dispensation of Providence, a 
They neglect- mysterious veil was cast over the infancy of the 
tUnsIsa^S church, which, till the faith of the Christians 
ofjews. wa s matured, and their numbers were multi- 

plied, served to protect them not only from the 
malice but even from the knowledge of the Pagan world. 
The slow and gradual abolition of the Mosaic ceremonies 
afforded a safe and innocent disguise to the more early 
proselytes of the gospel. As they were, by far the greater 
part, of the race of Abraham, they were distinguished by 
the peculiar mark of circumcision, offered up their devotions 

24 In the various compilation of the Augustan History (a part of which was 
composed under the reign of Constantine), there are not six lines which relate to 
the Christians; nor has the diligence of Xiphilin discovered their name in the 
large history of Dion Cassius.* 

* The greater part of the Augustan History is dedicated to Diocletian. This 
may account for the silence of its authors concerning Christianity. The notices 
that occur are almost all in the Lives composed under the reign of Constantine. 
It mav fairly be concluded, from the language which he puts into the mouth of 
Maecenas, that Dion was an enemv to all innovations in religion. (See Gibbon, 
infra, note 105.) In fact, when the silence of Pagan historians is noticed, it 
should be remembered how meagre and mutilated are all the extant histories of 
the period. — Milman. 

In the preface to the edition of Gibbon edited by Milman, the latter says he 
intentionally abstained from directing attention to some objectionable passages 
bv any special protest ; but, in this instance, the keen sarcasm of Gibbon has 
induced him to depart from this safe and politic course. "If reasons were as 
" plentv as blackberries," savs the immortal Falstaff, "I should give no man a 
" reason upon compulsion ; '"' and the worthy Dean cannot be forced to explain 
whv, in the " compilation of the Augustan History, not six lines relate to the 
" Christians." "A mvsterious veil," has indeed been " cast over the infancy of 
" the church," and the proofs of its divine origin, which should be as clear and 
unmistakable as the brightness of the noon-day sun, are entirely omitted. Milman 
says that the authors of the Augustan History spoke of Diocletian, which ' may 
" account for their silence concerning Christianitv " In other words, they spoke 
of what did occur, not of imaginary events. But their testimony in regard to 
Diocletian proves nothing whatever in regard to Christ. The silence of con- 
temporary historians does not give us the early history of Christianity. An his- 
torical event is not proven by the silence of witnesses.— E. 



PAGAN INDIFFERENCE TO SECTARIAN DISPUTES. 2IO. 

in the Temple of Jerusalem till its final destruction, and 
received both the law and the prophets as the genuine 
inspirations of the Deity. The Gentile converts, who by a 
spiritual adoption had been associated to the hope of Israel, 
were likewise confounded under the garb and appearance 
of Jews, 25 and as the Polytheists paid less regard to articles 
of faith than to the external worship, the new sect, which 
carefully concealed, or faintly announced, its future great- 
ness and ambition, was permitted to shelter itself under the 
general toleration which was granted to an ancient and 
celebrated people in the Roman empire. It was not long, 
perhaps, before the Jews themselves, animated with a fiercer 
zeal and a more jealous faith, perceived the gradual separa- 
tion of their Nazarene brethren from the doctrine of the 
synagogue ; and they would gladly have extinguished the 
dangerous heresy in the blood of its adherents. But the 
decrees of Heaven had already disarmed their malice ; and 
though they might sometimes exert the licentious privilege 
of sedition, they no longer possessed the administration of 
criminal justice ; nor did they find it easy to infuse into the 
calm breast of a Roman magistrate the rancor of their own 
zeal and prejudice. The provincial governors declared 
themselves ready to listen to any accusation that might 
affect the public safety ; but as soon as they were informed 
that it was a question not of facts but of words, a dispute 
relating only to the interpretation of the Jewish laws and 
prophecies, they deemed it unworthy of the majesty of 
Rome seriously to discuss the obscure differences which 
might arise among a barbarous and superstitious people. 
The innocence of the first Christians was protected by 
ignorance and contempt; and the tribunal of the Pagan 
magistrate often proved their most assured refuge against 
the fury of the synagogue. 26 If, indeed, we were disposed to 
adopt the traditions of a too credulous antiquity, we might 
relate the distant pereginations, the wonderful achievements, 
and the various deaths of the twelve apostles ; but a more 
accurate inquiry will induce us to doubt, whether any of 
those persons who had been witnesses to the miracles of 
Christ were permitted, beyond the limits of Palestine, to 

25 An obscure passage of Suetonius (in Claud, c. 25), may seem to offer a proof 
how strangely the Jews and Christians of Rome were confounded with each 
other. 

26 See, in the xviiith and xxvth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, the behavior 
of Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and of Festus, procurator of Judea. 



220 THE CONFLAGRATION OF ROME. 

seal with their blood * the truth of their testimony. 27 From 
the ordinary term of human life, it may very naturally be 
presumed that most of them were deceased before the dis- 
content of the Jews broke out into that furious war, which 
was terminated only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a 
long- period, from the death of Christ to that memorable 
rebellion, we cannot discover any traces of Roman intoler- 
ance, unless they are to be found in the sudden, the transient, 
but the cruel persecution, which was exercised by Nero 
against the Christians of the Capital, thirty-five years after 
the former, and only two years before the latter, of those 
great events. The character of the philosophic historian, 
to whom we are principally indebted for the knowledge of 
this singular transaction, would alone be sufficient to recom- 
mend it to our most attentive consideration^ 

In the tenth year of the reign of Nero, the 

Rome under capital of the empire was afflicted by a fire 

the Nero" of which raged beyond the memory or example 

of former ages. 28 The monuments of Grecian 

2: In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom 
was confined to St. Peter, St. Paul and St. James. It was gradually bestowed on 
the rest of the apostles, by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected for 
the theatre of their preaching and suffermgs some remote country beyond the 
limits of the Roman empire. See Mosheim, p. 81 ; and Tillemont, Memoires 
Ecclesiastiques, torn. i. part iii. 

-* Tacit. Annul, xv. 38-44. Sueton. in Neron. c. 38. Dion Cassius, lxii. p. 1014. 
Orosius, vii. 7. 

* This assertion appears to me too positive, inasmuch as Gibbon brings no proof 
to establish it. although the opposite opinion has strong proof in its favor. The 
travels of St. Paul, in Pamphylia, in Pisidia, in Macedonia, and to Rome, his 
death, the journeyings of St. Peter, &c, have been examined with great care by 
Dr. P>enson, in his work, entitled, A History of the first planting of Christianity, 
part ii. See also Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History, part i. chap. 8. — G. 

t Gibbon has not considered here how the incomes of the priests, and of all 
who depended upon, or were in any way employed by them, which had never 
before been affected, were sensibly diminished by the increasing influence of the 
new faith. Pliny, in his letter to Trajan, says, that "the temples were almost 
" deserted, and the sacred victims scarcely found any purchasers." This is the 
only offence, of which he, their magistrate and judge, could find the Christians 
guilty; and Trajan, in his answer, requires only that they should prove their 
innocence by offering sacrifice, " supplicando diis nostris." The stream of sacred 
revenue had thus been cut off; and in such a case, no religion, having the power, 
has ever yet failed to have recourse to persecution. Members of all the leading 
families in Rome had employments in the temples, and all were interested in 
maintaining the perquisites of office. Artists, tradesmen, cultivators of the soil, 
all derived pecuniary advantage from what they furnished for the celebration of 
religious rites. These could easily insinuate into the mind of such a sovereign as 
Nero, that a sect which treated with contempt his title of Pontifex Maximus, 
could have no more respect for that of Imperator, and thus make them objects of 
resentment and suspicion. Calumny is always one of the weapons of persecution, 
a plea for using sharper, when they can be wielded, and a substitute for them 
when they are taken away. Tacitus and Suetonius, who had evidently neither 
inquired nor ascertained the truth, and only wrote from public report, say no 
more against the Christians of their time, than even now quarrelling sects will 
say of each other, or apprehensive hierarchies fulminate against envious rivals. — 
English Churchman. 



NERO SUSPECTED OF INCENDIARISM. 221 

art and of Roman virtue, the trophies of the Punic and 
Gallic wars, the most holy temples, and the most splendid 
palaces were involved in one common destruction. Of 
the fourteen regions or quarters into which Rome was 
divided, four only subsisted entire, three were levelled with 
the ground, and the remaining seven, which had experi- 
enced the fury of the flames, displayed a melancholy pros- 
pect of ruin and desolation. The vigilance of government 
appears not to have neglected any of the precautions which 
might alleviate the sense of so dreadful a calamity. The 
imperial gardens were thrown open to the distressed multi- 
tude, temporary buildings were erected for their accommo- 
dation, and a plentiful supply of corn and provisions was 
distributed at a very moderate price." 9 The most generous 
policy seemed to have dictated the edicts which regulated 
the disposition of the streets and the construction of private 
houses ; and as it usually happens in an age of prosperity, 
the conflagration of Rome, in the course of a few years, 
produced a new city, more regular and more beautiful than 
the former. But all the prudence and humanity affected 
by Nero on this occasion were insufficient to preserve him 
from the popular suspicion. Every crime might be im- 
puted to the assassin of his wife and mother, nor could the 
prince who prostituted his person and dignity on the 
theatre be deemed incapable of the most extravagant folly. 
The voice of rumor accused the emperor as the incendiary 
of his own capital ; and, as the most incredible stories are 
the best adapted to the genius of an enraged people, it was 
gravely reported, and firmly believed that Nero, enjoying 
the calamity which he had occasioned, amused himself with 
singing to his lyre the destruction of ancient Troy. 30 To 
divert a suspicion, which the power of despotism was 
unable to suppress, the emperor resolved to substitute in 
his own place some fictitious criminals. "With j un5sh 

" this view," continues Tacitus, " he inflicted the ment oFthe" 
" most exquisite tortures on those men who, thliSSdia- 
" under the vulgar appellation of Christians, were ries of the 
'' already branded with deserved infamy. They 

29 The price of wheat (probably of the modius) was reduced as low as terni 
nummi; which would be equivalent to about fifteen shillings the English quarter. 

so We may observe, that the rumor is mentioned by Tacitus with a very be- 
coming distrust and hesitation, whilst it is greedily transcribed by Suetonius, and 
solemnly confirmed by Dion.* 

* According to Tacitus, Nero was at Antium when the fire began. — Eng. Ch. 



222 PUNISHMENT OF CHRISTIANS. 

11 derived their name and origin from Christ, who in the 
" reign of Tiberius had suffered death by the sentence of 
" the procurator Pontius Pilate. 31 For a while this dire 
" superstition was checked ; but it again burst forth ; * and 
" not only spread itself over Judaea, the first seat of this 
" mischievous sect, but was even introduced into Rome, 
" the common asylum which receives and protects whatever 
" is impure, whatever is atrocious. The confessions of those 
" who were seized discovered a great multitude of their 
11 accomplices, and they were all convicted, not so much 
" for the crime of setting fire to the city as for their hatred 
" of human kind. 32 They died in torments, and their tor- 
" ments were imbittered by insult and derision. Some were 
" nailed on crosses ; others sewn up in the skins of wild 
" beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs ; others again, 
" smeared over with combustible materials, were used as 

si This testimony is alone sufficient to expose the anachronism of the Jews, 
who place the birth of Christ near a century sooner. (Basnage, Histoire des 
?uifs, 1. v. c. 14, 15.) We may learn from josephus (Antiquitat. xviii. 3), that the 
procuratorship of Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of Tiberius, A. D. 
27 — 37. As to the particular time of the death of Christ, a very early tradition 
fixed it to the 25th of March, A. D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini. 
(Tertullian adv. Judczos, c. 8.) This date, which is adopted by Pagi, Cardinal 
Norris, and Le Clerc, seems at least as probable as the vulgar era, which is placed 
(I know not from what conjectures) four years later.f 

32 Odio humani generis convicti. These words may either signify the hatred of 
mankind toward the Christians, or the hatred of the Christians toward mankind. 
I have preferred the latter sense, as the most agreeable to the style of Tacitus, 
and to the popular error, of which a precept of the gospel (see Luke xiv. 26) had 
been, perhaps, the innocent occasion. My interpretation is justified by the author- 
ity of Lipsius ; of the Italian, the French, and the English translators of Tacitus; 
of Mosheim (p. 102), of Le Clerc (Historia Ecclesiast. p. 427), of Dr. Lardner 
( Testimonies, vol. i. p. 345). and of the Bishop of Gloucester (Divine Legation, vol. 
iii. p. 38). But as the word convicti does not unite very happily with the rest of 
the sentence, James Gronovius has preferred the reading of conjuncti, which is 
authorized by the valuable MS. of Florence. 



*This single phrase, Repressa in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpe- 
bat, proves that the Christians had already attracted the attention of the govern- 
ment ; and that Nero was not the first to persecute them. I am surprised that 
more stress has not been laid on the confirmation which the Acts of the Apostles 
derive from these words of Tacitus, Repressa in praesens, and rursus erumpe- 
bat. — Guizot. 

I have been unwilling to suppress this note, but surely the expression of Taci- 
tus refers to the expected extirpation of the religion by the death of its founder, 
Christ. — Milman. 

M. Guizot should have pointed out the portions of the Scripture narrative which 
he considers to be thus corroborated. Instances of judicial proceedings, not very 
harsh, against individuals, are there recorded ; and of the fury of multitudes, 
stirred up by opposing Jews ; but nowhere do we find Christianity "repressed" 
by any general course of magisterial rigor, and coming forth again from beneath 
the pressure. Opposition always appears there to be ineffectual, and progress 
constant. The " repressa " of Tacitus is much more correctly explained by Dean 
Milman, who refers it to "the expected extirpation of the religion by the death 
of its founder." — Eng. Churchman. 

fThe chronicle of Eusebius (anno 2048) is the authority for the date of A. D. 33. 
Fee the discussions of this question by Clinton (F. R. i, p. 12 — 18), who agrees 
with Tertullian ; and by Turnbull, in the Transactions 0/ the Chronological Insti- 
tute (part i., p. 15 — 21), who adopts the later or vulgar era. — Eng. Churchman. 



PERSECUTIONS BY NERO. 223 

" torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The 
" gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spec- 
" tacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race, and 
" honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled 
" with the populace in the dress and attitude of a charioteer. 
" The guilt of the Christians deserved indeed the most 
" exemplary punishment, but the public abhorrence was 
" changed into commiseration, from the opinion that those 
" unhappy wretches were sacrificed, not so much to the 
" public welfare as to the cruelty of a jealous tyrant." 33 
Those who survey with a curious eye the revolutions of 
mankind, may observe that the gardens and circus of Nero 
on the Vatican, which were polluted with the blood of the 
first Christians, have been rendered still more famous by the 
triumph and by the abuse of the persecuted religion. On 
the same spot 3i a temple, which far surpasses the ancient 
glories of the Capitol, has been since erected by the Chris- 
tian pontiffs ; who, deriving their claim of universal dominion 
from a humble fisherman of Galilee, have succeeded to the 
throne of the Csesars, given laws to the barbarian conquerors 
of Rome, and extended their spiritual jurisdiction from the 
coast of the Baltic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. 

But it would be improper to dismiss this account of 
Nero's persecutions till we have made some observations, 
that may serve to remove the difficulties with which it 
is perplexed, and to throw some light on the subsequent 
history of the church. 

1. The most sceptical criticism is obliged to 
thlpassageof respect the truth of this extraordinary fact, anpl 
T th-e to the " t * ie integrity of this celebrated passage of Tacitus, 
persecution The former is confirmed by the diligent and ac- 
tians b} C Nero. curate Suetonius, who mentions the punishment 
which Nero inflicted on the Christians, a sect of 
men who had embraced a new and criminal superstition. 35 
The latter may be proved by the consent of the most ancient 
manuscripts ; by the inimitable character of the style of 
Tacitus ; by his reputation, which guarded his text from 
the interpolations of pious fraud ; and by the purport of 
his narration, which accused the first Christians of the most 
atrocious crimes, without insinuating that they possessed 

53 Tacit. Annal. xv. 44. 

si Nardini Roma Antica, p. 487. Donatus de Roma Antiqua, 1. iii. p. 449. 

35 Sueton. in Nerone, c. 16. The epithet ofmalejica, which some sagacious com- 
mentators have translated magical, is considered by the more rational Mosheim 
as only synonymous to the exitiabilis of Tacitus. 



224 THE PERSECUTION DESCRIBED BY TACITUS. 

any miraculous or even magical powers above the rest of 
mankind. 36 2. Notwithstanding it is probable that Tacitus 
was born some years before the fire of Rome, 37 he could 
derive only from reading and conversation the knowledge 
of an event which happened during his infancy. Before he 
gave himself to the public, he calmly waited till his genius 
had attained its full maturity, and he was more than forty 
years of age when a grateful regard for the memory of the 
virtuous Agricola extorted from him the most early of those 
historical compositions which will delight and instruct the 
most distant posterity. After making a trial of his strength 
in the life of Agricola and the description of Germany, he 
conceived, and at length executed, a more arduous work ; 
the history of Rome, in thirty books, from the fall of Nero 
to the accession of Nerva. The administration of Nerva 
introduced an age of justice and prosperity, which Tacitus 
had destined for the occupation of his old age ; 38 but when 
he took a nearer view of his subject, judging, perhaps, that 
it was a more honorable or a less invidious office to record 

36 The passage concerning Jesus Christ, which was inserted into the text of 
Josephus, between the time of Origen and that of Eusebius, may furnish an 
example of no vulgar forgery. The accomplishment of the prophecies, the 
virtues, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus, are distinctly related. Josephus 
acknowledges that he was the Messiah, and hesitates whether he should call 
him a man. If any doubt can still remain concerning this celebrated passage, 
the reader may examine the pointed objections of Le Fevre (Havercamp. Joseph. 
torn. ii. pp. 267-273), the labored answers of Daubuz (pp. 187-232), and the masterly 
replv (Bibliotheqae Ancienne et Moderne, torn. vii. pp. 237-288) of an anonymous 
critic, whom I believe to have been the learned Abbe de Longuerue.* 

37 See the lives of Tacitus by Lipsius and the Abbe de la Bleterie, Dictionnaire 
de Bayle a T article Tacite, and Fabricius, Biblioth. Latin, torn. ii. p. 386, edit. 
Ernest. 

38 Principatum Divi Nervae, et imperium Trajani, uberiorem securioremque 
materiam senectuti seposui. Tacit. Hist. i. 

* The modern editor of Eusebius, Heinichen, has adopted, and ably supported, 
a notion, which had before suggested itself to the editor, that this passage is not 
altogether a forgery, but interpolated with many additional clauses. Heinichen 
has endeavored to disengage the original text from the foreign and more recent 
matter. — Milmax. 

" Words, words, words," says Hamlet. A lame apology for an outrageous 
fraud. The pious Milman thinks that it is " not altogether a forgery, but interpo- 
" lated with many additional clauses." What a characteristic argument, and what 
a fatal admission ! True religion or divine revelation should not be founded on 
forgery or upheld by interpolation. " Thou shalt not attempt," says the Lord 
Buddha, "either by word or action, to lead others to believe that which is not 
" true."— E. 

Much labor has been lost over this passage of Josephus. Supposing it to be 
genuine, it would only prove what none deny, that near the close of the first 
century, there were Christians who held certain opinions, and believed in certain 
events. Had the writer even avowed his own belief, which is by no means clear, 
it would have added nothing to the evidence of long antecedent facts. — Eng. Ch. 

This latter statement is correct. Belief is not evidence, and the avowal of 
belief adds " nothing to the evidence of long antecedent facts," neither does it 
subtract anything from the probability of long antecedent fables. But if the pas- 
sage respecting Christ in the iSth book of Josephus' Jewish Antiquities was of 
no importance, why was it interpolated ?— E. 



PROBABLE CAUSE FOR PERSECUTION. 225 

the vices of past tyrants than to celebrate the virtues of a 
reigning monarch, he chose rather to relate, under the form 
of annals, the actions of the four immediate successors of 
Augustus. To collect, to dispose, and to adorn a series 
of fourscore years in an immortal work, every sentence of 
which is pregnant with the deepest observations and the 
most lively images, was an undertaking sufficient to exer- 
cise the genius of Tacitus himself during the greatest part of 
his life. In the last years of the reign of Trajan, whilst the 
victorious monarch extended the power of Rome beyond 
its ancient limits, the historian was describing, in the second 
and fourth books of his annals, the tyranny of Tiberius ; 39 
and the emperor Hadrian must have succeeded to the 
throne before Tacitus, in the regular prosecution of his 
work, could relate the fire of the capital, and the cruelty 
of Nero towards the unfortunate Christians. At the dis- 
tance of sixty years it was the duty of the annalist to adopt 
the narratives of contemporaries ; but it was natural for the 
philosopher to indulge himself in the description of the 
origin, the progress, and the character of the new sect, 
not so much according to the knowledge or prejudices of 
the age of Nero, as according to those of the time of Hadrian. 
3. Tacitus very frequently trusts to the curiosity or reflec- 
tion of his readers to supply those intermediate circum- 
stances and ideas, which, in his extreme conciseness, he 
has thought proper to suppress. We may therefore pre- 
sume to imagine some probable cause which could direct 
the cruelty of Nero against the Christians of Rome, whose 
obscurity, as well as innocence, should have shielded them 
from his indignation, and even from his notice. The Jews, 
who were numerous in the capital, and oppressed in their 
own country, were a much fitter object for the suspicions 
of the emperor and of the people ; nor did it seem unlikely 
that a vanquished nation, who already discovered their 
abhorrence of the Roman yoke, might have recourse to 
the most atrocious means of gratifying their implacable 
revenge. But the Jews possessed very powerful advocates 
in the palace, and even in the heart of the tyrant ; his wife 
and mistress, the beautiful Poppsea, and a favorite player 

39 See Tacit. Annal. ii. 61, iv. 4. * 

* The perusal of this passage of Tacitus alone is sufficient, as I have already 
said, to show that the Christian sect was not so obscure as not already to have 
been repressed (repressa), and that it did not pass for innocent in the eyes of the 
Romans.— Guizot. 



22b THE GALLIL^EANS. 

of the race of Abraham, who had already employed their 
intercession in behalf of the obnoxious people. 40 In their 
room it was necessary to offer some other victims, and it 
might easily be suggested that, although the genuine fol- 
lowers of Moses were innocent of the fire of Rome, there 
had arisen among them a new and pernicious sect of 
Galileans, which was capable of the most horrid crimes. 
Under the appellation of Galileans, two distinctions of 
men were confounded, the most opposite to each other in 
their manners and principles ; the disciples who had em- 
braced the faith of Jesus of Nazareth, 41 and the zealots who 
had followed the standard of Judas the Gaulonite. 42 The 
former were the friends, the latter were the enemies, of 
human kind ; and the only resemblance between them con- 
sisted in the same inflexible constancy, which, in the defence 
of their cause, rendered them insensible of death and tor- 
tures. The followers of Judas, who impelled their country- 
men into rebellion, were soon buried under the ruins of 
Jerusalem ; whilst those of Jesus, known by the more cele- 
brated name of Christians, diffused themselves over the 
Roman empire. How natural was it for Tacitus, in the 
time of Hadrian, to appropriate to the Christians the guilt 
and the sufferings which he might, with far greater truth 
and justice, have attributed to a sect whose odious memory 
was almost extinguished ! f 4. Whatever opinion may be 
entertained of this conjecture (for it is no more than a con- 

40 The player's name was Aliturus. Through the same channel, Josephus (de 
vita sua, c. 2), about two years before, had obtained the pardon and release of 
some Jewish priests, who were prisoners at Rome. 

41 The learned Dr. Lardner {Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. pp. 102, 
103), has proved that the name of Galilseans was a very ancient, and perhaps the 
primitive appellation of the Christians.* 

42 Joseph. Antiquitat. xviii. 1, 2. Tillemont, Ruine des Jtiifs, p. 742. The sons 
of Judas 'were crucified in the time of Claudius. His grandson Eleazar, after 
Jerusalem was taken, defended a strong fortress with 960 of his most desperate 
followers. When the battering-ram had made a breach, they turned their swords 
against their wives, their children, and at length against their own breasts. They 
died to the last man. 



* The learned Dr. Inman (Ancient Faiths and Modern, page 311) says, " There 
" is scarcelv a single article in our current belief, which does not prove, on 
" examination, to have descended to us from Pagan sources, or to be identical 
" with heathen beliefs older than the Hebrew."— E. 

f This conjecture is entirely devoid, not merely of verisimilitude, but even of 
possibility Tacitus could not be deceived in appropriating to the Christians of 
Rome the guilt and the sufferings which he might have attributed with far greater 
truth to the followers of Judas the Gaulonite ; for the latter never went to Rome. 
Their revolt, their attempts, their opinions, their wars, their punishment, had no 
other theatre but Judaea. (Basn. Hist, des Juifs, t. i. p. 491.) Moreover, the 
name of Christians had long been given in Rome to the disciples of Jesus ; and 
Tacitus affirms too positively, refers too distinctly to its etymology, to allow us to 
suspect any mistake on his part. — Guizoiv 

M. Guizot's expressions are not in the least too strong against this strange 



THE PERSECUTION CONFINED TO ROME. 227 

jecture), it is evident that the effect, as well as the cause, 
of Nero's persecution, were confined to the walls of Rome/ 3 * 
that the religious tenets of the Galileans, or Christians, were 
never made a subject of punishment, or even of inquiry ; 
and that, as the idea of their sufferings was for a long time 
connected with the idea of cruelty and injustice, the moder- 
ation of succeeding princes inclined them to spare a sect 
oppressed by a tyrant whose rage had been usually directed 
against virtue and innocence. 

It is somewhat remarkable, that the flames of 
war consumed, almost at the same time, the thejewsand 
temple of Jerusalem and the Capitol of Rome; 44 c ^ s m \^ s n by 
and it appears no less singular, that the tribute 

43 See Dodwell. Paucitat. Mart. 1. xiii. The Spanish Inscription in Gruter, p. 
238, No. 9, is a manifest and acknowledged forgery, contrived by that noted 
impostor, Cyriacus of Ancona, to flatter the pride and prejudices of the Spaniards. 
See Ferreras, Histoire d' ' Espagne, torn. i. p. 192. 

44 The Capitol was burnt during the civil war between Vitellius and Vespasian, 
the 19th of December, A. D. 69. On the 10th of August, A. D. 70, the temple of 
Jerusalem was destroyed by the hands of the Jews themselves, rather than by 
those of the Romans. 



imagination of Gibbon ; it may be doubted whether the followers of Judas were 
known as a sect under the name of Galilseans.— Milman. 

It should be remembered that Gibbon owns this to be "no more than a con- 
" jecture." It was without doubt too hastily adopted, and on very weak grounds. 
The Christians were never known by any other name out of Judea, or its imme- 
diate neighborhood. When M. Guizot says it had long been given to them at 
Rome, he forgets that it had been itself invented only about twenty years, and 
was not brought to the imperial city till some time after its first introduction at 
Antioch. It was therefore still new at the period here treated of. Gibbon was 
evidently misled less by Dr. Lardner than by the passage, in which Epictetus, 
v/ho lived in Rome during Nero's reign, applies the term Galilaeans to some race, 
that from madness or habit, had become indifferent to life and its concerns. This 
would apply to the Jews ; but up to that period there had been no opportunity for 
Christians to exhibit any such general trait of character. — Eng. Ch. 

* The assertion, that " these persecutions were confined to the walls of Rome," 
is unsupported by any evidence. Sulpicius Severus speaks of edicts against 
Christianity, issued by Nero after the fire of Rome. " Post etiam datis legibus 
"religio vetabatur, palamque edictis propositis Christianum esse non licebat " 
(lib. 2, c. 37). We have no authority which weakens that of Orosius, who says 
expressly, that the Christians of the provinces were persecuted by Nero. " Nero 
" Christianos suppliciis ac mortibus affectit, ac per omnes provincias pari perse- 
" cutione excruciari imperavit " (lib. 8, c. 5). — Guizot. 

M. Guizot, on the authority of Sulpicius Severus, ii. 37, and of Orosius, viii. 5, 
inclines to the opinion of those who extend the persecution to the provinces. 
Mosheim rather leans to that side on this much disputed question (c. xxxv). 
Neander takes the view of Gibbon, which is in general that of the most learned 
writers. There is indeed no evidence, which I can discover, of its reaching the 
provinces ; and the apparent security, at least as regards his life, with which 
St. Paul pursued his travels during this period, affords at least a strong inference 
against a rigid and general inquisition against the Christians in other parts of the 
empire.— Milman. 

If there had been such persecutions in the provinces, they must have extended 
to those where the Apostles were then preaching, and where their "Acts " were 
written. The silence of that record is strong evidence ; while on the other hand, 
the ready granting of Paul's appeal to Rome, proves that the provincial governors 
had received no such powers to act as is implied by the "excruciari imperavit" 
of Orosius, who did not write till nearly four hundred years after the time of 
Nero.— Eng. Ch. 



228 CAPITATION TAX ON THE JEWS. 

which devotion had destined to the former, should have 
been converted by the power of an assaulting victor 
to restore and adorn the splendor of the latter. 45 The 
emperors levied a general capitation tax on the Jewish 
people ; and although the sum assessed on the head of 
each individual was inconsiderable, the use for which it 
was designed, and the severity with which it was exacted, 
were considered as an intolerable grievance. 46 Since the 
officers of the revenue extended their unjust claim to many 
persons who were strangers to the blood or religion of the 
Jews, it was impossible that the Christians, who had so often 
sheltered themselves under the shade of the synagogue, 
should now escape this rapacious persecution. Anxious as 
they were to avoid the slightest infection of idolatry, their 
conscience forbade them to contribute to the honor of that 
demon who had assumed the character of the Capitoline 
Jupiter. As a very numerous though declining party 
among the Christians still adhered to the law of Moses, 
their efforts to dissemble their Jewish origin were detected 
by the decisive test of circumcision ; 47 nor were the Roman 
magistrates at leisure to inquire into the difference of their 
religious tenets. Among the Christians who were brought 
before the tribunal of the emperor, or as it seems more 
probable, before that of the procurator of Judaea, two per- 
sons are said to have appeared, distinguished by their 
extraction, which was more truly noble than that of the 
greatest monarchs. These were the grandsons of St. Jude 
the apostle, who himself was the brother of Jesus Christ. 48 
Their natural pretensions to the throne of David might 

45 The new Capitol was dedicated by Domitian. Sueton. in Domitian, c. 5. 
Plutarch in Pop/icoia, torn. i. p. 230, edit. Bryant. The gilding alone cost 12,000 
talents (above two millions and a half). It was the opinion of Martial (1. ix. 
Epigram 3), that if the emperor had called in his debts, Jupiter himself, even 
though he had made a general auction of Olympus, would have been unable to 
pay two shillings in the pound. 

46 With regard to the tribute, see Dion Cassius, 1. lxvi. p. 1082, with Reimarus's 
notes. Spanheim, de Usu Numismatum, torn. ii. p. 571 ; and Basnage, Histoire 
des Juifs, 1. vii. c. 2. 

4i Suetonius (in Domitian, c. 12,) had seen an old man of ninety publicly exam- 
ined before the procurator's tribunal. This is what Martial calls Mentula tributis 
damnata. 

48 This appellation was at first understood in the most obvious sense, and it 
was supposed that the brothers of Jesus were the lawful issue of Joseph and 
Mary. A devout respect for the viginity of the mother of God suggested to the 
Gnostics, and afterwards to the orthodox Greeks, the expedient of bestowing a 
second wife on Joseph. The Latins (from the time of Jerome") improved on that 
hint, asserted the perpetual celibacy of Joseph, and justified by many similar 
examples the new interpretation, that Jude, as well as Simon and James, who 
were slvled the brothers of Jesus Christ, were only his first cousins. See Tille- 
mont, Mem. Ecclesiast. torn. i. part iii. ; and Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Mani- 
cheisme, 1. ii. c. 2. 



THE GRANDSONS OF ST. JUDE. 229 

perhaps attract the respect of the people, and excite the 
jealousy of the governor ; but the meanness of their garb, 
and the simplicity of their answers, soon convinced him 
that they were neither desirous nor capable of disturbing 
the peace of the Roman empire. They frankly confessed 
their royal origin, and their near relation to the Messiah ; 
but they disclaimed any temporal views, and professed that 
his kingdom, which they devoutly expected, was purely of 
a spiritual and angelic nature. When they were examined 
concerning their fortune and occupation, they showed their 
hands, hardened with daily labor, and declared that they 
derived their whole subsistence from the cultivation of a 
farm near the village of Cocaba, of the extent of about 
twenty-four English acres, 49 and of the value of nine thou- 
sand drachms, or three hundred pounds sterling. The 
grandsons of St. Jude were dismissed with compassion and 
contempt. 50 

But although the obscurity of the house of 
David might protect them from the suspicions Execution of 

r ^ ° J , r , f Clemens the 

01 a tyrant, the present greatness of his own consul, 
family alarmed the pusillanimous temper of 
Domitian, which could only be appeased by the blood of 
those Romans whom he either feared, or hated, or esteemed. 
Of the two sons of his uncle Favius Sabinus, 51 the elder was 
soon convicted of treasonable intentions, and the younger, 
who bore the name of Flavius Clemens, was indebted for 
his safety to his want of courage and ability. 52 The emperor, 
for a long time, distinguished so harmless a kinsman by 
his favor and protection, bestowed on him his own niece 
'Domitilla, adopted the children of that marriage to the 
hope of the succession, and invested their father with the 
honors of the consulship. But he had scarcely finished 
the term of his annual magistracy, when, on a slight pre- 
tence, he was condemned and executed ; Domitilla was 
banished to a desolate island on the coast of Campania; 53 

49 Thirty-nine TrTie^pa, squares of a hundred feet each, which, if strictly com- 
puted, would scarcely amount to nine acres. But the probability of circum- 
stances, the practice of other Greek writers, and the authority of M. de Valois, 
inclines me to believe that the Trlsd-pa is used to express the Roman jugerum. 

so Eusebius, iii. 20. The story is taken from Hegesippus. 

5i See the death and characte'r of Sabinus in Tacitus. {Hist. iii. 74, 75.) Sabinus 
was the elder brother, and, till the accession of Vespasian, had been considered 
as the principal support of the Flavian family. 

52 Flavium Clementum patruelem suum contemtissimcs inertia. . . ex 
tenuissima suspicione interemit. Sueton. in Domitian, c. 15. 

53 The Isle of Pandataria, according to Dion. Bruttius Praesens (apud Euseb* 



230 



domitian's cruelty. 



and sentences either of death or of confiscation were pro- 
nounced against a great number of persons who were 
involved in the same accusation. The guilt imputed to 
their charge was that of Atheism and Jewish maimers ; 64 
a singular association of ideas, which cannot with any pro- 
priety be applied except to the Christians, as they were 
obscurely and imperfectly viewed by the magistrates and 
by the writers of that period. On the strength of so 
probable an interpretation, and too eagerly admitting the 
suspicions of a tyrant as an evidence of their honorable 
crime, the church has placed both Clemens and Domitilla 
among its first martyrs, and has branded the cruelty of 
Domitian with the name of the second persecution. But 
this persecution (if it deserves that epithet) was of no long 
duration. A few months after the death of Clemens and 
the banishment of Domitalla, Stephen, a freedman belonging 
to the latter, who had enjoyed the favor, but who had not 
surely embraced the faith of his mistress,* assassinated the 
emperor in his palace. 65 The memory of Domitian was 
condemned by the senate; his acts were rescinded; his 
exiles recalled; and, under the gentle administration of 
Nerva, while the most innocent were restored to their rank 
and fortunes, even the most guilty either obtained pardon 
or escaped punishment. 66 

II. About ten years afterward, under the 
Ign pifnv eof rei S n °f Trajan, the younger Pliny was in- 
concerning trusted by his friend and master with the gov- 
Chrfsdans. ernment of Bithynia and Pontus. He soon 
found himself at a loss to determine by what 
rule of justice or of law he should direct his conduct in the 
execution of an office the most repugnant to his humanity. 
Pliny had never assisted at any judicial proceedings against 
the Christians, with whose name alone he seems to be 

iii. 18) banishes her to that of Pontia, which was not far distant from the other. 
That difference, and a mistake, either of Eusebius or of his transcribers, have 
given occasion to suppose two Domitillas, the wife and the niece of Clemens. 
See Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiqties, torn. ii. p. 224. 

s* Dion. J. lxvii. p. 1112. If the Bruttius Praesens, from whom it is probable that 
he collected this account, was the correspondent of Pliny {Epistol. vii. 3), we may 
consider him as a contemporary writer. 

65 Sueton. in Domit. c. 17. Philostratus in Vit. Appollon. 1. viii. 

66 Dion. 1. lxviii. p. 1118. Plin. Epistol. iv. 22. 

* This is an uncandid sarcasm. There is nothing to connect Stephen with the 
religion of Domitilla.t He was a knave detected in the malversation of money — 
interceptarum pecuniarum reus.— Milman. 

t This statement of Milman, like many of his criticisms, cannot be considered 
remarkably profound. Gibbon says that Stephen " had not surely embraced the 
*' faith of his mistress." Milman says, "There is nothing to connect Stephen 
" with the religion of Domitilla." In what do these assertions differ?— E. 



THE YOUNGER PLINY. 231 

acquainted ; and he was totally uninformed with regard to 
the nature of their guilt, the method of their conviction, and 
the degree of their punishment. In this perplexity, he had 
recourse to his usual expedient, of submitting to the wisdom 
of Trajan an impartial, and, in some respects, a favorable 
account of the new superstition, requesting the emperor 
that he would condescend to resolve his doubts, and to 
instruct his ignorance. 57 The life of Pliny had been em- 
ployed in the acquisition of learning, and in the business 
of the world. Since the age of nineteen he had pleaded 
with distinction in the tribunals of Rome, 58 filled a place in 
the senate, had been invested with the honors of the con- 
sulship, and had formed very numerous connections with 
every order of men, both in Italy and in the provinces. 
From his ignorance, therefore, we may derive some useful 
information. We may assure ourselves, that when he 
accepted the government of Bithynia there were no general 
laws or decrees of the senate in force against the Christians ; 
that neither Trajan nor any of his virtuous predecessors, 
whose edicts were received into the civil and criminal juris- 
prudence, had publicly declared their intentions concerning 
the new sect; and that, whatever proceedings had been 
carried on against the Christians, there were none of suffi- 
cient weight and authority to establish a precedent for the 
conduct of a Roman magistrate." 

The answer of Trajan, to which the Christians Tra j an an d 
of the succeeding a^es have frequently appealed, his successors 

j- i_ j r • *_• j 1 establish a 

discovers as much regard tor justice and human- i eg ai mode of 
ity as could be reconciled with his mistaken a ^°ns\ e them 
notions of religious policy. 59 Instead of display - 

57 PHn. Epistol. x. 97. The learned Mosheim expresses himself (pp. 147, 232) 
with the highest approbation of Pliny's moderate and candid temper. Notwith- 
standing Dr. Lardner's suspicions (see Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. ii. 
p. 46), I am unable to discover any bigotry in his language or proceedings.! 

58 Plin. Epist. v. 8. He pleaded his first cause A. D. 81 ; the year after the 
famous eruptions of Vesuvius, in which his uncle lost his life. 

59 Plin. Epist. x. 98. Tertullian [Apolog. c. 5) considers this rescript as a relax- 
ation of the ancient penal laws, " quas Trajanus ex parte frustratus est ; " and yet 
Tertullian, in another part of his Apology, exposes the inconsistency of prohibiting 
inquiries, and enjoining punishments. 

* This reasoning of Gibbon appears conclusive. Persecution for religious 
belief was contrary to the spirit of Paganism. It was reserved for Catholicism 
to establish the Holy Inquisition, to instigate the massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
to burn unbelievers and heretics at the stake, and to redden the earth with the 
blood of the best and the noblest of the human race.— E. 

t Yet the humane Pliny put two female attendants, probably deaconesses, to 
the torture, in order to ascertain the real nature of these suspicious meetings; 
necessarium credidi, ex duabus ancillis, quse ministrae dicebantur, quid esset veri 
etper tormenta quserere.— Milman. 



232 TRAJAN'S RULES. 

ing the implacable zeal of an Inquisitor, anxious to discover 
the most minute particles of heresy, and exulting in the 
number of his victims, the emperor expresses much more 
solicitude to protect the security of the innocent, than to 
prevent the escape of the guilty. He acknowledges the 
difficulty of fixing any general plan ; but he lays down two 
salutary rules, which often afforded relief and support to 
the distressed Christians. Though he directs the magis- 
trates to punish such persons as are legally convicted, he 
prohibits them, with a very humane inconsistency, from 
making any inquiries concerning the supposed criminals. 
Nor was the magistrate allowed to proceed on every kind 
of information. Anonymous charges the emperor rejects, 
as too repugnant to the equity of his government ; and he 
strictly requires, for the conviction of those to whom the 
guilt of Christianity is imputed, the positive evidence of a 
fair and open accuser. It is likewise probable that the 
persons who assumed so invidious an office were obliged 
to declare the grounds of their suspicions, to specify (both 
in respect to time and place) the secret assemblies which 
their Christian adversary had frequented, and to disclose a 
great number of circumstances which were concealed with 
the most vigilant jealousy from the eye of the profane. If 
they succeeded in their prosecution, they were exposed to 
the resentment of a considerable and active party, to the 
censure of the more liberal portion of mankind, and to the 
ignominy which, in every age and country, has attended 
the character of an informer. If, on the contrary, they 
failed in their proofs, they incurred the severe and perhaps 
capital penalty, which, according to a law published by the 
emperor Hadrian, was inflicted on those who falsely at- 
tributed to their fellow-citizens the crime of Christianity. 
The violence of personal or superstitious animosity might 
sometimes prevail over the most natural apprehensions of 
disgrace and danger; but it cannot surely be imagined that 
accusations of so unpromising an appearance were either 
lightly or frequently undertaken by the Pagan subjects of 
the Roman empire. 60 * 

60 Eusebius (Hist. Ecclesiast. 1. iv. c. 9! has preserved the edict of Hadrian. 
He has likewise (c. 13) given us one still more favorable, under the name of 
Antoninus; the authenticity of which is not so universally allowed. The second 
Apology of Justin contains some curious particulars relative to the accusations of 
Christians. 

* The enactment of this law affords strong presumption, that accusations of the 
"crime of Christianity," were by no means so uncommon, nor received with so 



POPULAR OPINIONS. 233 

The expedient which was employed to elude 
the prudence of the laws, affords a sufficient J°£ 
proof how effectually they disappointed the 
mischievous designs of private malice or superstitious zeal. 
In a large and tumultuous assembly, the restraints of fear 
and shame, so forcible on the minds of individuals, are 
deprived of the greatest part of their influence. The pious 
Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or to escape, the 
glory of martyrdom, expected, either with impatience or 
with terror, the stated returns of the public games and 
festivals. On those occasions, the inhabitants of the great 
cities of the empire were collected in the circus or in the 
theatre, where every circumstance of the place, as well as 
of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion, and 
to extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spec- 
tators, crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, puri- 
fied with the blood of victims, and surrounded with the 
altars and statues of their tutelar deities, resigned them- 
selves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which they considered 
as an essential part of their religious worship, they recol- 
lected that the Christians alone abhorred the gods of man- 
kind, and, by their absence and melancholy on these solemn 
festivals, seemed to insult or to lament the public felicity. 
If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by 
a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war ; if the Tiber had, 
or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks ; if the earth 
had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had 
been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced 
that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were 
spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at 
length provoked the divine justice. It was not among a 
licentious and exasperated populace, that the forms of legal 
proceedings could be observed ; it was not in an amphi- 
theatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, 
that the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient 
clamors of the multitude denounced the Christians as the 
enemies of gods and men, doomed them to the severest tor- 
tures, and, venturing to accuse by name some of the most 

much. mistrust and caution by the ruling authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate. 
— Milman. 

Professor Hagelmayer has proved the authenticity of the edict of Antoninus, 
in his Comm. Hist.-Theol. in Edict. I?np. Antonini. Tubing, in 4to. — Guizot. 

Neander doubts its authenticity (vol. i. p. 152). In my opinion, the internal 
evidence is decisive against it. — Milman. 



234 PAGAN LENITY. 

distinguished of the new sectaries, required with irresistible 
vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended and 
cast to the lions. 61 The provincial governors and magis- 
trates who presided in the public spectacles were usually 
inclined to gratify the inclinations, and to appease the rage, 
of the people, by the sacrifice of a few obnoxious victims. 
But the wisdom of the emperors protected the church from 
the danger of these tumultuous clamors and irregular ac- 
cusations, which they justly censured as repugnant both to 
the firmness and to the equity of their administration. The 
edicts of Hadrian and of Antoninus Pius expressly declared, 
that the voice of the multitude should never be admitted as 
legal evidence to convict or to punish those unfortunate per- 
sons who had embraced the enthusiasm of the Christians. 62 
III. Punishment was not the inevitable conse- 
Triais of quence of conviction, and the Christians whose 
Christians, guilt was the most clearly proved by the testi- 
mony of witnesses, or even by their voluntary 
confession, still retained in their own power the alternative 
of life or death. It was not so much the past offence, as 
the actual resistance, which excited the indignation of the 
magistrate. He was persuaded that he offered them an 
easy pardon, since, if they consented to cast a few grains 
of incense upon the altar, they were dismissed from the 
tribunal in safety and with applause. It was esteemed the 
duty of a humane judge to endeavor to reclaim, rather than 
to punish, those deluded enthusiasts. Varying his tone 
according to the age, the sex, or the situation of the pris- 
oners, he frequently condescended to set before their eyes 
every circumstance which could render life more pleasing, 

ct See Tertullian {Apolog. c. 40). The acts of the martyrdom of Polycarp 
exhibit a lively picture of these tumults, which were usually fomented by the 
malice of the jews.* 

62 These regulations are inserted in the above-mentioned edicts of Hadrian and 
Pius. See the Apology of Melito. (apud. Euseb. 1. iv. c. 26). 

*Jews would not have attended festivities in which so much idolatrv was mixed 
up. It is far more likely, that these tumults were excited by the parties referred 
to in a former note, whose profits or earnings were diminished by the decline of 
the ancient religion. When the effects of this great social change were beginning 
to be experienced, and long-protected interests, whose ramifications extended 
into every part of the empire, foresaw their ruin, we cannot be surprised that 
intelligent and well-meaning princes, like Trajan, the Antonines and Decius, 
should have yielded to the importunities of priests and people, demanding strin- 
gent and vindictive measures against the authors of the injury. We naturally 
feel compassion for the suffering martyr, and indignation against his oppressor. 
But we must not forget, that there was suffering also on the other side. Vet 
Gibbon was too lenient to the ruling powers, too forbearing toward the atrocities 
which they permitted, in an age when no ignorance of the rights of conscience 
can be allowed to palliate such outrages on the feelings of humanity.— Eng. Ch. 



FABULOUS LEGENDS. 235 

or death more terrible ; and to solicit, nay, to entreat them, 
that they would show some compassion to themselves, to 
their families, and to their friends. 63 If threats and persua- 
sions proved ineffectual, he had often recourse to violence ; 
the scourge and the rack were called in to supply the defi- 
ciency of argument, and every art of cruelty was employed 
to subdue such inflexible, and, as it appeared to the Pagans, 
such criminal obstinacy. The ancient apologists of Chris- 
tianity have censured, with equal truth and severity, the 
irregular conduct of their persecutors, who, contrary to 
every principle of judicial proceeding, admitted the use of 
torture, in order to obtain, not a confession, but a denial, of 
the crime which was the object of their inquiry. 64 The 
monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful solitudes, 
entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and suf- 
ferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented 
torments of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In 
particular, it has pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of 
the Roman magistrates, disdaining every consideration of 
moral virtue or public decency, endeavored to seduce those 
whom they were unable to vanquish, and that by their 
orders the most brutal violence was offered to those whom 
they found it impossible to seduce. It is related, that pious 
females, who were prepared to despise death, were some- 
times condemned to a more severe trial,! and called upon 
to determine whether they set a higher value on their reli- 
gion or on their chastity. The youths to whose licentious 
embraces they were abandoned received a solemn exhorta- 
tion from the judge to exert their most strenuous efforts to 

63 See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of Pliny. The most authentic 
Acts of the Martyrs abound in these exhortations.* 

64 In particular, see Tertullian {Apolog. c. 2, 3), and Lactantius (Institut. Divin. 
v. 9). Their reasonings are almost the same ; but we may discover, that one of 
those apologists had been a lawyer, and the other a rhetorician. 

65 See two instances of this kind of torture in the Acta Sincera Martyrum, pub- 
lished by Ruinart, pp. 160, 399. Jerome, in his Legend of Paul the Hermit, tells a 
strange story of a young man, who was chained naked on a bed of flowers, and 
assaulted by a beautiful and wanton courtesan. He quelled the rising temptation 
by biting off his tongue. 

* Pliny's test was the worship of the gods, offerings to the statue of the emperor, 
and blaspheming Christ — praeterea maledicerent Christo. — Milman. 

f The more ancient as well as authentic memorials of the church, relate many 
examples of the fact (of these severe trials) which there is nothing to contradict. 
Tertullian, among others, says, Nam pr'oxime ad lenonem damnando Christianam ; 
potius quam ad leonem, con'fessi estis labem pudicitiae apud nos atrociorem omni 
poena et omni morte reputari, Apol. capult. Eusebius likewise says, "Other 
" virgins, dragged to brothels, have lost their life rather than defile their virtue." 
Euseb. Hist. Ecc. viii. 14. — Guizot. 

The miraculous interpositions were the offspring of the coarse imaginations of 
the monks.— Milman. 



236 HUMANITY OF ROMAN MAGISTRATES. 

maintain the honor of Venus against the impious virgin 
who refused to burn incense on her altars. Their violence, 
however, was commonly disappointed, and the seasonable 
interposition of some miraculous power preserved the 
chaste spouses of Christ from the dishonor even of an 
involuntary defeat. We should not, indeed, neglect to 
remark that the more ancient as well as authentic me- 
morials of the church are seldom polluted with these 
extravagant and indecent fictions. 

The total disregard of truth and probability 
Humanity of m the representation of these primitive martyr- 
mag£t ra\ a es. doms was occasioned by a very natural mistake. 
The ecclesiastical writers of the fourth or fifth 
centuries ascribed to the magistrates of Rome the same 
degree of implacable and unrelenting zeal which filled their 
own breasts against the heretics or the idolators of their 
own times. It is not improbable that some of those per- 
sons who were raised to the dignities of the empire might 
have imbibed the prejudices of the populace, and that the 
cruel disposition of others might occasionally be stimulated 
by motives of avarice or of personal resentment. 66 But it is 
certain, and we may appeal to the grateful confessions of 
the first Christians, that the greatest part of those magis- 
trates who exercised in the provinces the authority of the 
emperor, or of the senate, and to whose hands alone the 
jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved like 
men of polished manners and liberal education, who re- 
spected the rules of justice, and who were conversant with 
the precepts of philosophy. They frequently declined the 
odious task of persecution, dismissed the charge with con- 
tempt, or suggested to the accused Christian some legal 
evasion, by which he might elude the severity of the laws, 67 
Whenever they were invested with a discretionary power, 68 
they used it much less for the oppression, than for the relief 
and benefit, of the afflicted church. They were far from 
condemning all the Christians who were accused before 

66 The conversion of his wife provoked Claudius Herminianus, governor of Cappa- 
docia, to treat the Christians with uncommon severity. TertuUian adScapulam, c. 3. 

67 TertuUian, in his epistle to the governor of Africa, mentions several remark- 
able instances of lenity and forbearance, which had happened within his knowledge. 

es Neque enim in universum aliquid quod quasi certam formam habeat, consti- 
tui potest; an expression of Trajan, which gave a very great latitude to the gov- 
ernors of provinces.* 

* Gibbon altogether forgets that Traian fully approved of the course pursued 
by Pliny. That course was, to order all who persevered in their faith to be led to 
execution : persevcrantes duci jussi. — Milman. 



MARTYRDOM MISREPRESENTED. 237 

their tribunal, and very far from punishing with death all 
those who were convicted of an obstinate adherence to the 
new superstition. Contenting themselves for the most part, 
with the milder chastisements of imprisonment, exile, or 
slavery in the mines, 69 they left the unhappy victims of their 
justice some reason to hope that a prosperous event, the 
accession, the marriage, or the triumph of an emperor, might 
speedily restore them, by a general pardon, to their former 
state. The martyrs, devoted to immediate exe- 
cution by the Roman magistrates, appear to ^consider- 

* 1 1 1 r* 1 • 3.D16 nillTlDGr 

have been selected irom the most opposite ex- of martyrs, 
tremes. They were either bishops and presby- 
ters, the persons the most distinguished among the Chris- 
tians by their rank and influence, and whose example might 
strike terror into the whole sect ; 70 or else they were the 
meanest and most abject among them, particularly those 
of the servile condition, whose lives were esteemed of little 
value, and whose sufferings were viewed by the ancients 
with too careless an indifference. 71 The learned Origen, 
who, from his experience as well as reading, was intimately 
acquainted with the history of the Christians, declares, in 
the most express terms, that the number of martyrs was 
very inconsiderable. 72 His authority would alone be suffl- 

69 In metalla damnamur, in insulas relegamur. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 12. The 
mines of Numidia contained nine bishops, with a proportionable number of their 
clergy and people, to whom Cyprian addressed a pious epistle of praise and com- 
fort. See Cyprian. Epistol. 76. 77. 

70 Though we cannot receive with entire confidence, either the epistles or the acts 
of Ignatius (they may be found in the 2d volume of the Apostolic Fathers), yet we 
may quote that bishop of Antioch as one of these exemplary martyrs. He was sent 
in chains to Rome as a public spectacle ; and when he arrived at Troas, he received 
the pleasing intelligence, that the persecution of Antioch was alreadv at an end.* 

71 Among the martyrs of Lyons (Bused. 1. v. c. 1), the slave Blandina was dis- 
tinguished by more exquisite tortures. Of the five martyrs so much celebrated in 
the acts of Felicitas and Perpetua, two were of a servile', and two others of a very 
mean, condition. 

72 Origen. advers. Celsum, 1. Hi. p. 116. His words deserve to to be transcribed 
'OXiyol Kara naipovc k<xl ccbodpa evapi-&firjToi virep TrjgXpLGTiavuv ^eoaedeiag . 
TeSvjjKaci.'f 

* The acts of Ignatius are generally received as authentic, as are seven of his 
letters. Eusebius and St. Jerome mention them ; there are two editions : in one, 
the letters are longer, and many passages appear to have been interpolated : the 
other edition is that which contains the real letters of St. Ignatius ; such at least 
is the opinion of the wisest and most enlightened critics. (See Lardner, Cred. 
of Gosp. Hist.) Less, iiber die Religion, v. i. p. 529. Usser. Diss, de Ign. Epist. 
Pearson, Vindic. Ignatiance. It should be remarked, that it was under the reign 
of Trajan that the bishop Ignatius was carried from Antioch to Rome, to be 
exposed to the lions in the amphitheatre, the year of J. C. 107, according to some ; 
of 116, according to others.— Guizot. 

In the preceding chapter Gibbon did not hesitate to refer to the epistles of 
Ignatius as genuine. — Eng. Ch. 

t " Those who have suffered death for the Christian religion are few, and easily 
" numbered." — Guizot. 

The words that follow should be quoted : " God not permitting that all this 



2 3 8 



CYPRIAN, BISHOP OF CARTHAGE. 



cient to annihilate that formidable array of martyrs, whose 
relics, drawn for the most part from the catacombs of Rome, 
have replenished so many churches, 73 and whose marvelous 
achievements have been the subject of so many volumes of 
holy romance. 74 But the general assertion of Origen may 
be explained and confirmed by the particular testimony of 
his friend Dionysius, who, in the immense city of Alexan- 
dria, and under the rigorous persecution of Decius, reckons 
only ten men and seven women who suffered for the pro- 
fession of the Christian name. 76 

During the same period of persecution, the 

Cyprian? zealous, the eloquent, the ambitious Cyprian 

Cartha °e governed the church, not only of Carthage, but 

even of Africa. He possessed every quality 

which could engage the reverence of the faithful, or pro- 

73 If we recollect that all the Pleheans of Rome were not Christians, and that 
all the Christians were not saints and martyrs, we may judge with how much 
safety religious honors can be ascribed to bones or urns, indiscriminately taken 
from the public burial-place. After ten centuries of a very free and open trade, 
some suspicions have arisen among the more learned Catholics. They now 
require, as a proof of sanctity and martyrdom, the letters B. M., a vial full of red 
liquor, supposed to be blood, or the figure of a palm-tree. But the two former 
signs are of little weight, and with regard to the last, it is observed by the critics, 
i. That the figure, as it is called, of a palm, is perhaps a cypress, and perhaps 
only a stop, the flourish of a comma used in the monumental inscriptions. 2. That 
the palm was the symbol of victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the 
Christians it served as the emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in general of a 
joyful resurrection See the epistle of P. Mabillon, on the worship of unknown 
saints, and Muratori sopra le Antichita Italiane, Dissertat. lviii. 

"•* As a specimen of these legends, we may be satisfied with 10,000 Christian 
soldiers crucified in one day, either by Trajan or Hadrian, on Mount Ararat. 
See Baronius ad Martyrologium Romanum ; Tillemont, Mem. Eccleasiast. torn. ii. 
part ii. p. 438 ; and Geddes's Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203. The abbreviation of 
Mil., which may signify either soldiers or thousands, is said to have occasioned 
some' extraordinary mistakes. 

75 Dionysius ap. Euseb. 1. vi. c. 41. One of the seventeen was likewise accused 

of robbery.* 

" class of men should be exterminated ; " which appears to indicate that Origen 
thought the number put to death inconsiderable only when compared to the 
numbers who had survived. Besides this, he is speaking of the state of the 
religion under Caracalla, Elagabalus, Alexander Severus, and Philip, who had 
not persecuted the Christians. It was during the reign of the latter that Origen 
wrote his books against Celsus. — Guizot. 

* Gibbon ought to have said, was falsely accused of robbery, for so it is in the 
Greek text. This Christian, named Nem'esion, falsely accused of robbery before 
the centurion, was acquitted of a crime altogether foreign to his character, 
{aXTiOTpiuraT/iv), but he was led before the governor as guilty of being a Chris- 
tian, and the governor inflicted upon him a double torture. Euseb. (loc. cit.) It 
must be added, that Saint Dionysius only makes particular mention of the prin- 
cipal martyrs [this is very doubtful,— Milman], and that he says, in general, that 
the fury of the Pagans against the Christians gave to Alexandria the appearance 
of a city taken by storm. [This refers to plunder and ill usage, not to actual 
slaughter.— Milman.] Finally, it should be observed that Origen wrote before 
the persecution of the emperor Decius. — Guizot. 

This is copied from Mr. Davis's Examination, p. 62. Gibbon, in his Vindication, 
(1st edit. p. 42) says, that Nemesion, though deemed innocent by his bishop, 
Dionysius, was treated by the civil magistrate as guilty, which Mr. Davis (Reply, 
p. 80) unsuccessfully endeavors to disprove. — Eng. Ch. 

See Vindication, at close of this volume. — E. 



CYPRIAN S FLIGHT. 239 

voke the suspicions and resentment of the Pagan magis- 
trates. His character, as well as his station, seemed to mark 
out that holy prelate as the most distinguished object of 
en\'v and of danger. 76 The experience, however, of the life 
of Cyprian is sufficient to prove that our fancy has exagger- 
ated the perilous situation of a Christian bishop ; * and that 
the dangers to which he was exposed were less imminent 
than those which temporal ambition is always prepared to 
encounter in the pursuit of honors. Four Roman emperors, 
with their families, their favorites, and their adherents, per- 
ished by the sword in the space of ten years, during which 
the bishop of Carthage guided by his authority and elo- 
quence the councils of the African church. It was only in 
the third year of his administration that he had reason, 
during a few months, to apprehend the severe edicts of 
Decius, the vigilance of the magistrate, and the clamors of 
the multitude, who loudly demanded that Cyprian, the 
leader of the Christians, should be thrown to the lions. 
Prudence suggested the necessity of a tempo- 
rary retreat, and the voice of prudence was 2n d ^g|t. r 
obeyed. He withdrew himself into an obscure 
solitude, from whence he could maintain a constant corre- 
spondence with the clergy and people of Carthage ; and, 
concealing himself till the tempest was past, he preserved 
his life, without relinquishing either his power or his repu- 
tation. His extreme caution did not, however, escape the 
censure of the more rigid Christians, who lamented, or the 
reproaches of his personal enemies, who insulted, a conduct 
which they considered as a pusillanimous and criminal 
desertion of the most sacred duty. 77 The propriety of re- 
serving himself for the future exigencies of the church, the 

"6 The letters of Cyprian exhibit a very curious and original picture both of the 
■man and of the times. See likewise the two lives of Cyprian, composed with 
equal accuracy, though wiih very different views ; the one by Le Cierc (Biblio- 
theque Universelle, torn. xii. pp. 208-37S), the other by Tillemont, Memoires 
Ecclesiastiques, torn. iv. part i. pp. 76-459. 

M See the polite but severe epistle of the clergy of Rome to the bishop of 
Carthage. (Cyprian. Epist. 8, 9.) Pontius labors' with the greatest care and 
diligence to justify his master against the general censure. 



*Our fancy has not "exaggerated the perilous situation of a Christian bishop," 
for in a former note, Gibbon himself has said, that the mines of ISiumidia con- 
tained " nine bishops, with a proportionable number of their clergy and people," 
for which he refers to the authority of Cyprian. Epist. 76, 77.— Guizot. 

This is by no means a contradiction of Gibbon's observation, that in those days 
of persecution, the Christian who attained the highest spiritual honors, did not 
expose himself to as much danger as the Pagan who sought or held the highest 
temporal dignity. — Eng. Ch. 



240 BANISHMENT OF CYPRIAN. 

example of several holy bishops, 78 and the divine admoni- 
tions which, as he declares himself, he frequently received 
in visions and ecstasies, were the reasons alleged in his 
justification. :3 But his best apology may be found in the 
cheerful resolution, with which, about eight years afterward, 
he suffered death in the cause of religion. The authentic 
history of his martyrdom has been recorded with unusual 
candor and impartiality. A short abstract, therefore, of its 
most important circumstances, will convey the clearest 
information of the spirit, and of the forms, of the Roman 
persecutions. 80 

When Valerian was consul for the third, and 
a. rx 257. Gallienus for the fourth time, Paternus, proconsul 
banishment, of Africa, summoned Cyprian to appear in his 
private council-chamber. He there acquainted 
him with the imperial mandate which he had just re- 
ceived, 81 that those who had abandoned the Roman religion 
should immediately return to the practice of the ceremonies 
of their ancestors. Cyprian replied, without hesitation, that 
he was a Christian and a bishop, devoted to the worship of 
the true and only Deity, to whom he offered up his daily 
supplications for the safety and prosperity of the two 
emperors, his lawful sovereigns. With modest confidence 
he pleaded the privilege of a citizen, in refusing to give 
any answer to some invidious and indeed illegal questions 
which the proconsul had proposed. A sentence of banish- 
ment was pronounced as the penalty of Cyprian's dis- 
obedience ; and he was conducted without delay to Curubis, 
a free and maritime city of Zeugitania, in a pleasant situa- 
tion, a fertile territory, and at the distance of about forty 
miles from Carthage. 82 The exiled bishop enjoyed the 

*» In particular those of Dionysius of Alexandria, and Gregory Thaumaturgus, 
of Xeo-Caesarea. See Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. 1. vi. c. 40; and Memoires de 
Tillemont, torn. iv. part ii. p. 685. 

'9 See Cyprian, Epist. 16, and his life by Pontius. 

80 We have an original life of Cyprian by the deacon Pontius, the companion 
of his exile, and the spectator of his death'; and we likewise possess the ancient 
proconsular acts of his martyrdom. These two relations are consistent with each 
other, and wit-h probability'; and what is somewhat remarkable, they are both 
unsullied bv anv miraculous circumstances. 

si It should seem that these were circular orders, sent at the same time to all 
the governors. Dionysius (ap. Euseb. 1. vii. c. n) relates the history of his own 
banishment from Alexandria almost in the same manner. But as he escaped and 
survived the persecution, we must account him either more or less fortunate 
than Cyprian. 

w See Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 3. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. part iii, p ; 96. 
Shaw's Travel's, p. 90; and for the adjacent country (which is terminated by 
Cape Bona, or the promontory of Mercury), V Afrique de Mormol. torn. ii. p. 494. 
There are the remains of an aqueduct near Curubis, or Curbis, at present altered 
into Gurbes; and Dr. Shaw read an inscription, which styles that city Colonia 



CYPRIAN CONDEMNED. 24I 

conveniences of life and the consciousness of virtue. His 
reputation was diffused over Africa and Italy ; an account 
of his behavior was published for the edification of the 
Christian world; 83 and his solitude was frequently inter- 
rupted by the letters, the visits, and the congratulations of 
the faithful. On the arrival of a new proconsul in the 
province, the fortune of Cyprian appeared for some time to 
wear a still more favorable aspect. He was recalled from 
banishment; and, though not yet permitted to return to 
Carthage, his own gardens in the neighborhood of the 
capital were assigned for the place of his residence. 54 

At length, exactly one year 85 after Cyprian 
was first apprehended, Galerius Maximus, pro- demnaSon. 
consul of Africa, received the Imperial warrant 
for the execution of the Christian teachers. The bishop of 
Carthage was sensible that he should be singled out for 
one of the first victims ; and the frailty of nature tempted 
him to withdraw himself, by a secret flight, from the danger 
and the honor of martyrdom ; * but, soon recovering that 
fortitude which his character required, he returned to his 
gardens, and patiently expected the ministers of death. 
Two officers of rank, who were intrusted with that com- 
mission, placed Cyprian between them in a chariot ; and, 
as the proconsul was not then at leisure, they conducted 
him, not to a prison, but to a private house in Carthage, 
which belonged to one of them. An elegant supper was 
provided for the entertainment of the bishop, and his 
Christian friends were permitted, for the last time, to enjoy 

Fulvia. The deacon Pontius (in Vit. Cyprian, c. 12) calls it " Apricum et com- 
• • petentem locum, hospitium pro voluntate secretum, et quicquid apponi eis ante 
" promissum est, qui regnum et justitiam Dei quserunt." f 

83 See Cyprian, Epistol. 77, edit. Fell. 

si Upon his conversion, he had sold those gardens for the benefit of the poor. 
The indulgence of God (most probably the liberality of some Christian friend) 
restored them to Cyprian. See Pontius, c. 15. 

85 When Cyprian, a twelvemonth before, was sent into exile, he dreamt that he 
should be put to death the next day. _ The event made it necessary to explain 
that word as signifying a year. Pontius, c. 12. 

* This was not, as it appears, the motive which induced St. Cyprian to conceal 
himself for a short time ; *he was threatened to be carried to Utica ; he preferred 
remaining at Carthage, in order to suffer martyrdom in the midst of his flock, and 
in order that his death might conduce to the edification of those whom he had 
guided during life. Such, at least, is his. own explanation of his conduct in one 
of his letters: Cum perlatum ad nos fuisset, fratres carissimi, frumentarios esse 
missos qui me Uticam perducerent, consilioque carissimorum persuasum est, ut 
de hortis nostris interem secederemus, justa interveniente causa, consensi;_ eo 
quod congruat episcopum in ea civitate, in qua Ecclesiae dominicas prasest, ilhc 
Dominum confiteri et plebem universam praepositi praesentis confessione clarifi- 
cari. Ep. 83.— Guizot. i 

iCape Bon was the " Fair Promontory" of Polybius.— Eng. Ch. 
p 



242 CYPRIAN S EXECUTION. 

his society, whilst the streets were filled with a multitude 
of the faithful, anxious and alarmed at the approaching fate 
of their spiritual father. 86 In the morning, he appeared 
before the tribunal of the proconsul, who, after informing 
himself of the name and situation of Cyprian, commanded 
him to offer sacrifice, and pressed him to reflect on the 
consequences of his disobedience. The refusal of Cyprian 
was firm and decisive ; and the magistrate, when he had 
taken the opinion of his council, pronounced with some 
reluctance the sentence of death. It was conceived in the 
following terms : " That Thascius Cyprianus should be 
" immediately beheaded, as the enemy of the gods of Rome 
" and as the chief and ringleader of a criminal association, 
" which he had seduced into an impious resistance against 
" the laws of the most holy emperors, Valerian and Gal- 
" lienus." 87 The manner of his execution was the mildest 
and least painful that could be inflicted on a person con- 
victed of any capital offence ; nor was the use of torture 
admitted to obtain from the bishop of Carthage either the 
recantation of his principles, or the discovery of his ac- 
complices. 

As soon as the sentence was proclaimed, a 
mart^Jdom. general cry of " We will die with him," arose at 
once among the listening multitude of Chris- 
tians who waited before the palace gates. The generous 
effusions of their zeal and affection were neither service- 
able to Cyprian nor dangerous to themselves. He was led 
away under a guard of tribunes and centurions, without 
resistance and without insult, to the place of his execution, 
a spacious and level plain near the city, which was already 
filled with great numbers of spectators. His faithful pres- 
byters and deacons were permitted to accompany their 
holy bishop.* They assisted him in laying aside his upper 

8G Pontius (c. 15) acknowledges that Cyprian, with whom he supped, passed 
the night custodia delicata. The bishop exercised a last and very proper act of 
jurisdiction, by directing that the younger females, who watched in the street, 
should be removed from the dangers and temptations of a nocturnal crowd. 
Act. Proconsularia, c. 2. 

S'i See the original sentence in the Acts, c. 4; and in Pontius, c. 17. The latter 
expresses it in a more rhetorical manner. 

* There is nothing in the life of St. Cyprian, by Pontius, nor in the ancient 
manuscripts, which can make us suppose that the presbyters and deacons, in 
their clerical character, and known to be such, had the permission to attend 
their holy bishop. Setting aside all religious considerations, it is impossible not 
to be surprised at the kind of complaisance with which the historian here insists, 
in favor of the persecutors, on some mitigating circumstances allowed at the 
death of a man whose only crime was maintaining his opinions with frankness 
and courage. — Guizot. 



THE FUNERAL OF CYPRIAN. 243 

garment, spread linen on the ground to catch the precious 
relics of his blood, and received his orders to bestow live- 
and-twenty pieces of gold on the executioner. The martyr 
then covered his face with his hands, and at one blow his 
head was separated from his body. His corpse remained 
during some hours exposed to the curiosity of the Gentiles; 
but in the night it was removed, and transported in a 
triumphal procession, and with a splendid illumination, 
to the burial-place of the Christians. The funeral of 
Cyprian was publicly celebrated without receiving any 
interruption from the Roman magistrates ; and those 
among the faithful who had performed the last offices 
to his person and his memory were secure from the 
danger of inquiry or of punishment. It is remarkable 
that of so great a multitude of bishops in the province 
of Africa, Cyprian was the first who was esteemed worthy 
to obtain the crown of martyrdom. 38 

It was in the choice of Cyprian either to die 
a martyr or to live an apostate ; but on that incitements 
choice depended the alternative of honor or to , 

infamy. Could we suppose that the bishop of 
Carthage had employed the profession of the Christian 
faith only as the instrument of his avarice or ambition, it 
was still incumbent on him to support the character which 
he had assumed ; £9 and, if he possessed the smallest degree 
of manly fortitude, rather to expose himself to the most 
cruel tortures, than by a single act to exchange the reputa- 
tion of a whole life for the abhorrence of his Christian 
brethren and the contempt of the Gentile world. But if the 
zeal of Cyprian was supported by the sincere conviction of 
the truth of those doctrines which he preached, the crown 
of martyrdom must have appeared to him as an object of 
desire rather than of terror. It is not easy to extract any 

ss Pontius, c. 19. M. de Tillemont (Memoires, torn. iv. part i. p. 450, note 50) is 
not pleased with so positive an exclusion of any former martyrs of the episcopal 
rank.* 

89 Whatever opinion we may entertain of the character or principles of Thomas 
a Becket, we must acknowledge that he suffered death with a constancy not un- 
worthy of the primitive martyrs. See Lord Lyttelton's History of Henry II, vol. 
ii. p. 592, &c. 

* M. de Tillemont, as an honest writer, explains the difficulties which he felt 
about the text of Pontius, and concludes by distinctly stating, that without doubt 
there is some mistake, and that Pontius must have meant only Africa Minor or 
Carthage; for St. Cyprian, in his 58th (69th) letter addressed to'Pupianus, speaks 
expressly of many bishops his colleagues, qui proscripti sunt, vel apprehensi in 
carcere et catenis fuerunt : aut qui in exilium relegati, illustri itinera ad Dominura 
profecti sunt ; aut qui quibusdam locis animadversi coelestes coronas de Domini 
clarificatione sumpserunt. — Guizot. 



244 HONORS TO CONFESSORS. 

distinct ideas from the vague though eloquent declamations 
of the fathers, or to ascertain the degree of immortal glory 
and happiness which they confidently promised to those 
who were so fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of 
religion. 90 They inculcated, with becoming diligence, that 
the fire of martyrdom supplied every defect and expiated 
every sin ; that, while the souls of ordinary Christians were 
obliged to pass through a slow and painful purification, the 
triumphant sufferers entered into the immediate fruition of 
eternal bliss, where, in the society of the patriarchs, the 
apostles, and the prophets, they reigned with Christ, and 
acted as his assessors in the universal judgment of mankind. 
The assurance of a lasting reputation upon earth, a motive 
so congenial to the vanity of human nature, often served to 
animate the courage of the martyrs. The honors which 
Rome or Athens bestowed on those citizens who had fallen 
in the cause of their country, were cold and unmeaning 
demonstrations of respect, when compared with the ardent 
gratitude and devotion which the primitive church expressed 
towards the victorious champions of the faith. The annual 
commemoration of their virtues and sufferings was observed 
as a sacred ceremony, and at length terminated in religious 
worship. Among the Christians who had publicly confessed 
their religious principles, those who (as it very frequently 
happened) had been dismissed from the tribunal or the 
prisons of the Pagan magistrates, obtained such honors as 
were justly due to their imperfect martyrdom and their 
generous resolution. The most pious females courted the 
permission of imprinting kisses on the fetters which they 
had worn, and on the wounds which they had received. 
Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were 
admitted with deference, and they too often abused, by 
their spiritual pride and licentious manners, the pre-emi- 
nence which their zeal and intrepidity had acquired. 91 

90 See in particular the treatise of Cyprian de Lapsis, pp. 87-98, edit. Fell. 
The learning of Dodwell {Dissertat. Cyprianic. xii. xiii.), and the ingenuity of 
Middleton, {Free Inquiry, p. 162, &c), have left scarcely anything to add con- 
cerning the merit, the honors, and the motives of the martyrs. 

si Cyprian. Epistol. 5, 6, 7, 22, 24;* and de Unitat. EcclessicE. The number of 
pretended martyrs has been very much multiplied by the custom which was 
introduced of bestowing that honorable name on confessors. 

*The letters of Cyprian, to which Gibbon refers, do not prove what he says of 
" the spiritual pride and licentious manners " of the confessors. In his fifth letter, 
written during his retirement, he exhorts the deacons and priests to fill his 
vacant place, not to allow the confessors or poor to want for anything, and to 
visit the former in their prisons. In the sixth, addressed to Sergius, Rogatianus, 
and other confessors, he exhorts them to suffer martyrdom, and complains of not 



SOLICITUDE FOR MARTYRDOM. 245 

Distinctions like these, whilst they display the exalted merit, 
betray the inconsiderable number of those who suffered and 
of those who died, for the profession of Christianity. 

The sober discretion of the present age will 
more readily censure than admire, but can more Ardor of the 
easily admire than imitate, the fervor of the first christians. 
Christians, who, according to the lively expres- 
sion of Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more 
eagerness than his own contemporaries solicited a bishop- 
ric. 92 The epistles which Ignatius composed as he was 
carried in chains through the cities of Asia breathe senti- 

92 Certatim gloriosa in certamina ruebatur; multoque avidius turn martyria 
gloriosis mortibus quaerebantur, quam nunc Episcopatus pravis ambitionibus 
appetuntur. Sulpicius Severus, 1. ii. He might have omitted the word nunc. 

being with them, to kiss their pure hands, and the lips which had glorified God. 
He bids them despise all the sufferings of this life, in the hope of eternal glory. 
The seventh is addressed to his deacons and presbyters, desiring them in a few 
words to relieve the poor. The twenty-second is from Lucian to Celerinus, 
most modestly written, disclaiming the praises of his friend, and condoling with 
him on the death of his sisters, the victims of persecution. The twenty-fourth is 
from Caldonius to Cyprian and the presbyters of Carthage, consulting them on 
the re-admission of penitent apostates into the church. It is only in the treatise 
De Unitate Ecclesicz, that any confessors are reproved. — Guizot. 

M. Guizot denies that the letters of Cyprian, to which he refers, bear out the 
statement in the text. I cannot scruple to admit the accuracy of Gibbon's quota- 
tion. To take only the fifth letter, we find this passage: Doleo enim quando 
audio quosdam improbe et insolenter discurrere, et ad ineptias vel ad discordias 
vacare, Christi membra et jam Christum confessa per concubitus illicitos inqui- 
nari, nee a diaconis aut presbyteris regi posse, sed id agere ut per paucorum 
pravos et malos mores, multorum et bonorum confessorum gloria honeta macu- 
leter. Gibbon's misrepresentation lies in the ambiguous expression, "too often." 
Were the epistles arranged in a different manner in the edition consulted by M. 
Guizot ?— Milman. 

In these notes, the attacks on Gibbon are unfair. He does not sav that the 
presbyters and deacons attended the execution of Cyprian " in their official 
" character." With regard to Cyprian's letters, see also his Vindication, p. 156. 
His edition of Cyprian's works was that of Amsterdam, 1700; while M. Guizot 
used that of Oxford, 1682, or one in which the epistles stand in the same order, 
and in which Nos. 11, 13, and 14 correspond with Nos. 5, 6, and 7 in the former. 
M. Guizot should have looked into this before he committed himself by the pub- 
lication of such a note as the above. There is no character which is so differently 
judged as is that of Cyprian, by the holders of opposite opinions. To Gibbon, 
early accustomed to think for himself, all control over thought was repugnant ; 
and his short acquaintance with it, as it is exercised in the Roman Catholic 
church, probably conduced to his early abjuration of his adopted faith, as well as 
to the view afterward taken by him, of the ground on which the prerogative is 
asserted. By this rule, he estimated the character of the prelate, who first 
invested the Christian teachers with those stern attributes of command, which 
have since been more fully developed in such strict systems of ecclesiastical 
discipline. Where religion first assumed this form, it trained a supine race, that 
fell an easy prey to each successive invader; and in the land of Tertullian, 
Cyprian, Athanasius, and Cyril, industry, learning, talent, civilization, and even 
Christianity itself, were for the most part soon extinguished, and remain so to 
the present day.— Eng. Ch. 

In the historical novel called Hypatia, by Charles Kingsley, F. S. A., F. L. S.. a 
vivid picture is given of life at Alexandria, in the fifth centurv, when Christianitv, 
under the leadership of the patriarch Cyril, was struggling for ascendancv over 
Paganism. This gifted author, who, loyal to his title of Y( Rev.," has not forgo'tten to 
call Gibbon a " shallow sneerer," puts in the mouth of the pious Arsenius, the tutor 
of Arcadius the emperor, a realistic description of the state of society which arose 
from the contentions between the fanatical Christian monks on the one hand, and 



246 RELIGIOUS FRENZY. 

ments the most repugnant to the ordinary feelings of human 
nature. He earnestly beseeches the Romans that, when he 
should be exposed in the amphitheatre, they would not, by 
their kind but unseasonable intercession, deprive him of the 
crown of glory ; and he declares his resolution to provoke 
and irritate the wild beasts which might be employed as the 
instruments of his death. 93 Some stories are related of the 
courage of martyrs who actually performed what Ignatius 
had intended, who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed 
the executioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into 
the fires which were kindled to consume them, and discov- 
ered a sensation of joy and pleasure in the midst of the 
most exquisite tortures. Several examples have been pre- 
served of a zeal impatient of those restraints which the 
emperors had provided for the security of the church. The 
Christians sometimes supplied by their voluntary declara- 

93 See Epist. ad Roman, c. 4, 5, ap. Patres Afiostol. torn. ii. p. 27. It suited the 
purpose of Bishop Pearson (see Vindicice Ignatiance , part ii, c. 9) to justify, by a 
prolusion of examples and authorities, the sentiments of Ignatius. 



the ancient Pagan priests — the worshipers of the immortal gods — on the other: 
" What saw I? " says Arsenius. " Eunuchs the tyrants of their own sovereigns. 
" Bishops kissing the feet of parricides and harlots. Saints tearing saints in pieces 
" for a word, while sinners cheer them on to the unnatural fight. Liars thanked 
" for lying, hypocrites rejoicing in their hypocrisy. The many sold and butchered 
" for the malice, the caprice, the vanity of the few. The plunderers of the poor 
" plundered in their turn, by worse devourers than themselves. Every attempt at 
" reform the parent of worse scandals ; every mercy begetting fresh cruelties ; 
" every persecutor silenced, only to enable others to persecute him in their turn ; 
" every devil who is exorcised returning with seven others worse than himself; 
" falsehood and selfishness, spite and lust, confusion seven times confounded, Satan 
" casting out Satan everywhere — from the emperor who wantons on his throne 
" to the slave who blasphemes beneath his fetters." 

One of the triumphs of Christianity is shown when the beautiful Hypatia, the elo- 
quent teacher and advocate of Paganism, is torn from her carriage by a rabble of 
" parabolani and monks, and dragged to the Csesareum, the church of God himself. 
" Yes! On into the church itself! Into the cool, dim shadow, with its fretted 
" pillars, and lowering domes, and candles, and incense, and blazing altar, and 
*' great pictures— looking from the walls athwart the gorgeous gloom ; and right 
" in front, above the altar, the colossal Christ, watching unmoved from off the 
" wall, his right hand raised to give a blessing— or a curse? With one hand she 
" clasped her golden locks around her; the other arm was stretched upward 
" toward the great still Christ, appealing— and who dare say in vain ?— from man 
" to God. Her lips were open to speak ; but the words that should have come 
" from them reached God's ear alone ; for in an instant Peter [the Christian monk] 
" struck her down, the dark mass closed over her again . . . and then wail 
" on wail, long, wild, ear-piercing, ringing along the vaulted roofs, and thrilled 
" like the trumpet of avenging angels." 

This religious strife and contention continued with increasing bitterness until 
the advent of Mahomet, when Alexandria, the foremost city of civilization and 
learning, was conquered by the ruthless Saracens, — when the cross was supplanted 
by the crescent, and both Christians and Pagans succumbed before the prowess 
of the "true believers," the faithful, inspired soldiers of Allah, — and that great and 
irreparable loss occurred to the world of science, of art, and of letters— the 
destruction of the Alexandrian Library. Had we but those lost records, those 
treasures of former wisdom and culture, the History of Christianity could be 
easily and clearly written ; and there would be but little use for the carping 
criticism of the Christian Guizot, or the puerile fault-finding of the protestant 
Milman. — E. 



CHRISTIANS DEMAND SENTENCE. 247 

tion the want of an accuser, rudely disturbed the public 
service of Paganism, 94 and, rushing in crowds round the 
tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to pronounce 
and to inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior of the 
Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice of the 
ancient philosophers ; but they seem to have considered it 
with much less adn^ration than astonishment.* Incapable 
of conceiving the motives which sometimes transported the 
fortitude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence or 
reason, they treated such an eagerness to die as the strange 
result of obstinate despair, of stupid insensibility, or of 
superstitious frenzy. 95 " Unhappy men ! " exclaimed the 
proconsul Antoninus to the Christians of Asia; "unhappy 
" men ! if you are thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult 
" for you to find ropes and precipices ? " 96 He was ex- 

94 The story of Polyeuctes, on which Corneille has founded a very beautiful 
tragedy, is one of the most celebrated, though not perhaps the most authentic, 
instances of this excessive zeal. We should observe, that the 60th canon of the 
council of Illiberis refuses the title of martyrs to those who exposed themselves 
to death, by publicly destroying the idols. 

as See Epictetus, 1. iv. c. 7 (though there is some doubt whether he alludes to the 
Christians). Marcus Antoninus de Rebus suis, 1. xi. c. 3. Lucian in Peregrin, f 

96 Tertuilian ad Scapul. c. 5. The learned are divided between three persons 
of the same name, who were all proconsuls of Asia. I am inclined to ascribe this 
story to Antoninus Pius, who was afterwards emperor ; and who may have gov- 
erned Asia under the reign of Trajan.J 



*" It is a great question," says Voltaire, in the Philosophical Dictionary, article 
Martyr, "why the Roman empire always tolerated in its bosom the Jewish sect, 

even after the two horrible wars of Titus and Adrian, why it tolerated the wor- 
" ship of Isis at several times; and why it frequently persecuted Christianity. 
" * * * It is evident that the Jews "occupied with the trade of brokers and 
" usury, did not preach against the ancient religion of the empire, and that 
" the Christians, who were all busy in controversy, preached against the public 
" worship, sought to destroy it, often burned the temples, and broke the conse- 
" crated statues, as St. Theodosius did at Amasia, and St. Polyeuctes in Mitylene. 
" The orthodox Christians, sure that their religion was the only true one, did not 
" tolerate any other. In consequence they themselves were hardly tolerated. Some 
" of them we're punished and died for the faith— and these were the martyrs." 

After enumerating manv improbable tales found in the martyrologies, ( £ind 
recounting several absurd' popish legends, this gifted author continues : "Do 
" you want good well-authenticated barbarities— good and well-attested massa- 
" cres, rivers of blood which have actuallv flowed— fathers, mothers, husbands 
" wives, infants at the breasts, who have in reality had their throats cut and 
" been heaped on one another ? Persecuting monsters ! Seek these truths only 
" in vour own annals : you will find them in the crusades against the Albigenses, 
" in the massacres of Merindol and Cabriere, in the frightful day of St. Bartholo- 
" mew, in the massacres of Ireland, in the valleys of the Pays de Vaud. It 
" becomes you well, barbarians as you are, to impute extravagant cruelties to the 
"best of emperors; you who have deluged Europe with blood, and covered 
" it with corpses, in order to prove that the same body can be in a thousand 
" places at once, and that the pope can sell indulgences ! Cease to calumniate 
" the Romans, your law-givers, and ask pardon of God for the abominations 
" of vour forefathers ! " — E. 

t This is the passage referred to at p. 108 (Note), where it is suggested that 
Epictetus, by the term Galilseans, more probably meant the whole Jewish nation, 
than Christians. — Eng. Ch. . 

t Antoninus was proconsul of Asia in the time of the younger Pliny. Ep. 4, 3- 
Eng. Ch. 



248 DESIRE FOR MARTYRDOM ABATING. 

tremely cautious (as it is observed by a learned and pious 
historian) of punishing men who had found no accusers but 
themselves, the imperial laws not having made any provi- 
sion for so unexpected a case : condemning therefore a few, 
as a warning to their brethren, he dismissed the multitude 
with indignation and contempt. 97 Notwithstanding this real 
or affected disdain, the intrepid con|fcancy of the faithful 
was productive of more salutary effects on those minds 
which nature or grace had disposed for the easy reception 
of religious truth. On these melancholy occasions there 
were many among the Gentiles who pitied, who admired, 
and who were converted. The generous enthusiasm was 
communicated from the sufferer to the spectators ; and the 
blood of martyrs, according to a well-known observation, 
became the seed of the church. 

But although devotion had raised, and elo- 
rdaxation. quence continued to inflame, this fever of the 
mind, it insensibly gave way to the more natural 
hopes and fears of the human heart, to the love of life, the 
apprehension of pain, and the horror of dissolution. The 
more prudent rulers of the church found themselves obliged 
to restrain the indiscreet ardor of their followers, and to 
distrust a constancy which too often abandoned them in the 
hour of trial. 98 As the lives of the faithful became less 
mortified and austere, they were every day less ambitious 
of the honors of martyrdom ; and the soldiers of Christ, 
instead of distinguishing themselves by voluntary deeds of 
heroism, frequently deserted their post, and fled in confusion 
before the enemy whom it was their duty to resist. There 
were three methods, however, of escaping the flames of 
persecution, which were not attended with an equal degree 
of guilt ; the first, indeed, was generally allowed to be 
innocent ; the second was of a doubtful, or at least of a 
venial, nature ; bu* the third implied a direct and criminal 
apostasy from the Christian faith. 

Three r I. A modern inquisitor would hear with sur- 
"Scaplng 1 prise that, whenever an information was given 
martyrdom, to a Roman magistrate, of any person within his 

9" Mosheim, de Rebus Christ, ante Constantin. p. 235. 

98 See the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna, ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. iv. c. 15.* 

* The 15th chapter of the 10th book of the Eccles. History of Eusebius treats 
principally of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, and mentions some other martyrs. 
A single example of weakness is related ; it is that of a Phyrgian named Quintus, 
who, appalled at the sight of the wild beasts and the tortures, renounced his faith. 



METHODS FOR ESCAPING MARTYRDOM. 249 

jurisdiction who had embraced the sect of the Christians, the 
charge was communicated to the party accused, and that a 
convenient time was allowed him to settle his domestic 
concerns, and to prepare an answer to the crime which was 
imputed to him." If he entertained any doubt of his own 
constancy, such a delay afforded him an opportunity of 
preserving his life and honor by flight, of withdrawing him- 
self into some obscure retirement or some distant province, 
and of patiently expecting the return of peace and security. 
A measure so consonant to reason was soon authorized 
by the advice and example of the most holy prelates, 
and seems to have been censured by few, except by the 
Montanists, who deviated into heresy by their strict and 
obstinate adherence to the rigor of ancient discipline. 100 

II. The provincial governors, whose zeal was less prevalent 
than their avarice, had countenanced the practice of selling 

99 In the second apology of Justin, there is a particular and very curious in- 
stance of this legal delay. The same indulgence was granted to accused Christians, 
in the persecution of Decius : and Cyprian (de Lapsis) expressly mentions the 
" Dies negantibus praestitutus." * 

100 Tertullian considers flight from persecution as an imperfect, but very criminal 
apostasy, as an impious attempt to elude the will of God, &c, &c." He has 
written a treatise on this subject (see pp.536 — 544, edit. Rigalt.), which is filled 
with the wildest fanaticism and the most incoherent declamation. It is, however, 
somewhat remarkable that Tertullian did not suffer martyrdom himself. 

This example proves little against the mass of Christians, and this chapter of 
Eusebius furnished much stronger evidence of their courage than of their timidity. 
— Guizot. 

This Quintus had, however, rashly and of his own accord appeared before the 
tribunal ; and the church of Smyrna condemned "his indiscreet ardor," coupled 
as it was with weakness in the hour of trial. — Milman. 

* The examples drawn by the historian from Justin Martyr and Cyprian relate 
altogether to particular cases, and prove nothing as to the general practice 
adopted toward the accused ; it is evident, on the contrary, from the same 
apology of St. Justin, tbat they hardly ever obtained delay. "A man named 
" Lucius, himself a Christian, present at an unjust sentence passed against a 
" Christian by the judge Urbicus, asked him why he thus punished a man who 
" was neither adulterer nor robber, nor guilty of any other crime but that of 
" avowing himself a Christian." Urbicus answered only in these words : " Thou 
" also hast the appearance of being a Christian." " Yes, without doubt," replied 
Lucius. The judge ordered that he should be put to death on the instant. A 
third, who came up, was condemned to be beaten with rods. Here, then, are 
three examples where no delay was granted. [Surely these acts of a single pas- 
sionate and irritated judge prove the general practice as little as those quoted by 
Gibbon. — Milman.] There exist a multitude of others, such as those of Ptolemy, 
Marcellus, &c. Justin expressly charges the judges with ordering the accused to 
be executed without hearing the cause. The words of St. Cyprian are as par- 
ticular, and simply say, that he had appointed a day by which the Christians 
must have renounced 'their faith; those who had not done it by that time were 
condemned.— Guizot. [This confirms the statement in the text. — Milman.] 

A charge made by Mr. Davis (p. 71) is here repeated, without any notice of the 
answer to it. See Gibbon's Vind. p. 48-54, 1st ed.,f where he showed that his 
accuser had suppressed the passage in Cyprian ; that the impugned statement 
was confirmed by Mosheim {De Rebus), p. 480), and that Justin Martyr had 
admitted the delay, in the case of the woman who had been converted by 
Ptolemaeus. Mr. Davis, in his reply, did not deny his error, and still maintained 
that the charge was in substance just. — Eng. Ch. 

t This Vindication is printed at the end of this volume. — E. 



250 CHRISTIAN APOSTATES. 

certificates, (or libels, as they were called), which attested 
that the persons therein mentioned had complied with the 
laws, and sacrificed to the Roman deities. By producing 
these false declarations, the opulent and timid Christians 
were enabled to silence the malice of an informer, and to 
reconcile in some measure their safety with their religion. 
A slight penance atoned for this profane dissimulation. 101 

III. In every persecution there were great numbers of 
unworthy Christians who publicly disowned or renounced 
the faith which they had professed ; and who confirmed the 
sincerity of their abjuration by the legal acts of burning 
incense or of offering sacrifices. Some of these apostates 
had yielded on the first menace or exhortation of the mag- 
istrate ; whilst the patience of others had been subdued by 
the length and repetition of tortures. The affrighted coun- 
tenances of some betrayed their inward remorse, whilst 
others advanced with confidence and alacrity to the altars 
of the gods. 102 But the disguise, which fear had imposed, 
subsisted no longer than the present danger. As soon as 
the severity of the persecution was abated, the doors of the 
churches were assailed by the returning multitude of peni- 
tents, who detested their idolatrous submission, and who 
solicited with equal ardor, but with various success, their 
readmission into the society of Christians. 103 

101 The libellatici, who are chiefly known by the writings of Cyprian, are 
described with the utmost precision in the copious commentary of Mosheim, 
pp. 483-489-* 

102 piin. Epistol. x. 97. Dionysius Alexandrtn. ap. Euseb. 1. vi. c. 41. Ad prima 
statim verba minantis inimici maximus fratrum numerus fidem suam prodidit : 
nee prostratus est persecutionis impetu, sed voluntario lapsu seipsum prostravit. 
Cyprian. Opera, p. 89. Among these deserters were many priests and even 
bishops.f 

103 it was on this occasion that Cyprian wrote his treatise De Lapsis, and many 
of his epistles. The controversy concerning the treatment of penitent apostates 
does not occur among the Christians of the preceding century. Shall we ascribe 
this to the superiority of their faith and courage, or to our less intimate knowl- 
edge of their history ? 

* The penance was not so slight, for it was exactly the same with that of apos- 
tates who had sacrificed to idols ; it lasted several years. See Fleury, Hist. Ecc. 
v. ii. p. 171.— Guizot. 

f Pliny says, that the greater part of the Christians persisted in avowing them- 
selves to be so ; the reason for his consulting Trajan was the periclitantium 
numerus. Eusebius (1. vi. c. 41) does not permit us to doubt that the number of 
those who renounced their faith was infinitely below the number of those who 
boldly confessed it. The prefect, he says, and his assessors present at the 
council, were alarmed at seeing the crowd of Christians: the judges themselves 
trembled. Lastly, St. Cyprian informs us that the greater part of those who had 
appeared weak brethren in the persecution of Decius, signalized their courage 
in that of Gallus. Steterunt fortes, et ipso dolore pcenitentise facti ad praelium 
fortiores. Epist. lx. p. 142. — Guizot. 

This alleged "misrepresentation of Pliny" was first adduced by Mr. Davis 
(p. 87). Gibbon, in his Vindication, urged that historians must blend together 
dispersed materials to form a consistent narrative ; and concluded by stating, 
that "neither Pliny, Dionysius, nor Cyprian, mentions all the circumstances and 



THE TEN PERSECUTIONS. 25 1 

IV. Notwithstanding the general rules estab- 
lished for the conviction and punishment of the of severity 5 
Christians, the fate of those sectaries, in an ex- . . an ? 

' , . . -11 • toleration. 

tensive and arbitrary government, must still, in 
a great measure, have depended on their own behavior, the 
circumstances of the times, and the temper of their supreme 
as well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might sometimes pro- 
voke, and prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the 
superstitious fury of the Pagans. A variety of motives 
might dispose the provincial governors either to enforce or 
to relax the execution of the laws ; and of these motives 
the most forcible was their regard not only for the public 
edicts, but for the secret intentions of the emperor, a glance 
from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or to extinguish 
the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional 
severities were exercised in the different parts of the 
empire, the primitive Christians lamented and perhaps 
magnified their own sufferings ; but the cele- 
brated number of ten persecutions has been pe Jecutions. 
determined by the ecclesiastical writers of the 
fifth century, who possessed a more distinct view of the 
prosperous or adverse fortunes of the church from the age 
of Nero to that of Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of 
the ten plagues of Egypt, and of the ten horns of the 
Apocalypse, first suggested this calculation to their minds ; 
and in their application of the faith of prophecy to the 
truth of history, they were careful to select those reigns 
which were indeed the most hostile to the Christian cause. 104 
But these transient persecutions served only to revive the 
zeal and to restore the discipline of the faithful, and the 
moments of extraordinary rigor were compensated by much 
longer intervals of peace and security. The indifference of 
some princes, and the indulgence of others, permitted the 
Christians to enjoy, though not perhaps a legal, yet an 
actual and public, toleration of their religion. 

The Apology of Tertullian contains two very ^Xtfof 
ancient, very singular, but at the same time very Tiberius and 
suspicious, instances of imperial clemency ; the A^ftorrSus. 

_ 104 See Moshem, p. 97. Sulpicius Severus was the first author of this computa- 
tion ; though he seemed desirous of reserving the tenth and greater persecution 
for the coming of the Antichrist. 



" distinctions of the conduct of the Christian apostates; but if one of them was 
" withdrawn, the account which I have given would, in some instance, be 
" defective." Mr. Davis {Reply, p. 49) met this defence by ridicule, without 
argument.— Eng. Ch. 



252 FICTITIOUS EDICTS. 

edicts published by Tiberius, and by Marcus Antoninus, and 
designed not only to protect the innocence of the Christians, 
but even to proclaim those stupendous miracles which had 
attested the truth of their doctrine. The first of these ex- 
amples is attended with some difficulties which might perplex 
a skeptical mind. 105 We are required to believe that Pontius 
Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust sentence of death 
which he had pronounced against an innocent, and, as it ap- 
peared, a divine, person ; and that, without acquiring the 
merit, he exposed himself to the danger, of martyrdom ; that 
Tiberius, who avowed his contempt for all religion, immedi- 
ately conceived the design of placing the Jewish Messiah 
among the gods of Rome ; that his servile senate ventured to 
disobey the commands of their master ; that Tiberius, instead 
of resenting their refusal, contented himself with protecting 
the Christians from the severity of the laws, many years 
before such laws were enacted, or before the church had 
assumed any distinct name or existence ; and, lastly, that the 
memory of this extraordinary transaction was preserved in 
the most public and authentic records, which escaped the 
knowledge of the historians of Greece and Rome, and were 
only visible to the eyes of an African Christian, who com- 
posed his Apology one hundred and sixty years after the 
death of Tiberius. The edict of Marcus Antoninus is sup- 
posed to have been the effect of his devotion and gratitude 
for the miraculous deliverance which he had obtained in the 
Marcomannic war. The distress of the legions, the season- 
able tempest of rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, 
and the dismay and defeat of the Barbarians, have been 
celebrated by the eloquence of several Pagan writers. If 
there were any Christians in that army, it was natural that 
they should ascribe some merit to the fervent prayers 
which, in the moment of danger, they had offered up for 
their own and the public safety. But we are still assured 
by monuments of brass and marble, by the imperial medals, 
and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince nor 
the people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, 
since they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the 

105 The testimony given by Pontius Pilate is first mentioned by Justin. The 
successive improvements which the story has acquired (as it passed through the 
hands of Tertullian, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of 
Tours, and the authors of the several editions of the acts of Pilate) are very 
fairly stated by Dom Calmet, Dissertat, sur V Ecriture, torn. iii. p. 651, &c. * 

* It is most probable that Pliny's letter to Trajan inspired, in some over- 
zealous believer, the idea of fabricating one from Pontius Pilate to Tiberius. — E. C. 



MARCIA, THE PATRONESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 253 

providence of Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. 
During the whole course of his reign, Marcus despised 
the Christians as a philosopher, and punished them as a 
sovereign. 106 

By a singular fatality, the hardships which state of the 
thev had endured under the goverment of a christians in 

. J . . V 1 J 1 the rel s ns Of 

virtuous prince, immediately ceased on tne ac- commodus 
cession of a tyrant; and as none except them- atl £ D. V i8of' 
selves had experienced the injustice of Marcus, 
so they alone were protected by the lenity of Commodus. 
The celebrated Marcia, the most favored of his concubines, 
and who at length contrived the murder of her imperial 
lover, entertained a singular affection for the oppressed 
church ; and though it was impossible that she should 
reconcile the practice of vice with the precepts of the 
gospel, she might hope to atone for the frailties of her 
sex and profession by declaring herself the patroness of 
the Christians. 107 Under the gracious protection of Marcia, 

106 On this miracle, as it is commonly called, of the thundering legion, see the 
admirable criticism of Mr. Movie, in his Works, vol. ii. p. 81-300. * 

10: Dion Cassius, or rather his abbreviator Xiphilin, 1. lxxii. p. 1206. Mr. Moyle 
(p. 266) has explained the condition of the church under the reign of Commodus. 

* Gibbon, with this phrase, and that below, which admits the injustice of 
Marcus, has dexterously glossed over one of the most remarkable facts in the 
early Christian history, that the reign of the wisest and most humane of the 
heathen emperors was the most fatal to the Christians. Most writers have 
ascribed the persecutions under Marcus to the latent bigotry of his character ; 
Mosheim, to the influence of the philosophic party : but the fact is admitted by 
all. A late writer (Mr. Waddington, Hist, of Church, p. 47) has not scrupled to 
assert, that "this prince polluted every year of a long reign with innocent 
" blood;" but the causes as well as the date of the persecutions authorized or 
permitted by Marcus are equally uncertain. 

Of the Asiatic edict recorded by Melito, the date is unknown, nor is it quite 
clear that it was an Imperial edict. If it was the act under which Polycarp 
suffered, his martyrdom is placed by Ruinart in the sixth, by Moshein in the 
ninth, year of the reign of Marcus. The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons are 
assigned by Dodwell to the seventh, by most writers to the seventeenth. In fact, 
the commencement of the persecutions of the Christians appears to synchronize 
exactly with the period of the breaking out of the Marcomannic war, which seems 
to have alarmed the whole empire, and the emperor himself, into a paroxysm of 
returning piety to their gods, of which the Christians were the victims. See Jul. 
Cap it. Script. Hist. August, p. 181, edit. 1661. It is remarkable that Tertullian 
{Apologet. c. v.) distinctly asserts that Verus (M. Aurelius) issued no edicts 
against the Christians, and almost positively exempts him from the charge of 
persecution. — M. 

Milman asserts that all the writers admit the persecutions of Marcus Aurelius— 
" that the reign of the wisest and most humane of the heathen emperors was the 
" most fatal to the Christians. 1 ' He then tells us that "the causes as well as the 
" date of the persecutions authorized or permitted by Marcus, are equally un- 
certain." He then quotes Tertullian, who "distinctly asserts that Marcus 
" Aurelius issued no edicts against the Christians, and almost positively exempts 
" him from the charge of persecution." The worthy Dean undoubtedly means 
well, but is not always consistent or coherent in his remarks. What shall we think 
of a writer who quotes authorities to prove the reverse of his assertions? — E. 

"The rescript in favor of the Christians is given to Pius by some." (Clint. 
F. R. ii, 25.) It appears to have followed Justin Martyr's Apology. The philos- 
ophy of Marcus Aurelius was that of the Stoics, which had always been the least 



254 THE NEW RELIGION UNDER SEVERUS. 

they passed in safety the thirteen years of a cruel tyranny ; 
and when the empire was established in the house of 
Severus, they formed a domestic but more honorable con- 
nection with the new court.* The emperor was persuaded, 
that, in a dangerous sickness, he had derived some benefit, 
either spiritual or physical, from the holy oil with which 
one of his slaves had anointed him. He always treated 
with peculiar distinction several persons of both sexes who 

favorable to Christianity. It was by them and the Epicureans, that Paul was 
cited before the Areopagus at Athens. [But St. Paul was not persecuted by the 
Stoics or Epicureans. They only laughed at his discourse, and called him a 
" babbler." — E.] It is not, however, to be supposed that an emperor with a mind 
so temperate and generally equitable, should be influenced by the jealousies of the 
Greek schools, and prejudiced against a rival "philosophy/' as the new religion 
was then termed, for which so many Platonists wrote apologies and defences. 
His treatment of the Christians can in no way be accounted for, but by the motive 
to which it has been attributed in a preceding note, p. 220. This alone places in 
its true light, what Gibbon has somewhat equivocally characterized, and affords 
a satisfactory solution of the doubts which pervade Dean Milman's commentary 
on the passage. If the Marcomannic war had any connection with the rigorous 
proceedings which commenced at the same time, it' is to be found in the necessity, 
which it created, for appeasing the discontented Pagans. — Eng. Ch. 

* The assistance which the frail Marcia rendered the Christian church was no 
doubt most commendable, but could hardly atone for the murder of her paramour, 
the emperor Commodus. 

An almost parallel case, showing the great assistance often rendered to the 
church by courtezans and harlots, is found in the life of Theodora, the pious and 
fascinating empress of the East, and the wife of the emperor Justinian. " This 
" prostitute," says Gibbon, chapter xl., Decline and Fall, "who, in the presence 
" of innumerable spectators, had polluted the theatre of Constantinople, was 
" adored as a queen in the same city, by grave magistrates, orthodox bishops, 
" victorious generals, and captive monarchs. The Eastern world fell prostrate 
" before her genius and fortune. An oath of allegiance was imposed on the 
" governors of provinces in the joint names of Justinian and Theodora. I swear 
" by the Father, &c, by the Virgin Mary, by the four Gospels, quae in manibus 
" teneo, and by the holy archangels, Michael and Gabriel, puram conscientiam 
" germanuinque servitium me servaturum, sacratissimis DDNN. Justiniano et 
" Theodoree conjugi ejus. {Novell, viii. tit. 3.) 

" The beauty of Theodora was the subject of more flattering praise, and the 
" source of more exquisite delight ; and either love or adulation might proclaim, 
" that painting and poetry were incapable of delineating the matchless excellence 
" of her form. But this form was degraded by the facility with which it was 
" exposed to the public eye, and prostituted to licentious desire. 

" The prudence of Theodora is celebrated by Justinian himself, and his laws 
" are attributed to the sage councils of his most reverend wife, whom he had 
" received as a gift of the Deity. 

" If she employed her influence," continues Gibbon, " to assuage the intolerant 
" fury of the emperor, the present age will allow some merit to her religion." 

The fearful excesses and depravity of her early life, her rapacious avarice, 
inexorable cruelty, implacable vengeance, and a few minor indiscretions, such as 
the supposed murder of her illegitimate son, who was never seen alive after 
entering her palace, cannot be counted against the merits of her great services to 
the cause of true religion, and the unquestioned influence she exerted, from her 
position as empress, and her power over the mind of Justinian, in formulating 
and establishing, in concert with her favorite eunuchs and certain holy bishops, 
those creeds and dogmas which were then under discussion, which have since 
" been cemented with the blood of martyrs," and which orthodox bigots now 
claim great merit for blindly believing with unquestioning faith, or bitterly 
opposing with holy Christian zeal, according to the respective catechisms they 
have been taught to revere. 

" Two years after her death, St. Theodora is celebrated by Paulus Silentiarius 
" (in Proem. 5, 58-62.) " 

"Let us wonder and adore," says M. de Voltaire, "when confronted with 
" Christian mvsteries, at which reason revolts and decency shudders."— E. 



REPOSE OF THE CHURCH. 255 

had embraced the new religion. The nurse as well as the 
preceptor of Caracalla were Christians ; * and if that young 
prince ever betrayed a sentiment of humanity, it was occa- 
sioned by an incident which, however trifling, bore some 
relation to the cause of Christianity. 108 Under the reign of 
Severus, the fury of the populace was checked ; the rigor 
of ancient laws was for some time suspended ; and the pro- 
vincial governors were satisfied with receiving an annual 
present from the churches within their jurisdiction, as the 
price, or as the reward of their moderation. 109 The contro- 
versy concerning the precise time of the celebration of 
Easter, armed the bishops of Asia and Italy against each 
other, and was considered as the most important business 
of this period of leisure and tranquillity. 110 Nor 
was the peace of the church interrupted, till a. d. 198. 
the increasing numbers of proselytes seem at 
length to have attracted the attention and to have alienated 
the mind of Severus. With the design of restraining the 
progress of Christianity, he published an edict, which, 
though it was designed to affect only the new converts, 
could not be carried into strict execution without ex- 
posing to danger and punishment the most zealous of their 
teachers and missionaries. In this mitigated persecution we 
may still discover the indulgent spirit of Rome and of 
Polytheism, which so readily admitted every excuse in 
favor of those who practiced the religious ceremonies of 
their fathers. 111 

But the laws which Severus had enacted soon 
expired with the authority of that emperor ; and of the suc- 
the Christians, after this accidental tempest, en- c ||veru° f 
joyed a calm of thirty-eight years. 112 Till this a. d. 211-249. 
period they had usually held their assem- 
blies in private houses and sequestered places. They were 

los Compare the life of Caracalla in the Augustan History, with the epistle of 
Tertullian to Scapula. Dr. Jortin {Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p 5, 
&c.) considers the cure of Severus, by the means of holy oil, with a strong desire 
to convert it into a miracle. 

109 Tertullian de Fuga, c. 13. The present was made during the feast of the 
Saturnalia; and it is a matter of serious concern to Tertullian, that the faithful 
should be confounded with the most infamous professions which purchased the 
connivance of the government. 

no Euseb. 1. v. c. 23, 24. Mosheim, pp. 435-447. 

111 Judaeos fieri sub gravi poena vetuit. Idem etiam de Christianis sanxit. 
Hist. August, p. 70. 

112 Sulpicius Severus, 1. ii. p. 384. This computation (allowing for a single ex- 
ception) is confirmed by the history of Eusebius, and by the writings of Cyprian. 

* The Jews and Christians contest the honor of having furnished a nurse to the 
fratricide son of Severus, Caracalla., Hist, of yews iii. 158.— Milman. 



256 origen's interview with mamm.ea. 

now permitted to erect and consecrate convenient edifices 
for the purpose of religious worship ; m to purchase lands, 
even at Rome itself, for the use of the community ; and to 
conduct the elections of their ecclesiastical ministers in so 
public, but, at the same time, in so exemplary a manner, as 
to deserve the respectful attention of the Gentiles. 114 This 
long repose of the church was accompanied with dignity. 
The reigns of those princes who derived their extraction 
from the Asiatic provinces proved the most favorable to the 
Christians ; the eminent persons of the sect, instead of being 
reduced to implore the protection of a slave or concubine, 
were admitted into the palace in the honorable characters 
of priests and philosophers ; and their mysterious doctrines, 
which were already diffused among the people, insensibly 
attracted the curiosity of their sovereign. When the em- 
press Mammsea passed through Antioch, she expressed a 
desire of conversing with the celebrated Origen, the fame of 
whose piety and learning was spread over the East. Origen 
obeyed so flattering an invitation, and though he could not 
expect to succeed in the conversion of an artful and ambi- 
tious woman, she listened with pleasure to his eloquent 
exhortations, and honorably dismissed him to his retirement 
in Palestine. 115 The sentiments of Mammaea were adopted by 
her son Alexander, and the philosophical devotion of that 
emperor was marked by a singular, but injudicious, regard 
for the Christian religion. In his domestic chapel he placed 
the statues of Abraham, of Orpheus, of Apollonius, and of 
Christ,* as an honor justly due to those respectable sages 
who had instructed mankind in the various modes of 
addressing their homage to the supreme and universal 
Deity. 116 A purer faith, as well as worship, was openly 

us The antiquity of Christian churches is discussed by Tillemont (Memoires 
Ecclesiastiques, torn. iii. part ii. pp. 68-72), and by Mr. Moyle (vol. i. pp. 378-398). 
The former refers the first construction of them to the peace of Alexander 
Severus ; the later, to the peace of Gallienus. 

114 See the Aug. Hist., p. 130. The emperor Alexander adopted their method 
of publicly proposing the names of those persons who were candidates for ordina- 
tion. It is true, that the honor of this practice is likewise attributed to the Jews. 

115 Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. 1. vi. c. 21. Hieronym. de Script. Eccles. c. 54. 
Mammaea was styled a holy and pious woman, both by the Christians and the 
Pagans. From the former, therefore, it was impossible that she should deserve 
that honorable epithet. 

116 See the Augustan History, p. 123. Mosheim (p. 465) seems to refine too 
much on the domestic religion of Alexander. His design of building a public 
temple to Christ (Hist. August, p. 129), and the object which was suggested 
either to him, or in similar circumstances to Hadrian, appear to have no other 
foundation .than an improbable report, invented by the Christians, and credu- 
lously adopted by an historian of the age of Constantine. 



* Such broad and noble toleration deserves special commendation ; and such 
impartial and unprejudiced philosophers confer honor on the human race.— E. 



PHILIP BEFRIENDS THE CHRISTIANS. 257 

professed and practiced among his household. Bishops, 
perhaps for the first time, were seen at court; 
and, after the death of Alexander, when the A. d. 235. 
inhuman Maximin discharged his fury on the 
favorites and servants of his unfortunate benefactor, a great 
number of Christians of every rank, and of both sexes, were 
involved in the promiscuous massacre, which, on their 
account, has properly received the name of persecution. 117 f 

Notwithstanding the cruel disposition of Max- 
imin, the effects of his resentment against the ° f M. aximi "' 

' . , &> Philip, and 

Christians were 01 a very local and temporary Deems, 
nature, and the pious Origen, who had been 
proscribed as a devoted victim, was still reserved to convey 
the truths of the gospel to the ear of monarchs. 118 He 
addressed several edifying letters to the emperor 
Philip, to his wife, and to his mother ; and as a. d. 244. 
soon as that prince, who was born in the neigh- 
borhood of Palestine, had usurped the imperial sceptre, the 
Christians acquired a friend and a protector. The public 
and even partial favor of Philip towards the sectaries of the 
new religion, and his constant reverence for the ministers 
of the church, gave some color to the suspicion, which pre- 
vailed in his own times, that the emperor himself was become 
a convert to the faith ; 119 and afforded some grounds for a 

1" Euseb. 1. vi. c. 28. It may be presumed that the success of the Christians 
had exasperated the increasing bigotry of the Pagans. Dion Cassius, who com- 
posed his history under the former reign, had most probably intended for the 
use of his master those counsels of persecution, which he ascribes to a better age, 
and to the favorite of Augustus. Concerning this oration of Maecenas, or rather 
of Dion,* I may refer to my own unbiassed opinion (vol. i. c. 1, note), and to the 
Abbe de la Bleterie Memoir es de V ' Academie, torn. xxiv. p. 303, torn. xxv. p. 432). 

118 Orosius, 1. vii. c. 19, mentions Origen as the object of Maximin's resentment; 
and Firmilianus, a Cappadocian bishop of that age, gives a just and confined idea 
of this persecution (apud Cyprian. Epist. 75). 

119 The mention of those princes who were publicly supposed to be Christians, 
as we find it in an epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria (ap. Euseb. 1. vii. c. 10), 
evidently alludes to Philip and his family, and forms a contemporary evidence, 
that such a report had prevailed ; but the Egyptian bishop, who lived at an 
humble distance from the court of Rome, expresses himself with a becoming 
diffidence concerning the truth of the fact. The epistles of Origen (which were 
extant in the time of Eusebius, see 1. vi. c. 36) would most probably decide this 
curious, rather than important, question. 

* If this be the case, Dion Cassius must have known the Christians ; they must 
have been the subject of his particular attention, since the author supposes that 
he wished his master to profit by these " councils of persecution." How are we 
to reconcile this necessary consequence with what Gibbon has said of the ignor- 
ance of Dion Cassius even of the name of the Christians? (c. xvi. n. 24.) [Gibbon 
speaks of Dion's silence, not of his ignorance. — M.] The supposition in this note 
is supported by no proof; it is probable that Dion Cassius has often designated 
the Christians by the name of Jews. See Dion Cassius, 1. lxvii. c. 14, lxviii. 1. — G. 

On this point I should adopt the view of Gibbon rather than that of Guizot.— M. 

t It is with good reason that this massacre has been called a persecution, for it 
lasted during the whole reign of Maximin, as may be seen in Eusebius (1. vi. c. 28). 



258 THE FALL OF PHILIP. 

fable which was afterwards invented, that he had been 
purified by confession and penance from the guilt contracted 
by the murder of his innocent predecessor. 120 The fall of 

Philip introduced, with the change of masters, 
a. d. 249. a new system of government, so oppressive to 

the Christians, that their Tormer condition, ever 
since the time of Domitian, was represented as a state of 
perfect freedom and security if compared with the rigorous 
treatment which they experienced under the short reign of 
Decius. 121 The virtues of that prince will scarcely allow us 
to suspect that he was actuated by a mean resentment 
against the favorites of his predecessor; and it is more 
reasonable to believe that, in the prosecution of his general 
design to restore the purity of the Roman manners, he was 
desirous of delivering the empire from what he condemned 
as a recent and criminal superstition. The bishops of the 
most considerable cities were removed by exile or death ; 
the vigilance of the magistrates prevented the clergy of 
Rome, during sixteen months, from proceeding to a new 
election ; and it was the opinion of the Christians that the 
emperor would more patiently endure a competitor for the 
purple than a bishop in the capital. 122 Were it possible to 
suppose that the penetration of Decius had discovered 

120 Euseb. 1. vi. c. 34. The story, as is usual, has been embellished by succeeding 
(writers, and is confuted, with much superfluous learning, by Frederick Spanheim. 
Opera Varia, torn. ii. p. 400, &c.) 

121 Lactantius, de Mortibus Perse cut orunt, c. 3, 4. After celebrating the felicity 
and increase of the church, under a long succession of good princes, he adds, 
" Extitit post annos plurimos, execrabile animal, Decius, qui vexarat ecclesiam." 

122 Euseb. 1. vi. c. 39. Cyprian. Epistol. 55. The see of Rome remained vacant 
from the martyrdom of Fabianus, the 20th of January, A. D. 250, till the election 
of Cornelius, the 4th of June, A. D. 251. Decius had probably left Rome, since he 
was killed before the end of that year. 



Rufinus expressly confirms it: Tribus annis a Maximino persecutione commota, 
in quibus finem et persecutionis fecit et vitae. Hist. 1. vi. c. 19. — Guizot. 

It is scarcely possible that, in the third century, the Christians should have 
been unknown' to such a writer as Dion Cassius, whose character, as an historian, 
is illustrated with so much ability and learning by M. Niebuhr, in the introduction 
to his Lectures on Roman History (p. 61). Nor did Gibbon impute such 
"ignorance" to him; he only said, that through "careless indifference," he 
had neglected them, and that Xiphilin could not find their name in his work. 
M. Guizot has here adopted Mr. Davis's impeachment (p. 82), and overlooked 
Gibbon's Vindication (p. 59-63) so triumphant as to make his accuser confess, in 
his Reply, (p. 26), that he could not be peremptory in this charge." It matters 
little whether an emperor persecuted more or less, and whether the Christians were 
known or not to a particular historian. We have before us the broad, undeniable 
fact, that they multiplied in number and increased in power, till they suppressed 
polytheism, and converted the whole Roman empire. The two questions, which 
this suggests, are, What were the causes of the change, and what its effects ? 
From these our attention should not be drawn off to trifling points. — Eng. Ch. 

This argument of the English Churchman seems conclusive. That the Chris- 
tians rapidly increased in power and influence, notwithstanding their alleged per- 
ecution, is shown from the fact that they soon overthrew the Roman empire, and 
" erected the triumphant banner of the cross on the ruins of the capitol."— E. 



VALERIAN AND GALLIENUS. 259 

pride under the disguise of humility, or that he could 
foresee the temporal dominion which might insensibly 
arise from the claims of spiritual authority, we might be 
less surprised that he should consider the successors of 
St. Peter as the most formidable rivals to those of 
Augustus. 

The administration of Valerian was distin- 
guished by a levity and inconstancy, ill suited of Valerian, 
to the gravity of the Roman censor. In the G a n ^his S ' 
first part of his reign, he surpassed in clemency successors. 
those princes who had been suspected of an A * D * 253_26 °- 
attachment to the Christian faith. In the last 
three years and a half, listening to the insinuations of a 
minister addicted to the superstitions of Egypt, he adopted 
the maxims, and imitated the severity, of his predecessor 
Decius. 123 The accession of Gallienus, which increased the 
calamities of the empire, restored peace to the church ; and 
the Christians obtained the free exercise of their religion 
by an edict addressed to the bishops, and conceived in such 
terms as seemed to acknowledge their office and public 
character. 124 The ancient laws, without being formally re- 
pealed, were suffered to sink into oblivion ; and (excepting 
only some hostile intentions which are attributed to the 
emperor Aurelian 125 ) the disciples of Christ passed above 
forty years in a state of prosperity far more dangerous to 
their virtue than the severest trials of persecution. 

The story of Paul of Samosata, who filled the 
metropolitan see of Antioch, while the East was S ata, his man- 
in the hands of Odenathus and Zenobia, may ne £ s, D 26o 
serve to illustrate the condition and character 

123 Euseb. 1. vii. c. 10. Mosheim (p. 548) has very clearly shown, that the prse- 
fect Macrianus, and the Egyptian Magus are one and the same person. 

124 Eusebius (I. vii. c. 13) gives us a Greek version of this Latin edict, which 
seems to have been very concise. By another edict, he directed that the Cceme- 
teria should be restored to the Christians. 

125 Euseb. 1. vii. c. 30. Lactantius de M. P. c. 6. Hieronym. in Chron. p. 177. 
Crosius, 1. vii. c. 23. Their language is in general so ambiguous and incorrect, 
that we are at a loss to determine how far Aurelian had carried his intentions 
before he was assassinated. Most of the moderns (except Dodwell, Dissertat. 
Cyprian, xi. 64) have seized the occasion of gaining a few extraordinary martyrs.* 

* Dr. Lardner has detailed, with his usual impartiality, all that has come down 
to us relating to the persecution of Aurelian, and concludes by saying, "Upon 
" more carefully examining the words of Eusebius, and observing the accounts 
" of other authors, learned men have generally, and, as I think, very judiciously, 
" determined, that Aurelian not only intended, but did actually persecute: but his 
" persecution was short, he having died soon after the publication of his edicts." 
Heathen Test. c. xxxvi. — Basnage positively pronounces the same opinion : Non 
intentatum modo, sed executum quoque brevissimo tempore mandatum, nobis 
infixum est in animis. Basn. Ann. 275, No. 2, and compare Pagi Ann. 272, Nos. 4, 
I2 > 2 73- — Guizpt. 



260 PAUL OF SAMOSATA. 

of the times. The wealth of that prelate was a suffi- 
cient evidence of his guilt, since it was neither derived 
from the inheritance of his fathers, nor acquired by the arts 
of honest industry. But Paul considered the service of the 
church as a very lucrative profession. 126 His ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction was venal and rapacious ; he extorted frequent 
contributions from the most opulent of the faithful, and 
converted to his own use a considerable part of the public 
revenue. By his pride and luxury, the Christian religion 
was rendered odious in the eyes of the Gentiles. His 
council-chamber and his throne, the splendor with which 
he appeared in public, the suppliant crowd who solicited 
his attention, the multitude of letters and petitions to which 
he dictated his answers, and the perpetual hurry of business 
in which he was involved, were circumstances much better 
suited to the state of a civil magistrate, 127 than to the humility 
of a primitive bishop. When he harangued his people 
from the pulpit, Paul affected the figurative style and the 
theatrical gestures of an Asiatic sophist, while the cathedral 
resounded with the loudest and most extravagant acclama- 
tions in praise of his divine eloquence. Against those who 
resisted his power, or refused to flatter his vanity, the 
prelate of Antioch was arrogant, rigid, and inexorable ; but 
he relaxed the discipline, and lavished the treasures of the 
church on his dependent clergy, who were permitted to 
imitate their master in the gratification of every sensual 
appetite ; for Paul indulged himself very freely in the 
pleasures of the table, and he had received into the epis- 
copal palace two young and beautiful women, as the con- 
stant companions of his leisure moments. 128 

Heisde- Notwithstanding these scandalous vices, if 

g the see fl of m ^ au ^ °^ Samosata had preserved the purity of 

Antioch. the orthodox faith, his reign over the capital of 

a. d. 270. Syria would have ended only with his life ; and 

126 Paul was better pleased with the title of Ducenarius, than with that of bishop. 
The Ducenarius was an imperial procurator, so called from his salary of two 
hundred Sestertia, or 1600/. a year. (See Salmasius ad Hist. August, p. 124.) 
Some critics suppose that the bishop of Antioch had actually obtained such an 
office from Zenobia, while others consider it only as a figurative expression of his 
pomp and insolence. 

127 Simony was not unknown in those times ; and the clergy sometimes bought 
what they intended to sell. It appears that the bishopric of Carthage was pur- 
chased by a wealthy matron, named Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The 
price was 400 folles. {Monument. Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every follis 
contained 125 pieces of silver, and the whole sum maybe computed at about 2400/. 

128 if we are desirous of extenuating the vices of Paul, we must suspect the 
assembled bishops of the East of publishing the most malicious calumnies in cir- 
cular epistles addressed to all the churches of the empire (ap. Enseb. 1. vii. c. 30). 



DEPOSITION OF PAUL. 261 

had a seasonable persecution intervened, an effort of 
courage might perhaps have placed him in the rank 
of saints and martyrs.* Some nice and subtle errors, 
which he imprudently adopted and obstinately maintained, 
concerning the doctrine of the Trinity, excited the zeal and 
indignation of. the Eastern churches. 129 From Egypt to 
the Euxine Sea, the bishops were in arms and in motion. 
Several councils were held, confutations were published, 
excommunications were pronounced, ambiguous explana- ! 
tions were by turns accepted and refused, treaties were 
concluded and violated, and at length Paul of Samosata 
was degraded from his episcopal character by the sentence 
of seventy or eighty bishops, who assembled for that pur- 
pose at Antioch, and who, without consulting the rights of 
the clergy or people, appointed a successor by their own 
authority. The manifest irregularity of this proceeding 
increased the numbers of the discontented faction ; and as 
Paul, who was no stranger to the arts of courts, had insinu- 
ated himself into the favor of Zenobia, he maintained above 
four years the possession of the episcopal house and omce.f 
The victory of Aurelian changed the face of the East, and 
the two contending parties, who applied to each other the 
epithets of schism and heresy, were either commanded or 
permitted to plead their cause before the tribunal of the 
conqueror. This public and very singular trial affords a 
convincing proof that the existence, the property, the privi- 
leges, and the internal policy of the Christians, were ac- 
knowledged, if not by the laws, at least by the magistrates, 
of the empire. As a Pagan and as a soldier, it could 
scarcely be expected that Aurelian should enter into the 

129 His heresy (like those of Noetus and Sabellius, in the same century) tended to 
confound the mysterious distinction of the divine persons. See Mosheim, p. 702, &c. 

* It appears, nevertheless, that the vices and immoralities of Paul of Samosata 
had much weight in the sentence pronounced against him by the bishops. The 
object of the letter, addressed by the synod to the bishops of Rome and Alexan- 
dria, was to inform them of the change in the faith of Paul, the altercations and 
discussions to which it had given rise, as well as of his morals and the whole of 
his conduct. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. vii. c. xxx.— Guizot. 

f " Her favorite (Zenobia's), Paul of Samosata, seems to have entertained some 
" views of attempting a union between Judaism and Christianity ; both parties 
" rejected the unnatural alliance." Hist, of yews, iii. 175, and Geschichte der 
Israeliter, iv. 167. The protection of the severe Zenobia is the only circumstance 
which may raise a doubt of the notorious immorality of Paul.— Milman. 

As this gifted orator, and ornament of the Christian church, received into 
the episcopal palace but "two young and beautiful women, as the companions of 
" his leisure moments," perhaps the term " notorious immorality " is rather too 
severe, when applied to a holy prelate whose "divine eloquence" elicited from 
his hearers "the loudest and most extravagant acclamations." We, therefore, 
agree with the worthy Dean Milman, that it is best to " raise a doubt." — E. 



262 REIGN OF DIOCLETIAN. 

discussion whether the sentiments of Paul or those of his 
adversaries were most agreeable to the true standard of the 
orthodox faith. His determination, however, was founded 
on the general principles of equity and reason. 
ilexecuSby He considered the bishops of Italy as the most 
Aureiian. impartial and respectable judges among the 
2/4 ' Christians, and, as soon as he was informed that 
they had unanimously approved the sentence of the council, 
he acquiesced in their opinion, and immediately gave orders 
that Paul should be compelled to relinquish the temporal 
possessions belonging to an office, of which, in the judg- 
ment of his brethren, he had been regularly deprived. But 
while we applaud the justice, we should not overlook the 
policy, of Aureiian ; who was desirous of restoring and 
cementing the dependence of the provinces on the capital, 
by every means which could bind the interest or prejudices 
of any part of his subjects. 130 

, Amidst the frequent revolutions of the empire, 

Pence 3.nd . ± ' 

prosperity of the Christians still flourished in peace and pros- 
sunder 011 perity ; and notwithstanding a celebrated era of 
Diocletian, martyrs has been deduced from the accession of 
4-303. TJi oc i e tian, 131 the new system of policy, intro- 
duced and maintained by the wisdom of that prince, con- 
tinued, during more than eighteen years, to breathe the 
mildest and most liberal spirit of religious toleration. The 
mind of Diocletian himself was less adapted indeed to 
speculative inquiries than to the active labors of war and 
government. His prudence rendered him averse to any 
great innovation, and though his temper was not very 
susceptible of zeal or enthusiasm, he always maintained an 
habitual regard for the ancient deities of the empire. But 
the leisure of the two empresses, of his wife Prisca, and of 
Valeria, his daughter, permitted them to listen with more 
attention and respect to the truths of Christianity, which, in 
every age, has acknowledged its important obligations to 
female devotion. 132 The principal eunuchs Lucian and 

130 Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. 1. vii. c. 30. We are entirely indebted to him for the 
curious story of Paul of Samosata. 

131 The era of Martyrs, which is still in use among the Copts and the Abys- 
sinians, must be reckoned from the 29th of August, A. D. 284; as the beginning 
of the Egyptian year was nineteen days earlier than the real accession of Diocle- 
tian. See Dissertation Preliminaire a V Art verifier les Dates* 

132 The expression of Lactantius (de M. P. c. 15), " sacrificio pollui coegit," 
implies their antecedent conversion to the faith, but does not seem to justify the 
assertion of Mosheim (p. 912), that they had been privately baptized. 

* On the era of martyrs, see the very curious dissertations of Mons. Letronne 
on some recently discovered inscriptions in Egypt and Nubia, p. 102, &c— M. 



CORRUPTION OF MANNERS AND DISCIPLINE. 263 

Dorotheus, 133 Gorgonius and Andrew, who attended the 
person, possessed the favor, and governed the household 
of Diocletian, protected by their powerful influence the 
faith which they had embraced. Their example was imi- 
tated by many of the most considerable officers of the 
palace, who, in their respective stations, had the care of 
the imperial ornaments, of the robes, of the furniture, of 
the jewels, and even of the private treasury ; and, though 
it might sometimes be incumbent on them to accompany 
the emperor when he sacrificed in the temple, 134 they en- 
joyed with their wives, their children, and their slaves, the 
free exercise of the Christian religion. Diocletian and his 
colleagues frequently conferred the most important offices 
on those persons who avowed their abhorrence for the 
worship of the gods, but who had displayed abilities proper 
for the service of the state. The bishops held an honorable 
rank in their respective provinces, and were treated with 
distinction and respect, not only by the people, but by the 
magistrates themselves. Almost in every city, the ancient 
churches were found insufficient to contain the increasing 
multitude of proselytes ; and, in their place, more stately 
and capacious edifices were erected for the public worship 
of the faithful. The corruption of manners and principles, 
so forcibly lamented by Eusebius, 135 may be considered, 
not only as a consequence, but as a proof, of the liberty 
which the Christians enjoyed and abused under the reign 
of Diocletain. Prosperity had relaxed the nerves of dis- 
cipline. Fraud, envy, and malice prevailed in every con- 
gregation. The presbyters aspired to the episcopal office, 
which every day became an object more worthy of their 
ambition. The bishops, who contended with each other 
for ecclesiastical pre-eminence, appeared by their conduct 
to claim a secular and tyrannical power in the church ; and 
the lively faith which still distinguished the Christians from 
the Gentiles, was shown much less in their lives than in 
their controversial writings. 

Notwithstanding this seeming security, an at- ^etTSd^ 
tentive observer might discern some symptoms superstition 
that threatened the church with a more violent a pagfn S he 

133 M. de Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn. v. part i. pp. 11, 12) has quoted from 
the Spicilegium of Dom Luc d'Acheri a very curious instruction which Bishop 
Theonas composed for the use of Lucian. 134 Lactantius, de M. P. c. 10. 

135 Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. 1. viii. c. 1. The reader who consults the original 
will not accuse me of heightening the picture. Eusebius was about sixteen years 
of age at the accession of the emperor Diocletian. 



264 EFFORTS TO REVIVE PAGANISM. 

persecution than any which she had yet endured. The 
zeal and rapid progress of the Christians awakened the 
Polytheists from their supine indifference in the cause 
of those deities, whom custom and education had taught 
them to revere. The mutual provocations of a religious 
war, which had already continued above two hundred 
years, exasperated the animosity of the contending parties. 
The Pagans were incensed at the rashness of a recent 
and obscure sect, which presumed to accuse their country- 
men of error, and to devote their ancestors to eternal 
misery. The habits of justifying the popular mythology 
against the invectives of an implacable enemy, produced 
in their minds some sentiments of faith and reverence 
for a system which they had been accustomed to consider 
with the most careless levity. The supernatural powers 
assumed by the church inspired at the same time terror 
and emulation. The followers of the established religion 
intrenched themselves behind a similar fortification of prod- 
igies ; invented new modes of sacrifice, of expiation, and of 
initiation ; 136 attempted to revive the credit of their expiring 
oracles ; 137 and listened with eager credulity to every im- 
postor, who flattered their prejudices by a tale of wonders. 138 
Both parties seemed to acknowledge the truth of those 
miracles which were claimed by their adversaries ; and 
while they were contented with ascribing them to the arts 
of magic, and to the power of demons, they mutually con- 
curred in restoring and establishing the reign of supersti- 
tion. 139 Philosophy, her most dangerous enemy, was now 

13G We might quote, among a great number of instances, the mysterious worship 
of Mithras, and the Taurobolia; the latter of which became fashionable in the 
time of the Antonines (see a Dissertation of M. de Boze, in the Memoires de 
I'Academie des Inscriptions, torn. ii. p. 443.) The romance of Apuleius is as full 
of devotion as of satire. 

is: The impostor Alexander very strongly recommended the oracle of Tropho- 
nius at Mallos, and those of Apollo at Claros and Miletus (Lucian, torn. ii. p. 236, 
edit. Reitz). The last of these, whose singular history would furnish a very 
curious episode, was consulted by Diocletian before he published his edicts of 
persecution. (Lactantius, de M. P. c. 11). 

138 Besides the ancient stories of Pythagoras and Aristeas, the cures performed 
at the shrine of JEsculapius and the fables related of Apollonius of Tyana were 
frequently opposed to the miracles of Christ ; though I agree with Dr. Lardner 
(see Testimonies, vol. iii. pp. 253, 352), that when Philostratus composed the Life 
of Apollonius , he had no such intention. * 

139 It is seriously to be lamented, that the Christian fathers, by acknowledging 
the supernatural, or, as they deem it, the infernal part of Paganism, destroy with 
their own hands the great advantage which we might otherwise derive from the 
liberal concessions of our adversaries. 

*See A Sketch of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, by Daniel M. Tredwell, (New 
York, 1886.) This learned author has ably opposed, like Philostratus, the mirac- 
ulous " fables " with the fabulous " miracles." — E. 



DECLINE OF PHILOSOPHY. 265 

converted into her most useful ally. The groves of the 
Academy, the gardens of Epicurus, and even the Portico 
of the Stoics, were almost deserted, as so many different 
schools of skepticism or impiety : 14 ° and many among the 
Romans were desirous that the writings of Cicero should 
be condemned and suppressed by the authority of the 
senate. 141 The prevailing sect of the new Platonicians 
judged it prudent to connect themselves with the priests, 
whom perhaps they despised, against the Christians, whom 
they had reason to fear. These fashionable philosophers 
prosecuted the design of extracting allegorical wisdom 
from the fictions of the Greek poets ; instituted mysterious 
rites of devotion for the use of their chosen disciples ; 
recommended the worship of the ancient gods as the 
emblems or ministers of the Supreme Deity, and com- 
posed against the faith of the gospel many elaborate 
treatises, 142 which have since been committed to the flames 
by the prudence of orthodox emperors. 143 

Although the policy of Diocletian and the 
humanity of Constantius inclined them to pre- a Jd a G™Ss 
serve inviolate the maxims of toleration, it was punish a few 
soon discovered that their two associates, Max- soldiers" 
imian and Galerius, entertained the most impla- 
cable aversion for the name and religion of the Christians. 
The minds of those princes had never been enlightened 

140 Julian (p. 301, edit. Spanheim) expresses a pious joy, that the providence of 
the gods had extinguished the impious sects, and for the most part destroyed the 
books of the Pyrrhonians and Epicureans, which had been very numerous, since 
Epicurus himself composed no less than 300 volumes. See Diog&nes Laertius, 
1. x. c. 26. 

141 Cumque alios audiam mussitare indignanter, et dicere oportere statui per 
Senatum, aboleantur ut hsec scripta, quibus Christiana religio comprobetur, et 
vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas. Arnobius adversus Gentes. 1. iii. pp. 103, 104. 
He adds very properly, Erroris convincite Ciceronem * * * nam intercipere 
scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deum defendere sed 
veritatis testificationem timere. 

142 Lactantius {Divin. Institut. 1. v. c. 2, 3) gives a very clear and spirited account 
of two of these philosophic adversaries of the faith. The large treatise of Porphyry 
against the Christians consisted of thirty books, and was composed in Sicily 
about the year 270. * 

143 See Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. 1. i. c. 9, and Codex Justinian. 1. i. tit. i. I. 3. 



* Philosophy cannot have been, as Gibbon admits, " the most dangerous enemy " 
of polytheism, without having been at the same time and in an equal degree the 
friend of Christianity. By its aid, the latter was nurtured into such vigor ,f that 
about the middle of the third century, its adversaries conceived the idea of 
reviving heathenism by similar means. To this end, Celsus, Plotinus, Porphyry, 
and Iamblichus directed their useless efforts, and for this the extravagant portion 
of the New Platonists were encouraged in the fantastic doctrines which they 
invented.— Eng. Ch. 

f If Christianity was nurtured into vigor by philosophy, as is here asserted, 
gratitude for past favors should now induce Christians to restrain their zeal, and 
prevent them from persecuting their benefactors.— E. 



266 SENTENCE OF MAXIMILIANUS. 

by science ; education had never softened their temper, 
They owed their greatness to their swords, and in their 
most elevated fortunes they still retained their superstitious 
prejudices of soldiers and peasants. In the general admin- 
istration of the provinces they obeyed the laws which their 
benefactor had established ; but they frequently found 
occasions of exercising within their camp and palaces 
a secret persecution, 144 for which the imprudent zeal of 
the Christians sometimes offered the most specious pre- 
tences. A sentence of death was executed upon Maximili- 
anus, an African youth, who had been produced by his 
own father * before the magistrate as a sufficient and legal 
recruit, but who obstinately persisted in declaring that his 
conscience would not permit him to embrace the profession 
of a soldier. 145 It could scarcely be expected that any 

i+» Eusebius, 1. viii. c. 4, c. 17. He limits the number of military martyrs, by a 
remarkable expression (onavius tovtcjv e/f nov icai devrepog), of which neither 
his Latin noi- French translator have rendered the energy. Notwithstanding the 
authority of Eusebius, and the silence of Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius, Orosius, 
&c, it has long been believed, that the Thebcean legion, consisting of 6000 Chris- 
tians, suffered martyrdom by the order of Maximian, in the valley of the Peninne 
Alps. The story was first published about the middle of the 5th century, by 
Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who received it from certain persons, who received 
it from Isaac, bishop of Geneva, who is said to have reeeived it from Theodore, 
bishop of Octodurum. The abbey of St. Maurice still subsists, a rich monument of 
the credulity of Sigismund, king of Burgundy. See an excellent Dissertation in 
the xxxvith volume of the Bibliotheque Raisonnee, pp. 427-454. 

i« See the Acta Sincera, 299. The accounts of his martyrdom, and of that of 
Marcellus, bear every mark of truth and authenticity. 

* This anecdote, when fully related, places the young man before us in a different 
point of view. Maximilian was the son of Victor, a Numidian soldier and a 
Christian. He was not "produced by his own father before the magistrate, as a 
" sufficient and legal recruit." The sons of soldiers were obliged to enter the 
army, when twenty-one years of age, and as such Maximilian was enrolled. He 
refused obstinately, on account of the Pagan ceremonies, in which he could not 
join, and not because " his conscience would not permit him to embrace the pro- 
" fession of a soldier." The father, when called upon by the magistrate to repri- 
mand his son, replied: " He has his reasons, and knows what he is doing." 
(Habet concilium suum, quid illi expediat.) Maximilian, having been condemned 
to death, Victor went his way, returning thanks to heaven, that had given him 
such a son. — Guizot. 

M. Guizot criticizes Gibbon's account of the incident. He supposes that 
Maximilian was not "produced by his father as a recruit," but was obliged to 
appear by the law, which compelled the sons of soldiers to serve at 21 years old. 
Was not this a law of Constantine ? Neither does this circumstance appear in the 
acts. His father had clearly expected him to serve, as he had bought him a new 
dress for the occasion; yet he refused to force the conscience of his son, and 
when Maximilian was condemned to death, the father returned home in joy, 
blessing God for having bestowed upon him such a son. — Milman. 

M. Guizot's version does not differ materially from Gibbon's, except in one 
point, and in that Dean Milman questions his accuracy, and asks: "Was not 
" the law which compelled the sons of soldiers to serve at twenty-one years old, 
" a law of Constantine ? " A more correct opinion of this transaction may be 
formed, by looking to what is stated by Gibbon in the next chapter, under the 
head of " Difficulty of levies," and by Niebuhr in vol. iii. of his Lectures, p. 152. 
We may there see, that the lands bestowed on veterans had from some unknown 
period been subject to the condition, that their sons should devote themselves to 
il.e profession of arms, as soon as they attained the age of manhood.— Eng. Ch. 



MARCELLUS THE CENTURION. 267 

government should suffer the action of Marcellus the 
centurion to pass with impunity. On the day of a public 
festival, that officer threw away his belt, his arms, and the 
ensigns of his office, and exclaimed with a loud voice that 
he would obey none but Jesus Christ, the eternal King, and 
that he renounced forever the use of carnal weapons, and 
the sendee of an idolatrous master. The soldiers, as soon 
as they recovered from their astonishment, secured the 
person of Marcellus. He was examined in the city of Tingi 
by the president of that part of Mauritania ; and as he was 
convicted by his own confession, he was condemned and 
beheaded for the crime of desertion. 146 Examples of such a 
nature savor much less of religious persecution than of 
martial or even civil law ; but they served to alienate the 
mind of the emperors, to justify the severity of Galerius, 
who dismissed a great number of Christian officers from 
their employments ; and to authorize the opinion that a 
sect of enthusiasts, which avowed principles so repugnant 
to the public safety, must either remain useless, or would 
soon become dangerous, subjects of the empire. 

After the success of the Persian war had Galerius pre . 
raised the hopes and the reputation of Galerius, yaiis upon 
he passed a winter with Diocletian in the palace begirfa gen- 
of Nicomedia ; and the fate of Christianity be- erai persecu- 
came the object of their secret consultations. 147 
The experienced emperor was still inclined to pursue 

146 Acta Sincera, p. 302.* 

147 De M. P. c. 11. Lactantius (or whoever was the author of this little treatise) 
was, at that time, an inhabitant of Nicomedia ; but it seems difficult to conceive 
how he could acquire so accurate a knowledge of what passed in the imperial 
cabinet.f 



*The case of Marcellus was like that of Maximilian. On public festivals, those 
who were present sacrificed to the gods. He refused to join in this, saying : 
" If it be the fate of a soldier to sacrifice to the gods and the emperors, I 
"renounce my oath (vitem) : I take off my belt: I abandon my ensigns, and 
" refuse to serve." So it is related by Ruinart, in the Acta Shicera, as referred 
to. It is evident that Marcellus withdrew from the service for no other reason, 
than that he was compelled to sacrifice to false gods. — Guizot. 

M. Guizot here justly observes, that it was the necessity of sacrificing to the 
gods, which induced Marcellus to act in this manner. — Milman. 

In this note, M. Guizot has followed Dr. Chelsum (p. 114-117) and disregarded 
Gibbon's reply (p. 120-126). The facts are substantially the same in the two state- 
ments; but Gibbon adds to his, that military law treated such conduct as " the 
" crime of desertion." This cannot surely be denied. Even in these days, would 
not the articles of war punish a soldier so acting, as a mutineer or deserter? So 
long as there are armies, insubordination must be a crime. — Eng. Ch. 

f Lactantius, who was subsequently chosen by Constantine to educate Crispus, 
might easily have learned these details from Constantine himself, already of suffi- 
cient age to interest himself in the affairs of the government, and in a position 
to obtain the best information. — Guizot. 

This assumes the doubtful point of the authorship of the Treatise.— Milman. 



268 INTRIGUES AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS. 

measures of lenity ; and though he readily consented to 
exclude the Christians from holding any employments in 
the household or the army, he urged in the strongest terms 
the danger as well as cruelty of shedding the blood of those 
deluded fanatics. Galerius at length extorted* from him 
the permission of summoning a council, composed of a few k 
persons the most distinguished in the civil and military 
departments of the state. The important question was 
agitated in their presence, and those ambitious courtiers 
easily discerned that it was incumbent on them to second, 
by their eloquence, the importunate violence of the Caesar. 
It may be presumed, that they insisted on every topic which 
might interest the pride, the piety, or the fears, of their 
sovereign in the destruction of Christianity. Perhaps they 
represented that the glorious work of the deliverance of 
the empire was left imperfect, so long as an independent 
people was permitted to subsist and multiply in the heart 
of the provinces. The Christians (it might speciously be 
alleged), renouncing the gods and the institutions of Rome, 
had constituted a distinct republic, which might yet be 
suppressed before it had acquired any military force ; but 
which was already governed by its own laws and magis- 
trates, was possessed of a public treasure, and was inti- 
mately connected in all its parts by the frequent assemblies 
of the bishops, to whose decrees their numerous and opulent 
congregations yielded an implicit obedience.*)" Arguments 
like these may seem to have determined the reluctant mind 
of Diocletian to embrace a new system of persecution ; 
but though we may suspect, it is not in our power to 
relate, the secret intrigues of the palace, the private views 

* This permision was not extorted from Diocletian ; he took the step of his own 
accord. Lactantius says, in truth, Nee tamen deflectere notuit (Diocletianus) 
praecipitis hominis insaniam : placuit ergo amicorum sententiam experiri. {De 
Mori. Pers. c. n.) But this measure was in accordance with the artificial char- 
acter of Diocletian, who wished to have the appearance of doing good by his own 
impulse, and evil by the impulse of others. Nam erat hujus malitae, cum bonum 
quid facere decrevisset, sine consilio faciebat, ut ipse laudaretur. Cum autem 
malum, quoniam id reprehendendum sciebat. in consilium multos advocabat, ut 
aliorum culpas adseriberetur quicquid ipse deliquerat. Lact. ib. Eutropius says 
likewise, Miratus callide fuit, sagax praeterea et admodum subtilis ingenio, et qui 
severitatem suam aliena invidia vellet explere. Eutrop. ix. c. 26. — Guizot. 

The manner in which the coarse and unfriendly pencil of the author of the 
Treatise de Mort. Pers. has drawn the character of Diocletian, seems inconsistent 
with this profound subtility. Many readers will perhaps agree with Gibbon. — M. 

t Persecution for religious opinion was foreign to the instincts and the tradi- 
tions of the Roman people, and these half-hearted and spasmodic efforts of 
repression, by consolidating the church and intensifying religious zeal, ultimately 
proved of great benefit to Christianity. The "successors of the apostles " and 
the followers of Islam were more successful as persecutors, because their fanati- 
cism was uncontaminated with the faintest spark of reason, and their bigotry 
was undiluted with even a suggestion of mercy. — E. 



DESTRUCTION OF CHURCHES. 269 

and resentments, the jealousy of women or eunuchs, and 
all those trifling but decisive causes which so often influence 
the fate of empires and the councils of the wisest monarchs. 148 

The pleasure of the emperors was at length 
signified to the Christians, who, during the Demolition of 
course of this melancholy winter, had expected, 4 ^£ °om^r ° f 
with anxiety, the result of so many secret con- a. d. 303. 
sultations. The twenty-third of February, which 23rd Feb * 
coincided with the Roman festival of the Ter- 
minalia, 119 was appointed (whether from accident or design) 
to set bounds to the progress of Christianity. At the 
earliest dawn of day, the Praetorian praefect, 150 accompanied 
by several generals, tribunes, and officers of the revenue, 
repaired to the principal church of Nicomedia, which 
was situated on an eminence in the most populous and 
beautiful part of the city. The doors were instantly 
broken open ; they rushed into the sanctuary ; and as they 
searched in vain for some visible object of worship, they 
were obliged to content themselves with committing to 
the flames the volumes of Holy Scripture. The ministers 
of Diocletian were followed by a numerous body of guards 
and pioneers, who marched in order of battle, and were 
provided with all the instruments used in the destruction 
of fortified cities. By their incessant labor, a sacred edifice, 
which towered above the imperial palace, and had long 
excited the indignation and envy of the Gentiles, was in 
a few hours leveled with the ground. 151 

14? The only circumstance which we can discover is the devotion and jealousy 
of the mother of Galerius. She is described by Lactantius, as Deorum montium 
cultrix ; mulier admodum superstitiosa, She had a great influence over her son, 
arid was offended by the disregard of some of her Christian servants.* 

U9 The worship and festival of the god Terminus are elegantly illustrated by 
M. de Boze, Mem. de V Academie des Inscriptions, torn. i. p. 50. f 

150 In our only MS. of Lactantius, we read profectus ; but reason, and the 
authority of all the critics, allow us, instead of that word, which destroys the 
sense of the passage, to substitute prcefectus. 

151 Lactantius, de M. P., c. 12, gives a very lively picture of the destruction of 
the church. 

* This disregard consisted in the Christians fasting and praying instead of par- 
ticipating in the banquets and sacrifices which she celebrated with the Pagans, 
Dapibus sacrificabat pcene quotidie, ac vicariis suis epulis exhibebat. Christiani 
abstinebant, et ilia cum gentibus epulante, jejuniis hi et orationibus insistebant ; 
hinc concepit odium adversus eos. Lact. de Hist. Pers. c. 11. — Guizot. 

If the mistress of a household now always found her servants "fasting and 
" praying," when they ought to be performing the work for which they were 
engaged, she would dismiss them ; and even conceive a dislike for the principles, 
however pious and commendable, by which they were so unfitted for the business 
of life.— Eng. Ch. 

f The statue of the Roman god Tertninus 'was usually employed to mark the 
boundaries of fields. Numa first introduced this usage, and ordained a festival, — 
the Terminalia, which was celebrated in February.— E. 



270 CONFISCATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 

The next day, the general edict of persecution 
The first edict was published; 152 and though Diocletian, still 

afristiViis 6 averse to tne effusion of blood, had moderated 
24th of ' the fury of Galerius, who proposed that every 

February. one re f usm g to offer sacrifice should imme- 
diately be burnt alive, the penalties inflicted on 
the obstinacy of the Christians might be deemed sufficiently 
rigorous and effectual. It was enacted that their churches, 
in all the provinces of the empire, should be demolished to 
their foundations ; and the punishment of death was de- 
nounced against all who should presume to hold any 
secret assemblies for the purpose of religious worship. The 
philosophers, who now assumed the unworthy office of 
directing the blind zeal of persecution, had diligently studied 
the nature and genius of the Christian religion ; and as they 
were not ignorant that the speculative doctrines of the faith 
were supposed to be contained in the writings of the pro- 
phets, of the evangelists, and of the apostles, they most 
probably suggested the order, that the bishops and presby- 
ters should deliver all their sacred books into the hands of 
the magistrates ; who were commanded, under the severest 
penalties, to burn them in a public and solemn manner. By 
the same edict, the property of the church was at once con- 
fiscated ; and the several parts of which it might consist 
were either sold to the highest bidder, united to the im- 
perial domain, bestowed on the cities and corporations, or 
granted to the solicitations of rapacious courtiers. After 
taking such effectual measures to abolish the worship, and 
to dissolve the government of the Christians, it was thought 
necessary to subject to the most intolerable hardships the 
condition of those perverse individuals who should still 
reject the religion of nature, of Rome, and of their ancestors. 
Persons of a liberal birth were declared incapable of holding 
any honors or employments ; slaves were forever deprived 
of the hopes of freedom, and the whole body of the people 
were put out of the protection of the law. The judges were 
authorized to hear and to determine every action that was 
brought against a Christian. But the Christians were not 
permitted to complain of any injury which they themselves 
had suffered ; and thus those unfortunate sectaries were 
exposed to the severity, while they were excluded from the 

152 Mosheim (pp. 922-926), from many scattered passages of Lactantius and 
Eusebius, has collected a very just and accurate notion of this edict; though he 
sometimes deviates into conjecture and refinement. 



PUNISHMENT OF A CHRISTIAN. 271 

benefits, of public justice. This new species of martyrdom, 
so painful and lingering, so obscure and ignominious, was, 
perhaps, the most proper to weary the constancy of the 
faithful ; nor can it be doubted, that the passions and 
interest of mankind were disposed on this occasion to 
second the design of the emperors. But the policy of a 
well-ordered government must sometimes have interposed 
in behalf of the oppressed Christians ; * nor was it possible 
for the Roman princes entirely to remove the apprehension 
of punishment, or to connive at every act of fraud and 
violence, without exposing their own authority and the rest 
of their subjects to the most alarming dangers. 153 
This edict v/as scarcely exhibited to the public _ 

• • 1 • 1 /- tvt» AC3.1 3.UCL 

view, in the most conspicuous place 01 JNico- punishment 
media, before it was torn down by the hands of christian. 
a Christian, who expressed, at the same time, 
by the bitterest invectives, his contempt as well as abhor- 
rence for such impious and tyrannical governors. His 
offence, according to the mildest laws, amounted to treason, 
and deserved death. And if it be true that he was a person 
of rank and education, those circumstances could serve only 
to aggravate his guilt. He was burnt, or rather roasted, 
by a slow fire ; and his executioners, zealous to revenge the 
personal insult which had been offered to the emperors, 
exhausted every refinement of cruelty, without being able 
subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and insulting 
smile which, in his dying agonies, he still preserved in his 
countenance. The Christians, though they confessed that 
his conduct had not been strictly conformable to the laws 
of prudence, admired the divine fervor of his zeal ; and the 
excessive commendations which they lavished on the mem- 
ory of their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep 
impression of terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian. 154 
His fears were soon alarmed by the view of a Fireofthe 
danger from which he very narrowly escaped. palace of 
Within fifteen days the palace of Nicomedia, JSp°£d d to 
and even the bedchamber of Diocletian, were the 

twice in flames ; and though both times they 

153 Manv ages afterwards, Edward I. practiced, with great success, the same 
mode of persecution against the clergy of England. See Hume's History of 
England, vol. ii. p. 300, 4to edition. 

154 Lactantius only calls him quidam, etsi non recte, magno tamen animo, &c, 
c. 12. Eusebius (1. viii. c. 5) adorns him with secular honors. Neither have con- 
descended to mention his name ; but the Greeks celebrate his memory under that 
of John. See Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, torn. v. part ii. p. 320. 

* This wants proof. The edict of Diocletian was executed in all its rigor during 
the rest nf his reign. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. viii c. 13.— Guizot. 



2; 2 SUPPOSED INCENDIARY FIRES. 

were extinguished without any material damage, the singu- 
lar repetition of the fire was justly considered as an evident 
proof that it had not been the effect of chance or negli- 
gence. The suspicion naturally fell upon the Christians ; 
and it was suggested, with some degree of probability, 
that those desperate fanatics, provoked by their present 
sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, had 
entered into a conspiracy with their faithful brethren, 
the eunuchs of the palace, against the lives of two emperors, 
whom they detested as the irreconcilable enemies of the 
church of God. Jealousy and resentment prevailed in 
every breast, and especially in that of Diocletian. A great 
number of persons, distinguished either by the offices 
which they had filled, or by the favor which they had en- 
joyed, were thrown into prison. Every mode of torture 
was put into practice, and the court, as well as city, was 
polluted with many bloody executions. 155 But as it was 
found impossible to extort any discovery of this mysterious 
transaction, it seems incumbent on us either to presume the 
innocence, or to admire the resolution, of the sufferers. 
A few days afterwards Galerius hastily withdrew himself 
from Nicomedia, declaring, that if he delayed his departure 
from that devoted palace, he should fall a sacrifice to the 
rage of the Christians. The ecclesiastical historians, from 
whom alone we derive a partial and imperfect knowledge 
of this persecution, are at a loss how to account for the 
fears and dangers of the emperors. Two of these writers, 
a prince and a rhetorician, were eye-witnesses of the fire of 
Nicomedia. The one ascribes it to lightning, and the di- 
vine wrath ; the other affirms, that it was kindled by the 
malice of Galerius himself. 156 

i- r >5 Lactantius de M. P. c. 13, 14. Potentissimi quondam Eunuchi necati, per 
quos Palatium et ipse constabat. Eusebius (1. viii. c. 6) mentions the cruel execu- 
tions of the eunuchs. Gorgonius and Dorotheus, and of Anthemius, bishop of 
Nicomedia ; and both these writers describe, in a vague but tragical manner, the 
horrid scenes which were enacted even in the imperial presence. 

156 See Lactantius, Eusebius, and Constantine, ad Ccetum Sanctorum, c. xxv. 
Eusebius confesses his ignorance of the cause of the fire.* 



* As the history of these times affords us no example of any attempts made by 
the Christians against their persecutors, we have no reason, not the slightest 
probability, to attribute to them the fire in the palace ; and the authority of Con- 
stantine and Lactantius remains to explain it. M. de Tillemont has shown how 
they can be reconciled. Hist, des Empereurs Vie de Diocletian, xix. — Guizot. 

Had it been done by a Christian, it would probably have been a fanatic, who 
would have avowed and gloried in it. Tillemont's supposition that the fire was 
first caused by lightning, and fed and increased by the malice of Galerius, seems 
singularly improbable.— Milman. 



TARDY TRANSMISSION OF THE EDICT. 273 

As the edict against the Christians was de- 
signed for a general law of the whole empire, Execution of 
and as Diocletian and Galerius, though they the first edict - 
might not wait for the consent, were assured of 
the concurrence, of the western princes, it would appear 
more consonant to our ideas of policy, that the governors 
of all the provinces should have received secret instructions 
to publish, on one and the same day, this declaration of 
war within their respective departments. It was at least to 
be expected, that the convenience of the public highways 
and established posts would have enabled the emperors to 
transmit their orders with the utmost despatch from the 
palace of Nicomedia to the extremities of the Roman 
world ; and that they would not have suffered fifty days to 
elapse, before the edict was published in Syria, and near 
four months before it was signified to the cities of Africa. 157 
This delay may perhaps be imputed to the cautious temper 
of Diocletian, who had yielded a reluctant consent to the 
measures of persecution, and who was desirious of trying 
the experiment under his most immediate eye, before he 
gave way to the disorders and discontent which it must 
inevitably occasion in the distant provinces. At first, in- 
deed, the magistrates were restrained from the effusion of 
blood ; but the use of every other severity was permitted, 
and even recommended, to their zeal ; nor could the Chris- 
tians, though they cheerfully resigned the ornaments of 
their churches, resolve to interrupt their religious assem- 
blies, or to deliver their sacred books to the flames. The 
pious obstinacy of Felix, an African bishop, appears to 
have embarrassed the subordinate ministers of the govern- 
ment. The curator of his city sent him in chains to the 
proconsul. The proconsul transmitted him to the praetorian 
praefect of Italy ; and Felix, who disdained even to give an 
evasive answer, was at length beheaded at Venusia, in 
Lucania, a place on which the birth of Horace has con- 
ferred fame. 15S This precedent, and perhaps some imperial 
rescript, which was issued in consequence of it, appeared 
to authorize the governors of provinces, in punishing with 
death the refusal of the Christians to deliver up their sacred 
books. There were undoubtedly many persons who em- 

157 Tillemout, Mhnoires Ecclesiast. tom. v. part i. p. 43. 

158 See the Acta Sincera of Ruinart. p. 353; those of Felix of Thibara or Tibiur, 
appear much less corrupted than in the other editions, which afford a lively 
specimen of legendary license. 



274 THE TRADITORS. 

braced this opportunity of obtaining the crown of martyr- 
dom ; but there were likewise too many who purchased an 
ignominous life, by discovering and betraying the holy 
scripture into the hands of infidels. A great number even 
of bishops and presbyters acquired, by this criminal com- 
pliance, the opprobrious epithet of Traditors ; and their 
offence was productive of much present scandal, and of 
much future discord, in the African church. 159 

The copies, as well as the versions, of scrip- 
Demolition of ture, were already so multiplied in the empire, 
the churches, that the most severe inquisition could no longer 
be attended with any fatal consequences ; and 
even the sacrifice of those volumes, which, in every con- 
gregation, were preserved for public use, required the 
consent of some treacherous and unworthy Christians. But 
the ruin of the churches was easily effected by the authority 
of the government, and by the labor of the Pagans. In 
some provinces, however, the magistrates contended them- 
selves with shutting up the places of religious worship. In 
others, they more literally complied with the terms of the 
edict; and after taking away the doors, the benches, and 
the pulpit, which they burnt, as it were in a funeral pile, 
they completely demolished the remainder of the edifice. 160 
It is perhaps to this melancholy occasion, that we should 
apply a very remarkable story, which is related with so 
many circumstances of variety and improbability, that it 
serves rather to excite than to satisfy our curiosity. In a 
small town in Phrygia, of whose name as well as situation 
we are left ignorant, it should seem that the magistrates and 
the body of the people had embraced the Christian faith ; 
and as some resistance might be apprehended to the ex- 
ecution of the edict, the governor of the province was 
supported by a numerous detachment of legionaries. On 
their approach the citizens threw themselves into the church, 
with the resolution either of defending by arms that sacred 
edifice, or of perishing in its ruins. They indignantly rejected 
the notice and permission which was given to them to re- 

159 See the first book of Optatus of Milevis against the Donatists at Paris, 1700, 
edit. Dupin. He lived under the reign of Valens. 

160 The ancient monuments, published at the end of Optatus, p. 261, &c, describe, 
in a very circumstantial manner, the proceedings of the governors in the destruc- 
tion of churches. They made a minute inventory of the plate, &c. , which they 
found in them. That of the church of Cirta, in Numidia, is still extant. It con- 
sisted of two chalices of gold, and six of silver ; six urns, one kettle, seven lamps, 
all likewise of silver; besides a large quantity of brass utensils, and wearing 
apparel. 



EFFECTS OF THE PERSECUTION. 275 

tire, till the soldiers, provoked by their obstinate refusal, 
set fire to the building on all sides, and consumed, by 
this extraordinary kind of matyrdom, a great number of 
Phrygians, with their wives and children. 161 

Some slight disturbances, though they were 
suppressed almost as soon as excited, in Syria SU edk?ts? nt 
and the frontiers of Armenia, afforded the ene- 
mies of the church a very plausible occasion to insinuate that 
those troubles had been secretiy fomented by the intrigues 
of the bishops, who had already forgotten their ostenta- 
tious professions of passive and unlimited obedience. 162 
The resentment, or the fears of Diocletian, at length trans- 
ported him beyond the bounds of moderation, which he had 
hitherto preserved, and he declared, in a series of cruel 
edicts, | his intention of abolishing the Christian name. By 
the first of these edicts the governors of the provinces were 
directed to apprehend all persons of the ecclesiastical 
order; and the prisons destined for the vilest criminals 
were soon filled with a multitude of bishops, presbyters, 
deacons, readers, and exorcists. By a second edict, the 
magistrates were commanded to employ every method of 
severity which might reclaim them from their odious super- 
stition, and oblige them to return to the established worship 
of the gods. This rigorous order was extended, by a subse- 

161 Lactantius {Tnstitut. Divin.\. 11) confines the calamity to the conventicuhim 
with its congregation. Eusebius (viii. 11) extends it to a whole city,* and intro- 
duces something very like a regular siege. His ancient Latin translator, Rufinus, 
adds the important circumstance of the permission given to the inhabitants of 
retiring from thence. As Phrygia reached to the confines of Isauria, it is possible 
that the restless temper of those independent barbarians may have contributed to 
this misfortune. 

is2 Eusebius, 1. vii. c. 6. M. de Valois (with some probability) thinks that he 
has discovered the Syrian rebellion in an oration of Libanius; and that it was a 
rash attempt of the tribune Eugenius, who, with only five hundred men, seized 
Antioch, and might perhaps allure the Christians by the promise of religious 
toleration. From Eusebius (1. ix. c. 8), as well as from Moses of Chorene {Hist. 
Armen. 1. ii. 77, &c), it may be inferred that Christianity was already introduced 
into Armenia. 



* All the inhabitants were burned, according to Eusebius, not merely a ''great 
" number." Lactantius confirms this, for he says " universum populum." — G. 

Gibbon's "great number of Phrygians," applies to the people of a province, not 
to the inhabitants of a town. — Eng. Ch. 

t He had already passed them in his first edict. It does not appear that resent- 
ment or fear had any share in the new persecutions: perhaps they originated in 
superstition, and a specious apparent respect for its ministers. The oracle of 
Apollo, consulted by Diocletian, gave no answer; and said that just men hindered 
it from speaking. Constantine, who assisted at the ceremony, affirms, with an 
oath, that when questioned about these men, the high priest named the Christians. 
" The emperor eagerly seized on this witness ; and drew against the innocent a 
" sword, destined only to punish the guilty: he instantly issued edicts, written, 
" if I may use the expression, with a poniard ; and ordered the judges to employ 
" all their skill to invent new modes of punishment. Euseb. Vit. Constant. 1. ii. 
" c. 54." — Guizot. 



276 TOLERANCE OF CONSTANTIUS. 

quent edict, to the whole body of Christians, who were ex- 
posed to a violent and general persecution. 163 Instead of those 
salutary restraints which had required the direct and solemn 
testimony of an accuser, it became the duty as well as the 
interest of the Imperial officers to discover, to pursue, and 
to torment the most obnoxious among the faithful. Heavy 
penalties were denounced against all who should presume 
to save a proscribed sectary from the just indignation of 
the gods, and of the emperors. Yet, notwithstanding the 
severity of this law, the virtuous courage of many of the 
Pagans, in concealing their friends or relations, affords an 
honorable proof that the rage of superstition had not ex- 
tinguished in their minds the sentiments of nature and 
humanity. 164 

Diocletian had no sooner published his edicts 
General idea against the Christians, than, as if he had been 
persecution, desirous of committing to other hands the 

work of persecution, he divested himself of the 
imperial purple. The character and situation of his col- 
leagues and successors sometimes urged them to enforce, 
and sometimes inclined them to suspend, the execution of 
these rigorous laws ; nor can we acquire a just and distinct 
idea of this important period of ecclesiastical history, unless 
we separately consider the state of Christianity, in the 
different parts of the empire, during the space of ten years, 
which elapsed between the first edicts of Diocletian and the 
final peace of the church. 

The mild and humane temper of Constantius 
Pel in e the° n was averse to the oppression of any part of his 
western pro- subjects. The principal offices of his palace 
Constantius were exercised by Christians. He loved their 
Con S a tantine. P ersons > esteemed their fidelity, and entertained 

not any dislike to their religious principles. But 
as long as Constantius remained in the subordinate station 
of Caesar, it was not in his power openly to reject the edicts 
of Diocletian, or to disobey the commands of Maximian. 
His authority contributed, however, to alleviate the suffer- 
ings which he pitied and abhorred. He consented, witlr 
reluctance, to the ruin of the churches ; but he ventured to 
protect the Christians themselves from the fury of the 

163 See Mosheim, p. 938; the text of Eusebius very plainly shows that the gov- 
ernors, whose powers were enlarged, not restrained, by the new laws, could 
punish with death the most obstinate Christians, as an example to their brethren. 

igi Aihanasius, p. 833, ap. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. torn. v. part i. 90. 



PERSECUTION IN ITALY AND AFRICA. 277 

populace, and from the rigor of the laws. The provinces 
of Gaul (under which we may probably include those of 
Britain) were indebted for the singular tranquillity which 
they enjoyed to the gentle interposition of their sovereign. 165 
But Datianus, the president or governor of Spain, actuated 
either by zeal or policy, chose rather to execute the public 
edicts of the emperors, than to understand the secret in- 
tentions of Constantius ; and it can scarcely be doubted, 
that his provincial administration was stained with the blood 
of a few martyrs. 166 The elevation of Constantius to the 
supreme and independent dignity of Augustus gave a free 
scope to the exercise of his virtues, and the shortness of 
his reign did not prevent him from establishing a system 
of toleration, of which he left the precept and the example 
to his son Constantine. His fortunate son, from the first 
moment of his accession, declaring himself the protector of 
the church, at length deserved the appellation of the first 
emperor who publicly professed and established the Chris- 
tian religion. The motives of his conversion, as they may 
variously be deduced from benevolence, from policy, from 
conviction, or from remorse, and the progress of the revo- 
lution, which, under his powerful influence and that of his 
sons, rendered Christianity the reigning religion of the 
Roman empire, will form a very interesting and important 
chapter of this history. At present it may be sufficient 
to observe that every victory of Constantine was produc- 
tive of some relief or benefit to the church. 
The provinces of Italy and Africa experienced 
a short but violent persecution. The rigorous f„ itSy and 
edicts of Diocletian were strictly and cheerfully Africa, 'under 
executed by his associate Maximian, who had a nd a severus. 
long hated the Christians, and who delighted 
in acts of blood and violence. In the autumn of the first 
year of the persecution, the two emperors met at Rome to 
celebrate their triumph ; several oppressive laws appear to 

lfis Eusehius, 1. viii. c. 13. Lactantius de M. P. c. 15. Dodwell {Dissertat. 
Cyprian, xi. 75) represents them as inconsistent with each other. But the former 
evidently speaks of Constantius in the station of Caesar, and the latter of the 
same prince in the rank of Augustus. _ . 

166 Datianus is mentioned, in Gruter's Inscriptions, as having determined the 
limits between the territories of Pax Julia, and those of Ebora, both cities in the 
southern part of Lusitania. If we recollect the neighborhood of those places to 
Cape St. Vincent, we may suspect that the celebrated deacon and martyr of that 
name has been inaccurately assigned by Prudentius, &c, to Saragossa, or Valentia. 
See the pompous history of his sufferings, in the Memoires de Tillemont, torn. v. 
part ii. pp. 58-85. Some critics are of opinion that the department of Constantius, 
as Caesar, did not include Spain, which still continued under the immediate juris- 
diction of Maximian. 



278 MARTYRDOM OF ADAUCTUS. 

have issued from their secret consultations, and the dili- 
gence of the magistrates was animated by the presence of 
their sovereigns. After Diocletian had divested himself of 
the purple, Italy and Africa were administered under the 
name of Severus, and were exposed, without defence, to the 
implacable resentment of his master Galerius. Among 
the martyrs of Rome, Adauctus deserves the notice of pos- 
terity. He was of a noble family in Italy, and had raised 
himself, through the successive honors of the palace, to the 
important office of treasurer of the private demesnes. 
Adauctus is the more remarkable for being the only person 
of rank and distinction who appears to have suffered death 
during the whole course of this general persecution. 167 

The revolt of Maxentius immediately restored 
Persecution peace to the churches of Italy and Africa ; and 

under r , . J . . ' 

Maxentius. the same tyrant who oppressed every other class 

of his subjects, showed himself just, humane, and 

even partial, towards the afflicted Christians.t He depended 

iG7 Eusebius, 1. viii. c. 11. Gruter, Inscrip. p. 1171, No. 18. Rufinus has mis- 
taken the office of Adauctus, as well as the place of his martyrdom.* 



* M. Guizot suggests the powerful eunuchs of the palace, Dorotheus, Gorgonius, 
and Andrew, admitted by Gibbon himself to have been put to death, p. 644. — M. 

To the sufferers should be added the principal eunuchs of the palace, Doro- 
theus, Gorgonius, and Andrew, who, attending on the person of Diocletian, 
enjoyed his favor and governed the imperial household. In a preceding page, 
Gibbon himself speaks of them. Lactantius relates their death: " Potentissimi 
" eunuchi necati per quos palatium et ipse ante constabat." (De Mort. Pers. 
c. 15.) Eusebius also removes all doubt on the subject by naming Dorotheus and 
the other keepers of the imperial apartments, who, although invested by the 
emperor with the most honorable privileges, and cherished as his sons, endured 
insults, misfortunes, and even the most cruel death, rather than preserve for 
themselves the glorv and pleasures of the world, by forsaking their religion. 
{Hist. Eccl. 1. viii. c. 6.)— Guizot. 

It was not necessary for Gibbon to repeat here, what he had just before said 
respecting these martyrs, referring to the very passages in Eusebius and Lactan- 
tius, which M. Guizot has cited, and even quoting the same words from the last. 
W hen speaking, too, of the persecution in Italy under Severus, there would have 
been a double irrelevancy in repeating what had been done some time before by 
Diocletian at Nicomedia. — Eng. Ch. 

t Nothing can be less true than this, as may be proved bv the verv passage in 
Eusebius. to which the reader is referred. It is there said: "Maxentius, who 

had seized on the government in Italy, as first pretended ( K aflv~eK f uvaTo) 
jj to be a Christian, in order to ingratiate himself with the Roman people. Bv his 
(( orders, his ministers put a stop to the persecution of the Christians, and he affected 
,, ?, n hypocritical piety that he might appear to be milder than his predecessors. 
<« ? Ut u is actions - in the sequel, proved him to be verv different to what was at 

first hoped." (Hist. Ecc. 1. viii. c. 14.) The same writer then adds, that Max- 
entius was the ally of Maximin. who persecuted the Christians ; and he calls them 
' brothers in wickedness," (ddeAcpbl tt/v nan'iav). He attributes the evils that 
afflicted the people during the reign of these two emperors, to the persecution 
which they excited against the Christians ; and the verv title of his chapter, 
^ Concerning the conduct of the enemies of religion," (TzefH tov rponov t<ov rijc 
kvatfiuar kxppQv\ indicates clearly what Maxentius was.— Guizot. 

This note is taken from Mr. Davis, who, in his Replv to Gibbon's I 'indication, 
confesses (p. 44) that his original charge was made through his having " unfor- 



DISCORD AMONG CHRISTIANS. 279 

on their gratitude and affection, and very naturally pre- 
sumed, that the injuries which they had suffered, and the 
dangers which they still apprehended from his most in- 
veterate enemy, would secure the fidelity of a party already 
considerable by their numbers and opulence. 168 Even the 
conduct of Maxentius toward the bishops of Rome and 
Carthage, may be considered as the proof of his toleration, 
since it is probable that the most orthodox princes would 
adopt the same measures with regard to their established 
clergy. Marcellus, the former of those prelates, had thrown 
the capital into confusion, by the severe penance which he 
imposed on a great number of Christians, who, during the 
late persecution, had renounced or dissembled their religion. 
The rage of faction broke out in frequent and violent sedi- 
tions ; the blood of the faithful was shed by each other's 
hands, and the exile of Marcellus, whose prudence seems to 
have been less eminent than his zeal, was found to be the 
only measure capable of restoring peace to the distracted 
church of Rome. 169 The behavior of Mensurius, bishop of 
Carthage, appears to have been still more reprehensible. 

168 Eusebius, 1. viii. c. 14. But as Maxentius was vanquished by Constantine, it 
suited the purpose of Lactantius to place his death among those of the persecutors.* 

169 The epitaph of Marcellus is to be found in Gruter, Inscrip. p. 1172, No. 3, 
and it contains all that we know of his history. Marcelliuus and Marcellus, 
whose names follow in the list of popes, are supposed by many critics to be 
different persons; but the learned Abbe de Longuerue was convinced that they 
were one and the same. 

Veridicus rector lapsis quia crimina flere 
Praedixit miseris, fuit omnibus hostis amarus. 
Hinc furor, hinc odium ; sequitur discordia, lites, 
Seditio, csedes ; solvuntur fcedera pacis. 
Crimen ob alterius, Christum qui in pace negavit 
Finibus expulsus patriae est feritate Tyranni. 
Hsec breviter Damasus voluit comperta referre : 
Marcelli populus meritum cognoscere posset. 
We may observe that Damasus was made Bishop of Rome, A. D. 366. 



" tunately mistaken Eusebius and attributed to Maxentius what is spoken of 
" Maximin." A charge, so abandoned by its author, ought not to have been 
dragged forth again out of the oblivion into which it had sunk. — Eng. Ch. 

Gibbon added a postscript to the first edition of his Vindication, in answer to an 
anonymous pamphlet, entitled, A Few Remarks, which appeared while his work 
was in press. This postscript was incorporated in the Vindication, where it 
properly belongs, in Lord Sheffield's edition of Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works. 
We have followed the latter method, and the reader will bear this in mind when 
referring to the quotations of the English Churchman. — E. 

* M. Guizot directly contradicts this statement of Gibbon, and appeals to 
Eusebius. Maxentius, who assumed the power in Italy, pretended at first to 
be a Christian (nadvTTEKpivaTo), to gain the favor of the Roman people; he 
ordered his ministers to cease to persecute the Christians, affecting a hypo- 
critical piety, in order to appear more mild than his predecessors ; but his actions 
soon proved that he was very different from what they had at first hoped. 
The actions of Maxentius were those of a lascivious and cruel tyrant, but not 
those of a persecutor: the Christians, like the rest of his subjects, suffered from 
his vices, but they were not oppressed as a sect. Christian females were exposed 
to his lusts, as well as to the brutal violence of his colleague Maximian, but they 
were not selected as Christians. — Milman. 



28o BONIFACE AND AGLAE. 

A deacon of that city had published a libel against the em- 
peror. The offender took refuge in the episcopal palace ; 
and though it was somewhat early to advance any claims 
of ecclesiastical immunities, the bishop refused to deliver 
him up to the officers of justice. For this treasonable re- 
sistance, Mensurius was summoned to court, and instead 
of receiving a legal sentence of death, or banishment, he 
was permitted after a short examination, to return to his 
diocese. 170 Such was the happy condition of the Christian 
subjects of Maxentius, that whenever they were desirous 
of procuring for their own use any bodies of martyrs, they 
were obliged to purchase them from the most distant 
provinces of the East.f A story is related of Aglae, a 
Roman lady, descended from a consular family, and pos- 
sessed of so ample an estate, that it required the management 
of seventy-three stewards. Among these, Boniface was the 
favorite of his mistress ; and as Aglae mixed love with de- 
votion, it is reported that he was admitted to share her bed. 
Her fortune enabled her to gratify the pious desire of 
obtaining some sacred relics from the East. She intrusted 
Boniface with a considerable sum of gold, and a large 
quantity of aromatics ; and her lover, attended by twelve 
horsemen and three covered chariots, undertook a remote 
pilgrimage, as far as Tarsus in Cilicia. 171 

The sanguinary temper of Galerius, the first 
Persecution and principal author of the persecution, was 

in Illvricum r • S ,, \ < ^, . . r . , . ' 

and the East, iormiaable to those Christians, whom their mis- 

Gaierhifand f° rtu . n< : s had placed within the limits of his 

Maximian. dominions ; and it may fairly be presumed, that 

many persons of a middle rank, who were not 

170 Optatus contr. Donatist. 1. i. c, 17, 18.* 

i"i The Acts of the Passion of St. Boniface, which abound in miracles and 
declamation, are published by Ruinart (pp. 283-291), both in Greek and Latin, 
from the authority of very ancient manuscripts.^ 

*The words of Optatus are, Profectus (Romam) causam dixit ; jussus est revert! 
Carthaginem ; perhaps, in pleading his cause, he exculpated himself, since he 
received an order to return to Carthage.— Guizot. 

t This was so because the home-made article is seldom considered equal to the 
imported: "a prophet being always without honor in his own countrv," where 
he is well-known and his character understood. It is a curious fact in the'history of 
superstition , that the supply of sacred relics has never been exhausted , and alwavs 
equals the demand : the wood of the " true cross " being still in the market arid 
the stock of bones of saints and martyrs will last "till the crack of doom."'— E. 

I We are ignorant whether Aglae and Boniface were Christians at the time of 
their unlawful connection. See Tillemont, Mint. Eccles. Note on the Persecution 
of Domitian, torn. v. note 82. M. de Tillemont proves also that the history is 
doubtful.— Guizot. 

Sir D. Dalrymple (Lord Hailes) calls the story of Aglae and Boniface as of 
equal authority with our popular histories of Whittington and Hickathrift. 
Christian Antiqinties, ii. 64. — Milman. 



FAILURE OF THE PERSECUTION. 28l 

confined by the chains either of wealth or of poverty, very 
frequently deserted their native country, and sought a refuge 
in the milder climate of the West.* As long as he com- 
manded only the armies and provinces of Illyricum, he 
could with difficulty either find out or make a considerable 
number of martyrs, in a warlike country, which had enter- 
tained the missionaries of the gospel with more coldness 
and reluctance than any other part of the empire. 172 But 
when Galerius had obtained the supreme power and the 
government of the East, he indulged in the fullest extent 
his zeal and cruelty, not only in the provinces of Thrace 
and Asia, which acknowledged his immediate jurisdiction, 
but in those of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, where Maximin 
gratified his own inclination by yielding a rigorous obe- 
dience to the stern commands of his benefactor. 173 The 
frequent disapointments of his ambitious views, the experi- 
ence of six years of persecution, and the salutary reflections 
which a lingering and painful distemper suggested to the 
mind of Galerius, at length convinced him that the most 
violent efforts of a despotism are insufficient to extirpate a 
whole people, or to subdue their religious prejudices. De- 
sirous of repairing the mischief that he had occasioned, he 
published in his own name, and in those of Licinius and 
Constantine, a general edict, which, after a pompous recital 
of the imperial titles, proceeded in the following manner : 

172 During the four first centuries, there exist few traces of either bishops or 
bishoprics in the western Illyricum. It has been thought probable that the 
primate of Milman extended his jurisdiction over Sirmium, the capital of that 
great province. See the Geographia Sacra of Charles de St. Paul, pp. 68-76, 
with the observations of Lucas Holstenius.f 

i"3 The eighth book of Eusebius, as well as the supplement concerning the 
martyrs of Palestine, principally relate to the persecution of Galerius and 
Maximin. The general lamentations with which Lactantius opens the fifth book 
of his Divine Institutions, allude to their cruelty. 



* A little after this, Christianity was propagated to the north of the Roman 
provinces, among the tribes of Germany : a multitude of Christians, forced by 
the persecutions of the emperors to take refuge among the barbarians, were 
received with kindness. Euseb. de Vit. Constant, ii. 53. Semler, Select, cap. 
H. E. p. 115. The Goths owed their first knowledge of Christianity to a young 
girl, a prisoner of war; she continued in the midst of them her exercises of piety ; 
she fasted, prayed, and praised God day and night. When she was asked what 
good could come of so much painful trouble, she answered, " It is thus that 
"Christ, the Son of God, is to be honored." Sozomen, ii. c. 6.— Guizot. 

fThe Franks, who, as we have seen, were borderers on the frontiers of the 
Roman empire, did not become Christians till the conversion of Clovis, two 
centuries after the time of Diocletian ; they do not appear to have been more 
advanced in their knowledge of the faith than the remoter Saxons, to whom, 
after their establishment in Kent, the mission of Augustin took place at nearly 
the same period. There are no traces of a Gothic church before the time of 
Ulphilas, toward the end of the fourth century.— Eng. Ch. 



282 EDICT OF TOLERATION. 

" Among the important cares which have 
Gaierius pub- " occupied our minds for the utility and pre- 

lishes an edict ,, *• c *.\ •*. ' *. *.' 

of toleration. servation oi the empire, it was our intention 
" to correct and re-establish all things according 
" to the ancient laws and public discipline of the Romans. 
" We were partially desirous of reclaiming into the way of 
" reason and nature the deluded Christians who had re- 
" nounced the religion and ceremonies instituted by their 
" fathers ; and, presumptuously despising the practice of 
" antiquity, had invented extravagant laws and opinions 
" according to the dictates of their fancy, and had collected 
" a various society from the different provinces of our em- 
" pire. The edicts which we have published to enforce the 
" worship of the gods having exposed many of the Chris- 
" tians to danger and distress, many having suffered death, 
" and many more, who still persist in their impious folly, 
" being left destitute of any public exercise of religion, we 
" are disposed to extend to those unhappy men the effects 
" of our wonted clemency. We permit them therefore freely 
" to profess their private opinions, and to assemble in their 
" conventicles without fear or molestation, provided always 
" that they preserve a due respect to the established laws 
" and government. By another rescript we shall signify 
" our intentions to the judges and magistrates ; and we 
" hope that our indulgence will engage the Christians to 
" offer up their prayers to the Deity whom they adore, for 
" our safety and prosperity, for their own, and for that of 
" the republic." "* It is not usually in the language of edicts 
and manifestos, that we should search for the real character 
or the secret motives of princes ; but as these were the 
words of a dying emperor, his situation, perhaps, may be 
admitted as a pledge of his sincerity. 

When Gaierius subscribed this edict of toler- 

Peaceofthe ation, he was well assured that Licinius would 

church. readily comply with the inclinations of his friend 

and benefactor, and that any measures in favor 

of the Christians would obtain the approbation of Constan- 

tine. But the emperor would not venture to insert in the 

174 Eusebius (1. viii. c. 17) has given us a Greek version, and Lactantius ide 
M. P. c. 34) the Latin original of this memorable edict. Neither of these writers 
seems to recollect how directly it contradicts whatever they have just affirmed 
of the remorse and repentance of Gaierius.* 

* But Gibbon has answered this by his just observation, that it is not in the 
language of edicts and manifestos that we should search * * * for the secret 
motives of princes. — Milman. 



TEMPORARY CESSATION OF PERSECUTION. 283 

preamble the name of Maximin, whose consent was of the 
greatest importance, and who succeeded in a few days 
afterward to the provinces of Asia. In the first six months, 
however, of his new reign, Maximin affected to adopt the 
prudent councils of his predecessor ; and though he never 
condescended to secure the tranquillity of the church by a 
public edict, Sabinus, his pretorian prefect, addressed a cir- 
cular letter to all the governors and magistrates of the 
provinces, expatiating on the imperial clemency, acknowl- 
edging the invincible obstinacy of the Christians, and 
directing the officers of justice to cease their ineffectual 
prosecutions, and to connive at the secret assemblies of 
those enthusiasts. In consequence of these orders, great 
numbers of Christians were released from prison, or de- 
livered from the mines. The confessors, singing hymns of 
triumph, returned into their own countries ; and those who 
had yielded to the violence of the tempest, solicited with 
tears of repentance their readmission into the bosom of the 
church. 175 

But this treacherous calm was of short dura- 
tion ; nor could the Christians of the East place Maximin 
any confidence in the character of their sov- Sw?he° 
ereign. Cruelty and superstition were the ruling persecution. 
passions of the soul of Maximin. The former 
suggested the means, the latter pointed out the objects, of 
persecution. The emperor was devoted to the worship 
of the gods, to the study of magic, and to the belief of 
oracles. The prophets or philosophers, whom he revered 
as the favorites of heaven, were frequently raised to the 
government of provinces, and admitted into his most secret 
councils. They easily convinced him, that the Christians 
had been indebted for their victories to their regular dis- 
cipline, and that the weakness of polytheism had principally 
flowed from a want of union and subordination among the 
ministers of religion. A system of government was therefore 
instituted, which was evidently copied from the policy of the 
church. In all the great cities of the empire, the temples were 
repaired and beautified by the order of Maximin ; and the 
officiating priests of the various deities were subjected to the 
authority of a superior pontiff destined to oppose the bishop, 
and to promote the cause of Paganism. These pontiffs 
acknowledged, in their turn, the supreme jurisdiction of the 

i"5 Etcsebius, I. ix. c. 1. He inserts the epistle of the praefect. 



2S4 ATTEMPT TO RENEW PERSECUTION. 

metropolitans or high priests of the province, who acted as 
the immediate vicegerents of the emperor himself. A white 
robe was the ensign of their dignity ; and these new pre- 
lates were carefully selected from the most noble and 
opulent families. By the influence of the magistrates, and 
of the sacerdotal order, a great number of dutiful addresses 
were obtained, particularly from the cities of Nicomedia, 
Antioch, and Tyre, which artfully represented the well- 
known intentions of the court as the general sense of the 
people ; solicited the emperor to consult the laws of justice 
rather than the dictates of his clemency ; expressed their 
abhorrence of the Christians, and humbly prayed that 
those impious sectaries might at least be excluded from the 
limits of their respective territories. The answer of Maximin 
to the address which he obtained from the citizens of Tyre 
is still extant. He praises their zeal and devotion in terms 
of the highest satisfaction, descants on the obstinate impiety 
of the Christians, and betrays by the readiness with which 
he consents to their banishment, that he considered himself 
as receiving, rather than as conferring, an obligation. The 
priests as well as the magistrates were empowered to en- 
force the execution of his edicts, which were engraved on 
tables of brass ; and though it was recommended to them 
to avoid the effusion of blood, the most cruel and igno- 
minious punishments were inflicted on the refractory Chris- 
tians. 176 

i"6 See Eusebius, 1. viii. c. 14, 1. ix. c. 2-8. Lactantius de M. P. c. 36. These 
writers agree in representing the arts of Maximin ; but the former relates the 
execution of several martyrs, while the latter expressly affirms, occidi servos 
Dei vetuit.* 

* It is easy to reconcile them ; it is sufficient to quote the entire text of Lactan- 
tius: Nam cum clementiam specie tenus profiteretur, occidi servos Dei vetuit, 
debilitari jussit. Itaque coniessoribus effodiebantur oculi, amputabantur manus, 
nares vel auriculae desecabantur. Haec ille moliens Constantini litteris deterretur. 
Dissimulavit ergo, et tamen, si quis incident, mari occulte mergebatur. This 
detail of torments inflicted on the Christians easily reconciles Lactantius and 
Eusebius. Those who died in consequence of their tortures, those who were 
plunged into the sea, might well pass for martyrs. The mutilation of the words 
of Lactantius has alone given rise to the apparent contradiction. — Guizot. 

Here again M. Guizot has followed Mr. Davis, and with somewhat better 
success. By quoting only four words from Lactantius, Gibbon certainly appears 
to keep out of view the next sentence, in which barbarities are related, worse 
even than death itself. But this was not done, to distort any historical fact or 
palliate the acts of Maximin. Very doubtful, however, is it, whether any of these 
horrid mutilations were actually perpetrated, for in the succeeding sentence, 
which Mr. Davis suppressed, Lactantius says, that the monster, when preparing 
them (moliens) was deterred (deterretur), by the letters of Constantine, from 
carrying them into effect. This justifies Gibbon's assertion, that the edicts of his 
colleagues "obliged Maximin to suspend the prosecution of his designs." — E. C. 

Eusebius, ch. vi., relates the public martyrdom of the aged bishop of Emesa, 
with two others, who were thrown to the wild beasts, the beheading of Peter, 
bishop of Alexandria, with several others, and the death of Lucian, presbyter of 



LEGENDARY MARTYRDOM. 285 

The Asiatic Christians had every thing to 
dread from the severity of a bigoted monarch p f " S e°ution 
who prepared his measures of violence with 
such deliberate policy. But a few months had scarcely 
elapsed, before the edicts published by the two western 
emperors obliged Maximin to suspend the prosecution of 
his designs : the civil war which he so rashly undertook 
against Licinius employed all his attention ; and the defeat 
and death of Maximin soon delivered the church from the 
last and most implacable of her enemies. 177 

In this general view of the persecution, which 
was first authorized by the edicts of Diocletian, Probable 
I have purposely refrained from describing the YuSngs^f 
particular sufferings and deaths of the Christian the f*$ yrs 
martyrs. It would have been an easy task, confessors. 
from the history of Eusebius, from the decla- 
mations of Lactantius, and from the most ancient acts, to 
collect a long series of horrid and disgustful pictures, and 
to fill many pages with racks and scourges, with iron 
hooks and red-hot beds, and with all the variety of tortures 
which fire and steel, savage beasts, and more savage exe- 
cutioners, could inflict upon the human body. These 
melancholy scenes might be enlivened by a crowd of visions 
and miracles, destined either to delay the death, to celebrate 
the triumph, or to discover the relics of those canonized 
saints who suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot 
determine what I ought to transcribe, till I am satisfied 
how much I ought to believe.* The gravest of the ecclesi- 

if7 A few days before his death, he published a very ample edict of toleration, 
in which he imputes all the severities which the Christians suffered to the judges 
and governors, who had misunderstood his intentions. See the edict in Eusebius, 
1. ix. c. 10. 



Antioch, who was carried to Numidia, and put to death in prison. The contra- 
diction is direct and undeniable, for although Eusebius may have misplaced the 
former martyrdoms, it may be doubted whether the authority of Maximin 
extended to Nicomedia till after the death of Galerius. The last edict of tolera- 
tion issued by Maximin, and published by Eusebius himself, Eccl. Hist. ix. 9, 
confirms the statement of Lactantius. — Milman. 

* Historical criticism does not consist in rejecting indiscriminately all the facts 
which do not agree with a particular system, as Gibbon does in this chapter, in 
which, except at the last extremity, he will not consent to believe a martyrdom. 
Authorities are to be weighed, not excluded from examination. Now, the Pagan 
historians justify in many places the details which have been transmitted to us by 
the historians of the church, concerning the tortures endured by the Christians. 
Celsus reproaches the Christians with holding their assemblies in secret, on 
account of the fear inspired by their sufferings, " for when you are arrested," he 
says, "you are dragged to punishment; and, before you are put to death, you 
" have to suffer all kinds of tortures." Origen cont. Cels. 1. i. ii. vi. viii. passim. 
Libanius, the panegyrist of Julian, says, while speaking of the Christians, "Those 
" who followed a corrupt religion were in continual apprehensions ; they feared 
" lest Julian should invent tortures still more refined than those to which they 



286 EXAGGERATED RECORDS. 

astical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses that 
he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and 
that he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, 
of religion. 17 "* Such an acknowledgment will naturally ex- 
cite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly violated 
one of the fundamental laws of history has not paid a very 
strict regard to the observance of the other ; and the sus- 
picion will derive additional credit from the character of 
Eusebius,f which was less tinctured with credulity, and 
more practiced in the arts of courts, than that of almost 
any of his contemporaries. On some particular occasions, 
when the magistrates were exasperated by some personal 
motives of interest or resentment, when the zeal of the 
martyrs urged them to forget the rules of prudence, and 

1T8 Such is the fair deduction from two remarkable passages in Eusebius, 1. viii. 
c. 2, and de Martyr. Palestin. c. 12. The prudence of the historian has exposed 
his own character to censure and suspicion. It is well known that he himself 
had heen thrown into prison ; and it was suggested that he had purchased his de- 
liverance by some dishonorable compliance. The reproach was urged in his life- 
time, and even in his presence, at the council of Tyre. See Tillemont, Memoires 
Ecciesiastigues, torn. vii. part i. p. 67. 

" had been exposed before, as mutilation, burning alive, &c. ; for the emperors 
" had inflicted upon them all these barbarities." Lib. Parent, in Julian, ap. Fab. 
Bib. Grcec. No. 9, No. 58, p. 283. — Guizot. 

Gibbon's defence of the course taken by him in this chapter {Vind. p. 122-145, 
1st Edit.) would be weakened by abridgment. He considered it to be his duty as 
" an impartial judge," to be counsel for the accused, who had no witnesses, and to 
" examine with distrust and suspicion, the interested evidence of the accuser." 
Niebuhr also {Led. on Rom. Hist. iii. p. 297) states, that the persecution by 
Diocletian "was not so frightful as we are wont to believe." The sudden 
hostility to the Christians, then manifested, was the work of Galerius, jealous 
of the new hierarchy, who were establishing a dominion more undisputed and 
feared, than that of the emperor himself. By inconsiderately yielding to the intem- 
perate advice of his junior, Diocletian brought himself into a dilemma, which was 
the real cause of his so soon resigning the purple and retiring into private life.— 
Eng. Ch. 

* This misrepresentation of Eusebius was at that time considered strictly 
orthodox, and was fully justified by the teaching of certain Pagans, and by the 
reasoning and example of St. Paul. " For if the truth of God," says this great 
apostle of the Gentiles, "hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; 
" why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" Romans, iii. ; 7. " Being craftv," 
continues this worthy saint, " I caught you with guile." //. Cor., xii. ; 16. 
Euripides (quoted in the pseudo-Plutarchean treatise, de placitis philos. B. 1. 
ch. 7) maintained "that in the early state of society, some wise men insisted on 
" the necessity of darkening truth with falsehood, and of persuading men that 
" there is an immortal deity, who hears and sees and understands our actions, 
" whatever we may think of that matter ourselves." Strabo says, "It is not 
" possible for a philosopher to conduct by reasoning a multitude of women, and 
" of the low vulgar, and thus to invite them to piety, holiness and faith ; but the 
" philosopher must also make use of supersti'tion, and not omit the invention of 
" fables, and the performance of wonders." Varro says "there are many truths 
" which it is useless for the vulgar to know, and many falsities which it is fit that 
" the people should not know are falsities." August, de do. Dei. B. 4.— E. 

t This sentence of Gibbon has given rise to several learned dissertations : 
Moller, de Fide Eusebii Ccesar, <2fc, Havniae, 1813. Danzius, de Eusebio Cces. 
Hist. Eccl. Scriptore, ejusque fide historica rede cestimanda, &c, Jenae, 1815. 
Kestner, Comtnentatio de Eusebii Hist. Eccles. conditoris auctoritate et fide, <2fc. 
See also Reuterdahl, de Fontibus Histories Eccles. Eusebiance, Lond. Goth. 1826. 
Gibbon's inference may appear stronger than the text will warrant, yet it is difficult, 
after reading the passage, to dismiss all suspicion of partiality from the mind.— M. 



TREATMENT OF CHRISTIANS. 287 

perhaps of decency, to overturn the altars, to pour out 
imprecations against the emperors, or to strike the judge 
as he sat on his tribunal, it may be presumed that every 
mode of torture which cruelty could invent, or constancy 
could endure, was exhausted on those devoted victims. 179 
Two circumstances, however, have been unwarily men- 
tioned, which insinuate that the general-treatment of the 
Christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of 
justice, was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to 
have been, i. The confessors, who were condemned to 
work in the mines, were permitted, by the humanity or the 

1T9 The ancient, and perhaps authentic, account of the sufferings of Tarachus* 
and his companions (Acta Sincera, Ruinart, pp. 419-448), is filled with strong 
expressions of resentment and contempt, which could not fail of irritating the 
magistrate. The behavior of ^Edesius to Hierocles^preefect of Egypt, was still 
more extraordinary, Xoyolq re kul kpyolg rov difcaGrr/v * * * TzspiSaAuiv. 
Euseb. de Martyr. Palest in. c. 5. 

*M. Guizot states, that the acts of Tarachus and his companion contain nothing 
that appears dictated by violent feelings (sentiment outre). Nothing can be more 
painful than the constant attempt of Gibbon, throughout this discussion, to find 
some flaw in the virtue and heroism of the martyrs, some extenuation for the 
crueltv of the persecutors. But truth must not be sacrificed even to well-grounded 
moral' indignation. Though the language of these martyrs is in great part that 
of calm defiance, of noble firmness, yet there are many expressions which betray 
"resentment and contempt." "Children of Satan, worshipers of Devils," is their 
common appellation of the heathen. One of them calls the judge, dvaideGrare ; 
another, drjpiuv dvaidEGTare rvpavve : one curses, and declares that he will 
curse the emperors, voplaa, ical vfipciu) "koiuvbq bvraq kcu alfLOTTOTaq, as 
pestilential and blood-thirstv tvrants, whom God will soon visit in his wrath. 
On tbe other hand, though at first they speak the milder language of persuasion, 
the cold barbarity of tbe judges and officers might surely have called forth one 
sentence of abhorrence from Gibbon. On the first unsatisfactory answer, " Break 
" his jaw," is the order of the judge. They direct and witness the most excru- 
ciating tortures ; the people, as M. Guizot observes, were so much revolted by 
the cruelty of Maximus, that when the martyrs appeared in the amphitheatre, 
fear seized on all hearts, and general murmurs against the unjust judge ran 
through the assembly. It is singular, at least, that Gibbon should have quoted 
"as probably authentic," acts so much embellished with miracle as these of 
Tarachus are, particularly towards the end. — Milman. 

There is nothing in the acts of Tarachus and his companions, which can be 
considered as "filled with expressions of resentment and contempt." It is the 
fault of the persecutors, if they put such a construction on the firmness of the 
persecuted. "What is your name?" said the presiding officer, Maximus, to 
Tarachus. "lama Christian." "Break his jaw-bone," was the order instantly 
given. (Ruinart, p. 469.) His companion, when led forward, replied to the same 
question, "I am a Christian, and my name is Probus." He was told to offer 
sacrifice, whereby he might gain the favor of his prince and the friendship of 
Maximus. "At such a price," he answered, "I desire neither the favor of a 
"prince nor your friendship." After suffering the most cruel torments, he was 
loaded with chains, and the judge forbade any care to be bestowed on his wounds ; 
" sanguine tuo impleta est terra." (R-uinart, p. 462.) The third was Andronicus, 
who, with equal fortitude, resisted the command to offer sacrifice. To deceive 
him, the judge said, that his brothers had complied. " Unhappy man ! " he 
exclaimed ; " why would you beguile me by such falsehoods? " At last, they were 
exposed to the wild beasts. Comparing the conduct of the judge with that of 
the martyrs, are the answers of the latter unbecoming or violent? The very 
people, who were present, manifested less gentleness and were less respectful. 
The injustice of Maximus was so revolting to them, that when the unfortunate 
victims appeared in the amphitheatre, the spectators were filled with terror, and 
murmured, saying: "Unjust is the judge who has done this! " Many left the 
scene; and as they retired, spoke of Maximus with contempt. (Ruinat. p. 4SS.) — G. 



288 LEGENDS OF PERSECUTION. 

negligence of their keepers, to build chapels, and freely to 
profess their religion, in the midst of those dreary habita- 
tions. 180 2. The bishops were obliged to check and to censure 
the forward zeal of the Christians, who voluntarily threw 
themselves into the hands of the magistrates. Some of 
these were persons oppressed by poverty and debts, who 
blindly sought 8* terminate a miserable existence by a 
glorious death. Others were allured by the hope, that a 
short confinement would expiate the sins of a whole life ; 
and others again were actuated by the less honorable 
motive of deriving a plentiful subsistence, and perhaps a 
considerable profit, from the alms which the charity of the 
faithful bestowed on the prisoners. 181 After the church had 
triumphed over all her enemies, the interest as well as 
vanity of the captives prompted them to magnify the merit 
of their respective sufferings. A convenient distance of time 
or place gave an ample scope to the progress of fiction ; 
and the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy 
martyrs, whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose 
strength had been renewed, and whose lost members had 
miraculously been restored, were extremely convenient for 
the purpose of removing every difficulty, and of silencing 
every objection. The most extravagant legends, as they 
conduced to the honor of the church, were applauded by 
the credulous multitude, countenanced by the power of 
the clergy, and attested by the suspicious evidence of ec- 
clesiastical history. 

The vague descriptions of exile and impris- 

^martyrs° f onment > °f P am an d torture, are so easily 

exaggerated f or softened by the pencil of an 

loo Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13. * 

i?i Augustin. Coll.' Carthagin. Dei, iii. c. 13, ap. Tillemont, Mcmoires Ecclesias- 
tigues, torn. v. part i. p. 46. The controversy with the Donatists has reflected 
some, though perhaps a partial, light on the history of the African church. 

* Scarcely were the authorities informed of this, than the president of the 
province, a man, says Eusebius harsh and cruel, banished the confessors, some 
to Cyprus, others to different parts of Palestine, and ordered them to be tor- 
mented by being set to the most painful labors. Four of them, whom he required 
to abjure their faith, and refused, were burnt alive. Euseb. de Mart. Palest. 
c. xiii. — Guizot. 

Two of these were bishops; a fifth, Silvanus, bishop of Gaza, was the last 
martyr; another, named John, was blinded, but used to officiate and recite from 
memory long passages of the sacred writings. — Milman. 

f Perhaps there never was an instance of an author committing so deliberately 
the fault which he reprobates so strongly in others. What is the dexterous 
management of the more inartificial historians of Christianity, in exaggerating 
the numbers of the martyrs, compared to the unfair address with which Gibbon 
here quietly dismisses from the account all the horrible and excruciating tortures 
which fell short of death ? The reader may refer to the xiith chapter (book viii.) 
of Eusebius for the description and for the scene of these tortures. — Milman. 



EXAGGERATION OF EARLY WRITERS. 289 

artful orator, that we are naturally induced to inquire 
into a fact of a more distinct and stubborn kind ; the 
number of persons who suffered death in consequence of 
the edicts published by Diocletian, his associates, and his 
successors. The recent legendaries record whole armies 
and cities, which were at once swept away by the undis- 
tinguishing rage of persecution. The more ancient writers 
content themselves with pouring out a liberal effusion of 
loose and tragical invectives, without condescending to 
ascertain the precise number of those persons who were 
permitted to seal with their blood their belief of the gospel. 
From the history of Eusebius, it may however be collected, 
that only nine bishops were punished with death ; and we 
are assured, by his particular enumeration of the martyrs 
of Palestine, that no more than ninety-two Christians were 
entitled to that honorable appellation. 182 f As we are un- 

182 Eusebius de Martyr. Palestin. c. 13. He closes his narration by assuring us 
that these were the martyrdoms inflicted in Palestine, during the whole course of 
the persecution. The 5th chapter of his eighth book, which relates to the province 
of Thebais in Egypt, may seem to contradict our moderate computation ; but it 
will only lead us to admire the artful management of the historian. Choosing for 
the scene of the most exquisite cruelty the most remote and sequestered country 
of the Roman empire, he relates, that in Thebais from ten to one hundred persons 
had frequently suffered martyrdom in the same day. But when he proceeds to 
mention his own journey into Egypt, his language insensibly becomes more 
cautious and moderate. Instead of a large, but definite number, he speaks of 
many Christians (^tt^uovc), and most artfully selects two ambiguous words 
(l<7Top7}(ja/j.sv and v7vo/xeivavrag\* which may signify either what he had seen, 
or what he had heard ; either the expectation, or the execution of the punishment. 
Having thus provided a secure evasion, he commits the equivocal passage to his 
readers and translators; justly conceiving that their piety would induce them to 
prefer the most favorable sense. There was perhaps some malice in the remark 
of Theodorus Metochita, that all who, like Eusebius, had been conversant with 
the Egyptians, delighted in an obscure and intricate style. (See Valesius ad loc.) 

r * Those who will take the trouble to consult the text will see that if the word 
VKOjuelvavrac could be taken for the expectation of punishment, the passage 
could have no sense, and become absurd. — Guizot. 

The many (nheiovg) he speaks of as suffering together in one day ; ddpocog 
Kara fiaiv s/iepav. The fact seems to be, that religious persecution always raged 
in Egypt with greater violence than elsewhere. — Milman. 

Does not the word properly denote awaiting the execution of sentences passed 
on them ? — Eng. Ch. 

f This calculation is made from the martyrs, of whom Eusebius speaks by 
name ; but he recognizes a much greater number. Thus the ninth and tenth 
chapters of his work are entitled, " Of Antoninus, Zebinus, Germanus, and other 
• martyrs; of Peter the monk, of Asclepius the Marcionite, and other martyrs." 
[Are these vague contents of chapters very good authority? Milman.] Speak- 
ing of those who suffered under Diocletian, he says, " I will only relate the death 
" of one of these, from which the reader may divine what befell the rest." Hist. 
Eccl. viii. 6. [This relates only to the martyrs in the royal household. — Milman.] 
Dodwell had made, before Gibbon, this calculation and these objections; but 
Ruinart {Act. Mart. Pref. p. 27, et seq.) has answered him in a peremptory 
manner : Nobis constat Eusebium in historia infinitos passim martyres admisisse, 
quamvis revera paucorum nomina recensuerit. Nee alium Eusebii interpretem 
quam ipsummet Eusebium proferimus, qui (1. iii. c. 33) ait sub Trajano plurimos ex 



29O REAL NUMBER OF MARTYRS. 

acquainted with the degree of episcopal zeal and courage 
which prevailed at that time, it is not in our power to draw 
any useful inferences from the former of these facts : but 
the latter may serve to justify a very important and pro- 
bable conclusion. According to the distribution of Roman 
provinces, Palestine may be considered as the sixteenth 
part of the eastern empire ; 183 and since there were some 
governors, who from a real or affected clemency had pre- 
served their hands unstained with the blood of the faithful, 154 
it is reasonable to believe that the country which had given 
birth to Christianity, produced at least the sixteenth part 
of the martyrs who suffered death within the dominions of 
Galerius and Maximin ; the whole might consequently 
amount to about fifteen hundred, a number, which, if it is 
equally divided between the ten years of the persecution, 
will allow an annual consumption of one hundred and fifty 
martyrs. Allotting the same proportion to the provinces 
of Italy, Africa, and perhaps Spain, where, at the end of 
two or three years, the rigor of the penal laws was either 
suspended or abolished, the multitude of Christians in the 

183 When Palestine was divided into three, the praefecture of the East contained 
forty-eight provinces. As the ancient distinctions of nations were long since 
abolished, the Romans distributed the provinces according to a general propor- 
tion of their extent and opulence. 

184 Ut gloriari possint nullam se innocentium peremisse, nam et ipse audivi 
aliquos gloriantes, quia administrate sua, in hac parte, fuerit incruenta. 
Lactant. Institut. Divin. v. II. 

fidelibus martyrii certamen subiisse (1. v. init.) sub Antonino et Vero innumerabiles 
prope martyres per universum orbem enituisse affirmat. (L. vi. c. 1.) Severum 
persecutionem concitasse refert, in qua per omnes ubique locorum Ecclesias, ab 
athletis pro pietate certantibus, illustria confecta fuerunt martyria. Sic de Decii, 
sic de Valeriani, persecutionibus loquitur, quae an Dodwelli faveant conjectionibus 
judicet aequus lector. Even in the persecutions which Gibbon has represented 
as much more mild than that of Diocletian, the number of martyrs appears much 
greater than that to which he limits the martyrs of the latter ; and this number is 
attested by incontestable monuments. I will quote but one example. We find 
among the letters of St. Cyprian, one from Lucianus to Celerinus, written from 
the depth of a prison, in which Lucianus names seventeen of his brethren dead, 
some in the quarries, some in the midst of tortures, some of starvation in prison. 
Jussi sumus (he proceeds) secundum praeceptum imperatoris, fame et siti necari, 
et reclusi sumus in duabus cellis ita ut nos afncerent fame et siti et ignis vapore. 
— Guizot. 

It may be seen in Cyprian's letters. No. and others, that the unimprisoned 
Christians were allowed to visit and relieve those in confinement. If, then, any 
confessors died in prison of hunger and thirst, and the word ''necari" be not a 
mere figurative or hyperbolical term, it must have been through the neglect of 
those, who certainly had the means and the opportunity of preventing it, and 
were moreover urgently required by their spiritual superior to employ them. 
These disputes as to the greater or lesser number of martyrs, are, however, com- 
paratively unimportant. The early Christians were often persecuted ; this cannot 
be denied. Numbers ought not to affect the question. The single murder of 
Servetus has stamped as dark a blot on the name of Calvin, as the slaughter of 
hosts has on those of Gardiner and Bonner, of Philip and Katharine. Christians 
have certainly been more ferociously cruel to each other, than the heathens were 
to their forefathers. — Eng. Ch. 



MUTUAL CHRISTIAN CRUELTIES. 29 1 

Roman empire, on whom a capital punishment was inflicted 
by a judicial sentence, will be reduced to somewhat less 
than two thousand persons. Since it cannot be doubted 
that the Christians were more numerous, and their enemies 
more exasperated, in the time of Diocletian, than they had 
ever been in any former persecution, this probable and 
moderate computation may teach us to estimate the number 
of primitive saints and martyrs who sacrificed their lives 
for the important purpose of introducing Christianity into 
the world. 

We shall conclude this chapter by a melan- 
choly truth, which obtrudes itself on the re- Conclusion. 
luctant mind ; that, even admitting, without 
hesitation or inquiry, all that history has recorded, or de- 
votion has feigned, on the subject of martyrdoms, it must 
still be acknowledged that the Christians, in the course 
of their intestine dissensions, have inflicted far greater 
severities on each other than they had experienced from 
the zeal of infidels. During the ages of ignorance which 
followed the subversion of the Roman empire in the West, 
the bishops of the imperial city extended their dominion 
over the laity as well as clergy of the Latin church. The 
fabric of superstition which they had erected, and which 
might long have defied the feeble efforts of reason, was at 
length assaulted by a crowd of daring fanatics, who, from the 
twelfth to the sixteenth century, assumed the popular char- 
racter of reformers. The church of Rome defended by 
violence the empire which she had acquired by fraud ; a 
system of peace and benevolence was soon disgraced by 
proscriptions, wars, massacres, and the institution of the 
holy office ; and as the reformers were animated by the love 
of civil, as well as of religious freedom, the Catholic princes 
connected their own interest with that of the clergy, and 
enforced by fire and the sword the terrors of spiritual cen- 
sures. In the Netherlands alone more than one hundred 
thousand of the subjects of Charles the Fifth are said to 
have suffered by the hand of the executioner ; * and this ex- 
traordinary number is attested by Grotius, 1S5 a man of 

185 Grot. Annal. de Rebus Belgicis, 1. i. p. 12. edit. fol. 

* This terrible barbarity, inflicted by Christians on their fellow-Christians, 
provoked no comment from either Guizot or Alilman, and yet these tender- 
hearted controversialists could shed copious tears at the slightest appearance 
of Pagan persecution, and bitterly lament the alleged sufferings and death of 
so-called Christian saints and martyrs. — E. 



292 CONCLUSION. 

genius and learning, who preserved his moderation amidst 
the fury of contending sects, and who composed the annals 
of his own age and country, at a time when the invention 
of printing had facilitated the means of intelligence, and 
increased the danger of detection. If we are obliged to 
submit our belief to the authority of Grotius, it must be 
allowed, that the number of protestants, who were executed 
in a single province and a single reign, far exceeded that of 
the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries, and 
of the Roman empire. But if the improbability of the fact 
itself should prevail over the weight of evidence, if Grotius 
should be convicted of exaggerating the merit and suffer- 
ings of the reformers : 186 we shall be naturally led to inquire 
what confidence can be placed in the doubtful and imperfect 
monuments of ancient credulity ; what degree of credit can 
be assigned to a courtly bishop, and a passionate declaimer,* 
who, under the protection of Constantine, enjoyed the ex- 
clusive privilege of recording the persecutions inflicted on 
the Christians by the vanquished rivals or disregarded pre- 
decessors of their gracious sovereign.f 

iso Fra Paolo {Istoria del Consilio Tridentino, lib. 3) reduces the number of 
Belgic martyrs to fifty thousand. In learning and moderation, Fra Paolo was 
not inferior to Grotius. The priority of time gives some advantage to the 
evidence of the former, which he loses on the other hand by the distance of 
Venice from the Netherlands. 



* Eusebius and the author of the Treatise de Mortibus Persecutorum. It is 
deeply to be regretted that the history of this period rests so much on the loose, 
and, it must be admitted, by no means scrupulous, authority of Eusebius. 
Ecclesiastical history is a solemn and melancholy lesson that the best, even the 
most sacred, cause will eventually suffer by the least departure from truth ! — M. % 

t Professor Schreiter, in a note principally addressed to his German readers, 
assigns among his reasons for not having made any observations on the two last 
chapters, the hope at that time entertained, that Professor Wenck was preparing 
a separate treatise on them. This expectation was disappointed. The note also 
refers to Dr. Liiderwald's then recently published work, On the Propagation of 
the Christian Religion by its Own Evidence. Helmstadt, 1788. There is some 
ground for the Professor's complaint, that Christianity, Church, and Hierarchy 
are too often confounded by Gibbon, and the errors of the latter improperly 
attributed to the former; yet it must be borne in mind that it has not long been 
safe anywhere, and is not even now everywhere, to make a distinction between 
the Hierarchy and Christianity.— Eng. Ch. 

X Dean Milman is right. It is to be regretted "that the history of this period 
" rests on the loose and by no means scrupulous authority of Eusebius." The 
notes and criticism of Milman and Guizot, based on this authority, are therefore 
worthless. 

Eusebius, " the gravest of ecclesiastical historians," as Gibbon styles him, and 
the apostle Paul, so highly esteemed by sectarians, were both addicted to the 
wicked habit of telling untruths {lies is the harsh word employed by the trans- 
lators of King James' version, Rom. iii. : 7), to enhance what they believed to be 
the "glory of God." And yet, in spite of this canonical authority, Milman 
asserts, in the language of philosophy, " that the best, even the most sacred, 
" cause will eventually suffer by the least departure from truth." May we not 
believe that Milman, when left to his own impulses, was better than the creed he 
so persistently advocated ?— E. . 



APOLLO. 
" The god of life, and poesy, and light.''' — Byron. 

APOLLO was the god of the sun — the light of the world — the image of eternal 
youth — the glory of the universe. "I am come a light into the world," 
says the apostle, "that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in 
"darkness." ( yohn xii : 46.) " As in the rays of the sun," says Moritz, "which 
" are both beneficent ami destructive, fertilizing and producing decay, creation 
"and destruction are united, so the divine form of which those rays are the 
" archetype, unites in itself both terror and mildness. For the god of beauty and 
" vouth, who delights in lyre and song, carries, at the same time, the quiver upon 
' his shoulder, and draws the silver bow." He is the driver of the chariot of 
the Sun, which, drawn by milk-white steeds, he seems to guide along the vault of 
the skies. " His head is surrounded by rays of light. He gives light both to mortal 
" men and immortal gods. He sees and hears every thing, and discovers all that 
'' was kept secret." " He is the true light which lighteth every man that cometh 
" into the world." (yohn i : 9.) " Serenity, benevolence, and loveliness," continues 
Moritz, "constitute the chief character of Apollo, and he whose arrow wounds, 
" heals again. Not only is he himself venerated under the name of the Healing, 
" but he is also the father and teacher of /Esculapius, who is acquainted with 
" the means of soothing every pain, and knows a medicine for every sickness : 
" who by his art can save even from death itself." 

The all-seeing, all-discovering sunbeam, is the image of Apollo, that " Lightens 
" our darkness and defends us from all dangers and perils of the night. " " Collect 
" in Evening Service." And Apollo is also the animating sun-beam which awakes 
the heart to gayety and song. " If thou art afflicted now, and mourning," says 
Horace, "it will not always be thus; for not always does Apollo bend his bow; 
" soon will he awaken again the silent muse to play and song! " " All are agreed," 
says Cicero, " that Apollo is none other than the Sun, because the attributes 
" which are commonly ascrihed to Apollo do so wonderfully agree thereto." 

" On the isle of Delos," continues Moritz, " he awoke to life, and soon after his 
" birth, the divine power that dwelt in him, speedily developed itself. The 
" august goddesses Themis, Rhea, Dione, and Aphrodite, were present when 
" he was born: they wrapped him up in soft habiliments, and Thetis gave 
" him nectar and ambrosia. As soon as he had tasted the divine food, the bonds 
" of infancy confined him no longer; the divine boy stood erect, and his tongue 
" was loosed : ' The golden lyre,' cried he, ' shall be my joy, the carved bow my 
" ' pleasure, and in oracles I will reveal the events of futurity.' And when he 
" had thus spoken, now a blooming youth, he walked forth majestically over 
" mountains and islands. He came to Pytho, with its craggy summits, and thence 
" arose, swift as thought, into the assembly of the celestials, where then at once 
" reigned lyre and song; the Graces, tenderly embracing their friends and com- 
" panions, the Hora, joined with them in the Olympian dance : while the Muses, 
" with harmonious voices, sang the joys of the blessed immortals." 

The piety of mankind has bestowed upon the son of Jupiter and Latona the 
various names of Apollo, Phoebus, Sol, Helios, Hyperion, &c He was worshiped 
as Mithras by the Persians, as Horus by the Egyptians, as Chrishna by the 
Hindoos, and as Apollo by the Greeks and Romans. " He was the only one of 
" the gods," says Lempriere, "whose oracles were in general repute over the 
'* world." " His temple at Delphi," says Eschenburg, " was illustrious beyond 
" all others, on account of its vast treasures. He was regarded as the god of the 
" sciences, especially poetry, eloquence, music, and also medicine. As the god 
" of inspiration and prophesy, he gave oracles at Didyma, Patara, Claros, and 
" other places. His image, as expressed by poets and artists, was the highest 
"ideal of human beauty — a tall and majestic body, and an immortal youth and 
" vigor." His statue at A<5lium was a mark for mariners to avoid the dangerous 
coast, and his famous Colossus at Rhodes, was one of the seven wonders of the 
World. The most celebrated example of plastic art. which has been spared by 
the ravages of time, is the beautiful statue of Apollo known as the Apollo 
Belvidere ; and modern genius may scarcely hope to equal, but not surpass, 
the sublime conceptions and artistic perfection of the ancient Pagans. 

In Dwight's Mythology it is stated, on the authority of Proclus, " that the 
" Athenians honored the seventh day " — the Sun-day — "as sacred to Apollo, 
" the god of the Sun ; " and Jews and Christians have both followed the Pagan ex- 
ample 0/ observing one day in seven as a sacred and holy day. Indeed, there is 
scarcely a rite, a dogma, or a myth, now existing in the Christian theology, which 
cannot be traced to its origin in ancient Paganism. The Pagan doctrine of im- 
mortality, which is now the fundamental doctrine of the Christian creed, may 
serve as a pertinent example. As is well known, it was taught by Plato to his 
Pagan contemporaries centuries before the Christian era, and it is now implicitly 
believed by Christians of all sefls throughout the civilized world. " Not so much 
" as one single line," says Taylor, " containing or conveying the vestige of any 
" idea or conceit whatever, find we in Christian temples, but what will fit back 
" again and dove-tail into its original niche in the walls of the Pantheon." — E. 




Hermes presenting a Soul to Hades and Persephone. 



IV. 

THE MOTIVES, PROGRESS, AND EFFECTS, OF THE CON- 
VERSION OF CONST ANTINE. — LEGAL ESTABLISHMENT 
AND CONSTITUTION OF THE CHRISTIAN OR CATHOLIC 
CHURCH, f 

THE public establishment of Christianity may be con- 
sidered as one of those important and domestic 
revolutions which excite the most lively curiosity, 
and afford the most valuable instruction. The victories and 
the civil policy of Constantine no longer influence the state of 
Europe ; but a considerable portion of the globe still retains 
the impression which it received from the conversion of that 
monarch ; and the ecclesiastical institutions of his reign are 
still connected, by an indissoluble chain, with the opinions, 
the passions, and the interests of the present generation. 

In the consideration of a subject which may 
be examined with impartiality, but cannot be Date of the 
viewed with indifference, a difficulty immediately c consSnt£ie. 
arises of a very unexpected nature — that of as- 
certaining the real and precise date of the conversion of 
Constantine. The eloquent Lactantius, in the 
midst of his court, seems impatient 1 to proclaim 

i The date of the Divine Institutions of Lactantius has been accurately dis- 
cussed, difficulties have been started, solutions proposed, and an expedient 
imagined of two original editions j the former published during the persecution 
of Diocletian, the latter under that of Licinius. See Dufresnoy, Prefat. p. v. 

* Long before the advent of Christianity, and when the materialistic Jews 
believed that death ends all, " and that a man hath no pre-eminence above a 
" beast," the Pagans taught the doctrine of the soul's immortality, and of a life 
beyond the grave. — E. 

f Chap. XX. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

( 2 93) 



A. D. 306. 



294 ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 

to the world the glorious example of the sovereign of Gaul ; 
who, in the first moments of his reign, acknowledged and 
adored the majesty of the true and only God. 2 The learned 
Eusebius has ascribed the faith of Constantine to the mira- 
culous sign which was displayed in the heavens whilst he 
meditated and prepared the Italian expedition. 3 The his- 
torian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the 
emperor had embrued his hands in the blood 
of his eldest son,* before he publicly renounced the gods of 

Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. torn. vi. pp. 465-470. Lardner's Credibility, part ii. 
vol. vii. pp. 78-86. For my own part, I am almost convinced that Lactantius 
dedicated his Institutions to the sovereign of Gaul, at a time when Galerius, 
Maximin, and even Licinius, persecuted the Christians ; that is between the 
year 306 and 311. 

2 Lactant. Divin. Instil. i. 1, vii. 27. The first and most important of these 
passages is indeed wanting in twenty-eight manuscripts ; but it is found in 
nineteen. If we weigh the comparative value of those manuscripts, one of 900 
years old, in the king of France's library, may be alleged in its favor; but the 
passage is omitted in the correct manuscript of Bologna, which the P. de Mont- 
faucon ascribes to the sixth or seventh century (Diarium Italic, p. 409). The 
taste of most of the editors (except Isseus ; Lactant. edit. Dufresnoy, torn. i. 
p. 596) has felt the genuine style of Lactantius. 

3 Euseb. in Vit. Constant. 1. i. c. 27-32. 

* A spirited account of the life and character of Constantine can be found 
in Taylor's Diegesis, pages 345-354. from which we condense a few excerpts. 
" Constantine the Great, under whose reign Christianity became the established 
" religion, and but for whom, as far as human probabilities can be calculated, it 
" never would have come down to us, was born on the 27th of February, A. D. 
,: 272, or 274, was converted to the Christian religion on the night of October 26, 
" A. D. 312, reigned about thirty-one years, and died May 22, A. D. 348, the 
" second year of the two hundred and seventy-eighth Olympiad, in the sixty- 
" sixth year of his age. The conversion of Constantine (says Dr. Lardner) was 
" a favor of divine providence, and of great advantage to the Christians, and his 
" reign may be reckoned a blessing to the Roman empire on the whole. 

" Eusebius — who would never lie nor falsify, except to promote the glory of 
" God — the conscientious Eusebius Pamphilus, who has written his life, seems to 
" know no bounds of exaggeration in his praise. I am amazed (says this vera- 
" cious bishop, on whose fidelity all our knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity 
" must ultimately depend) when I contemplate such singular piety and goodness. 
" Moreover, when I look up to heaven, and in my mind behold this blessed soul 
" living in God's presence, and there invested with a blessed and unfading 
" wreath of immortality ; considering this, I am oppressed with silent amaze- 
" ment, and my weakness makes me dumb, resigning his due encomium to 
" Almighty God, who alone can give to Constantine the praise he merits. 

In the Life of Constantine, lib. iv. c. 63, it is stated that " Constantine was 
" the first of all the emperors who was regenerated by the new birth of 
" baptism, and signed with the sign of the cross; and being thus regenerated, 
" his mind was so illuminated, and by the raptures of faith so transported, 
" that he admired in himself the wonderful work of God : and when the 
" centurions and captains admitted into his presence, did bewail and mourn for 
" his approaching death, because thev should lose so good and gracious a 
" prince, he answered them, ' that he now only began to live, and that he now 
" 'only began to be sensible of happiness, and therefore, he now only desired to 
*' 'hasten, rather than to slack or stay his passage to God.' 

" For he alone of all the Roman emperors did, with most religious zeal, honor 
" and worship God. He alone, with great liberty of speech, did profess the 
" gospel of Jesus Christ. He alone, did honor his church more than all the rest. 
" He alone, abolished the wicked adoration of idols ; and, therefore, he alone, 
" both in his life, and after his death, hath been crowned with such honors as no 
" one hath obtained, neither among the Grecians nor Barbarians, nor in former 

• times, among the Romans. Since no age hath produced anything that might 

• be paralleled or compared to Constantine. 

" Lardner, who branded the virtuous Julian, as a persecutor, has not one ill 



CONVERSION OF CONST ANTINE. 295 

Rome and of his ancestors. 4 The perplexity A> D 326- 
produced by these discordant authorities, is de- 
rived from the behavior of Constantine himself. According 
to the strictness of ecclesiastical language, the first of the 
Christian emperors was unworthy of that • name till the 
moment of his death ; since it was only during A< D ^ 
his last illness that he received as a catechumen, 
the imposition of hands, 5 and was afterwards admitted^ by 
the initiatory rites of baptism, into the number of the faith- 
ful. 6 The Christianity of Constantine must be allowed in a 
much more vague and qualified sense ; and the nicest ac- 
curacy is required in tracing the slow and almost imper- 
ceptible gradations by which the monarch declared himself 

4 Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 104. . . 

s That rite was always used in making a catechumen (see Bingham's Antiqui- 
ties, 1. x. c. i. 419. Dom Chardon, Hist, des Sacramens, torn. i. p. 62), and 
Constantine received it for the first time (Euseb. in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 61) 
immediately before his baptism and death. From the connection of these two 
facts, Valesius (ad. loc. Euseb. has drawn the conclusion which is reluctantly 
admitted by Tillemont (Hist, des Empereurs, torn. iv. p. 628), and opposed with 
feeble arguments by Mosheim (p. 968). 

6 Euseb. in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The legend of Constantine's 
baptism at Rome, thirteen years before his death, was invented in the eighth 
century, as a proper motive for his donation. Such has been the gradual pro- 
gress of knowledge, that a story-, of which Cardinal Baronius [Annal. Ecclesiast. 
A. D. 324, No. 43-49) declared himself the unblushing advocate, is now feebly 
supported, even within the verge of the Vatican. See the Antiguitates Chris- 
tians, torn. ii. p. 232 ; a work published with six approbations at Rome, in the 
year 1751, by Father Mamachi, a learned Dominican. 

" word to spare for the Christian Constantine, who drowned his unoffending 
*' wife Fausta, in a bath of boiling water, beheaded his_ eldest son, Crispus, in 
" the very year in which he presided in the Council of IS ice, murdered the two 
" husbands' of his sisters Constantia, and Anastasia, murdered his own father-in- 
" law, Maximian Herculius, murdered his own nephew, being his sister Con- 
" stantia's son, a boy only twelve years old, and murdered a few others ! which 
" actions, Lardner, with a truly Christian moderation, tells us, 'seem to cast a 
" ' reflection upon him.' Among those few others, never be it forgotten, was 
" Sopater, the Pagan priest, who fell a victim and a martyr to the sincerity of his 
" attachment to Paganism, and to the honesty of his refusing the consolations of 
" heathenism to the conscience of the royal murderer. 

The Rev. Robt. Taylor thus methodically arranges Constantine's slaughter bill 
under the following dates : 

Maximian, his wife's father, - - - - A. D. 310 

Bassianus, his sister Anastasia's husband, ... 314 
Licinianus, his nephew, by Constantina, - 319 

Fausta, his wife, ------- 320 

Sopater, his former friend, ----- 321 

Licinius, his sister Constantina's husband, - - 325 

Crispus, his own son, ------ 326 

The reason for the martyrdom of Sopater, the Pagan philosopher and priest, 
is thus rendered from Sozomen by Dr. Lardner, vol. 4, p. 400 : 

" I am not ignorant that the Gentiles are wont to say that Constantine, having 
" put to death some of his relations and particularly his son Crispus, and being 
; * sorry- for what he had done, applied to Sopater, the philosopher, and heanswer- 
" ing that there were no expiations for such. offences ; the emperor then had 
" recourse to the Christian bishops, who told him that by repentance and baptism 
" he might be cleansed from all sin ; with which doctrine he was well pleased, 
" whereupon he became a Christian."— E. 



296 INDECISION OF CONSTANTINE. 

the protector, and at length the proselyte of the church. 
It was an arduous task to eradicate the habits and preju- 
dices of his education, to acknowledge the divine power of 
Christ, and to understand that the truth of his revelation 
was incompatible with the worship of the gods. The ob- 
stacles which he had probably experienced in his own mind, 
instructed him to proceed with caution in the momentous 
change of a national religion ; and he insensibly discovered 
his new opinions, as far as he could enforce them with safety 
and with effect. During the whole course of his reign, the 
stream of Christianity flowed with a gentle, though accele- 
rated, motion ; but its general direction was sometimes 
checked, and sometimes diverted, by the accidental cir- 
cumstances of the times, and by the prudence, or possibly 
by the caprice, of the monarch. His ministers were per- 
mitted to signify the intentions of their master in the various 
language which was best adapted to their respective prin- 
ciples ; 7 and he artfully balanced the hopes and fears of his 
subjects, by publishing in the same year two 
edicts ; the first of which enjoined the solemn 
observance of Sunday, 8 and the second directed the regular 
consultation of aruspices. 9 While this important revolution 
yet remained in suspense, the Christians and the Pagans 
watched the conduct of their sovereign with the same 
anxiety, but with very opposite sentiments. The former 
were prompted by every motive of zeal, as well as vanity, 
to exaggerate the marks of his favor, and the evidence of 
his faith. The latter, till their just apprehensions were 
changed into despair and resentment, attempted to conceal 
from the world, and from themselves, that the gods of 
Rome could no longer reckon the emperor in the number 
of their votaries. The same passions and prejudices have 
engaged the partial writers of the times to connect the pub- 
lic confession of Christianity with the most glorious or the 
most ignominious era of the reign of Constantine. 

? The quaestor, or secretary, who composed the law of the Theodosian Code, 
makes his master say with indifference, " hominibus supradictse religionis " 
(!. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 1). The minister of ecclesiastical affairs was allowed a more 
devout and respectful style, rfo tvSlouov ndl uyiuTuTjjg Ka-&oliKTJq dpr/oneinc ; 
the legal, most holy, and Catholic worship. See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. x. c. 6. 

s Cod. Theodos.'l. ii. tit. viii. leg. 1. Cod. Justinian. 1. iii. tit xii. leg. 3. 
Constantine styles the Lord's day dies solis, a name which could not offend the 
ears of his Pagan subjects. 

9 Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. x. leg. 1. Godefroy, in the character of a commen- 
tator, endeavors (torn. vi. p. 257) to excuse Constantine ; but the more zealous 
Baronius {Annal. Eccles. A. D. 321, No. 18) censures his profane conduct with 
truth and asperity. 



PAGANISM OF CONSTANTINE. 297 

Whatever symptoms of Christian piety might 
transpire in the discourses or actions of Con- JSjfggJJ. 
stantine, he persevered till he was near forty 
years of age in the practice of the established religion ; 10 and 
the same conduct, which in the court of Nicomedia might 
be imputed to his fear, could be ascribed only to the incli- 
nation or policy of the sovereign of Gaul. His liberality 
restored and enriched the temples of the gods ; the medals 
which issued from his imperial mint are impressed with the 
figures and attributes of Jupiter and Apollo, of Mars and 
Hercules ; and his filial piety increased the council of Olym- 
pus by the solemn apotheosis of his father Constantius. 11 
But the devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly di- 
rected to the genius of the Sun, the Apollo of Greek and 
Roman mythology ; and he was pleased to be represented 
with the symbols of the God of Light and Poetry. The un- 
erring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his 
laurel wreath, immortal beauty, and elegant accomplish- 
ments, seem to point him out as the patron of a young 
hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive 
offerings of Constantine ; and the credulous multitude were 
taught to believe, that the emperor was permitted to behold 
with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity ; 
and that, either waking or in a vision, he was blessed with 
the auspicious omens of a long and victorious reign. The 
Sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and 
protector of Constantine ; and the Pagans might reasonably 
expect that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting- 
vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite. 12 

As long as Constantine exercised a limited 
sovereignty over the provinces of Gaul, his th/chrisdans 
Christian subjects were protected by the au- A ^ G J 6 ul - I2 
thority, and perhaps by the laws, of a prince, 

10 Theodoret (1. i. c. 18) seems to insinuate that Helena gave her son a Christian 
education; but we may be assured, from the superior authority of Eusebius (in 
Vit. Constant. 1. iii. c. 47), that she herself was indebted to Constantine for the 
knowledge of Christianity. 

11 See the medals of Constantine in Ducange and Banduri. As few cities had 
retained the privilege of coining, almost all the medals of that age issued from 
the mint under the sanction ofthe imperial authority.* 

12 The panegyric of Eumenius (vii. inter panegyr. Vet.), which was pronounced 
a few months before the Italian war, abounds with the most unexceptionable 
evidence of the Pagan superstition of Constantine, and of his particular venera- 
tion for Apollo, or the Sun ; to which Julian alludes Orat. vii. p. 228 ,a7T oXe'inurae. 
See Commentaire de Spanheim sur les Cesars, p. 317. 

* Eckhel. Doctrin. Num. vol. vii. — Milman. 
The coins of Constantine and his sons were issued from Rome and Con- 
stantinople. See Eckhel (D. Num. Vet. 8, 95.). — E. C. 



298 EDICT OF MILAN. 

who wisely left to the gods the care of vindicating their 
own honor. If we may credit the assertion of Constantine 
himself, he had been an indignant spectator of the savage 
cruelties which were inflicted by the hands of Roman 
soldiers, on those citizens whose religion was their only 
crime. 13 In the East and in the West, he had seen the 
different effects of severity and indulgence ; and as the 
former was rendered still more odious by the example of 
Galerius, his implacable enemy, the latter was recommended 
to his imitation by the authority and advice of a dying 
father. The son of Constantius immediately suspended or 
repealed the edicts of persecution, and granted the free ex- 
ercise of their religious ceremonies to all those who had 
already professed themselves members of the church. They 
were soon encouraged to depend on the favor as well as on 
the justice of their sovereign, who had imbibed a secret 
and sincere reverence for the name of Christ, and for the 
God of the Christians. 14 

About five months after the conquest of Italy, 
a. d. 313. the emperor made a solemn and authentic dec- 
Edict of laration of his sentiments, by the celebrated edict 
Milan. of Milan, which restored peace to the Catholic 
church. In the personal interview of the two 
western princes, Constantine, by the ascendant of genius 
and power, obtained the ready concurrence of his colleague, 
Licinius ; the union of their names and authority disarmed 
the fury of Maximin ; and, after the death of the tyrant of 
the East, the edict of Milan was received as a general and 
fundamental law of the Roman world. 15 

The wisdom of the emperors provided for the restitution 
of all the civil and religious rights of which the Christians 
had been so unjustly deprived. It was enacted, that the 
places of worship, and public lands, which had been confis- 
cated, should be restored to the church, without dispute, 
without delay, and without expense : and this severe injunc- 
tion was accompanied with a gracious promise, that if any 

" Constant. Orat. ad Sanctos, c. 25. But it might easilv be shown, that the 
Greek translator has improved the sense of the Latin original ; and the aged 
emperor might recollect the persecution of Diocletian with a more lively abhor- 
rence than he had actually felt in the days of his youth and Paganism. 

14 See Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. viii. 13, 1. ix. 9. and in Vit. Constant. 1. i. c. 16, 17. 
Lactant. Divin. Institut. i. 1. C<zcilius de Mort. Persecut. c. 25. 

is Caecilus (de Mort. Persecut. c. 48) has preserved the Latin original ; and 
Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. 1. x. c. 5) has given a Greek translation of this perpetual 
edict, which refers to some provisional regulations. 



REASONS FOR TOLERATION. 299 

of the purchasers had paid a fair and adequate price, they 
should be indemnified from the imperial treasury. The 
salutary regulations which guard the future tranquillity of 
the faithful are framed on the principles of enlarged and 
equal toleration ; and such an equality must have been in- 
terpreted by a recent sect as an advantageous and honorable 
distinction. The two emperors proclaim to the world, that 
they have granted a free and absolute power to the Chris- 
tians, and to all others, of following the religion which each 
individual thinks proper to prefer, to which he has ad- 
dicted his mind, and which he may deem the best adapted 
to his own use. They carefully explain every ambiguous 
word, remove every exception, and exact from the governors 
of the provinces a strict obedience to the true and simple 
meaning of an edict, which was designed to establish and 
secure, without any limitation, the claims of religious liberty. 
They condescend to assign two weighty reasons which have 
induced them to allow this universal toleration ; the humane 
intention of consulting the peace and happiness of their 
people ; and the pious hope, that by such a conduct, they 
shall appease and propitiate the Deity, whose seat is in 
heaven. They gratefully acknowledge the many signal 
proofs which they have received of the Divine favor ; and 
they trust that the same Providence will for ever continue 
to protect the prosperity of the prince and people. From 
these vague and indefinite expressions of piety, three sup- 
positions may be deduced, of a different, but not of an 
incompatible nature. The mind of Constantine might fluctu- 
ate between the Pagan and the Christian religions. Ac- 
cording to the loose and complying notions of Polytheism, 
he might acknowledge the God of the Christians as one of 
the many deities who composed the hierarchy of heaven. 
Or perhaps he might embrace the philosophic and pleasing 
idea, that, notwithstanding the variety of names, of rites, 
and of opinions, all the sects and all the nations of mankind 
are united in the worship of the Common Father and Crea- 
tor of the universe. 16 * 

is A panegyric of Constantine, pronounced seven or eight months after the 
edict of Milan (See Gothofred. Chronolog. Legtim. p. 7, and Tillemont, Hist, des 
Empereurs, torn. y. p. 246), uses the following remarkable expression : " Summe 
' rerum sator, cujus tot nomina sunt, quot linguas gentium esse voluisti, quern 
enim te ipse dici velis, scire non possumus." {Panegyr. Vet. ix. 26). In explaining 
Constantine's progress in the faith, Mosheim (p. 971) is ingenious, subtle, prolix. 

* Pope must have had this in his mind when he commenced his Universal 
Pra5^er, making "Saint, savage, and sage," use "Jehovah, Jove, or Lord," 
only as different names for one Supreme Being. — Eng. Ch. 



300 INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 

But the councils of princes are more frequently 
Use and influenced by views of temporal advantage, than 
be chnsSan he ^Y considerations of abstract and speculative 
morality. truth. The partial and increasing favor of Con- 
stantine may naturally be referred to the esteem 
which he entertained for the moral character of the Chris- 
tians ; and to a persuasion, that the propagation of the gospel 
would inculcate the practice of private and public virtue. 
Whatever latitude an absolute monarch may assume in his 
own conduct, whatever indulgence he may claim for his 
own passions, it is undoubtedly his interest that all his sub- 
jects should respect the natural and civil obligations of 
society. But the operation of the wisest laws is imperfect 
and precarious. They seldom inspire virtue, they cannot 
always restrain vice. Their power is insufficient to prohibit 
all that they condemn, nor can they always punish the 
actions which they prohibit. The legislators of antiquity 
had summoned to their aid the powers of education and of 
opinion : But every principle which had once maintained 
the vigor and purity of Rome and Sparta was long since 
extinguished in a declining and despotic empire. Philos- 
ophy still exercised her temperate sway over the human 
mind, but the cause of virtue derived very feeble support 
from the influence of the Pagan superstition. Under these 
discouraging circumstances, a prudent magistrate might 
observe with pleasure the progress of a religion, which dif- 
fused among the people a pure, benevolent, and universal 
system of ethics, adapted to every duty and every condition 
of life ; recommended as the will and reason of the Supreme 
Deity, and enforced by the sanction of eternal rewards or 
punishments. The experience of Greek and Roman history 
could not inform the world how far the system of national 
manners might be reformed and improved by the precepts 
of a divine revelation ; and Constantine might listen with 
some confidence to the flattering, and indeed reasonable, 
assurances of Lactantius. The eloquent apologist seemed 
firmly to expect, and almost ventured to promise, that the 
establishment of Christianity would restore the innocence 
and felicity of the primitive age ; that the worship of the true 
God would extinguish war and dissension among those who 
mutually considered themselves as the children of a com- 
mon parent ; that every impure desire, every angry or selfish 
passion, would be restrained by the knowledge of the gos- 



PASSIVE OBEDIENCE. 3OI 

pel ; and that the magistrates might sheath the sword of 
justice among a people who would be universally actuated 
by the sentiments of truth and piety, of equity and modera- 
tion, of harmony and universal love. 17 

The passive and unresisting obedience, which 
bows under the yoke of authority, or even of practiced 
oppression, must have appeared, in the eyes ^elfince 
of an absolute monarch, the most conspicuous 
andusefuloftheevangelicvirtu.es. 18 The primitive Chris- 
tians derived the institution of civil government, not from 
the consent of the people, but from the decrees of Heaven. 
The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre 
by treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred 
character of vicegerent of the Deity.* To the Deity alone he 
was accountable for the abuse of his power ; and his subjects 
were indissolubly bound, by their oath of fidelity, to a tyrant, 
who had violated every law of nature and society. The 
humble Christians were sent into the world as sheep among 
wolves ; and since they were not permitted to employ force, 
even in the defence of their religion, they would be still more 
criminal if they were tempted to shed the blood of their 
fellow-creatures, in disputing the vain privileges, or the 
sordid possessions, of this transitory life. Faithful to the 
doctrine of the apostle, who in the reign of Nero had 
preached the duty of unconditional submission, the Chris- 
tians of the three first centuries preserved their conscience 
pure and innocent of the guilt of secret conspiracy, or open 
rebellion. While they experienced the rigor of persecution, 
they were never provoked either to meet their tyrants in 
the field, or indignantly to withdraw themselves into some 
remote and sequestered corner of the globe. 19 The Protest- 

17 See the elegant description of Lactantius {Divin. Institut. vi. 8), who is much 
more perspicuous and positive than becomes a discreet prophet. 

is The political system of the Christians is explained by Grotius, de Jure Belli 
et Pacts, 1. i. c. 3, 4. Grotius was a republican and an exile, but the mildness of 
his temper inclined him to support the established powers. 

19 Tertullian. Apolog. c. 32, 34, 35, 36. Tamen nunquam Albiniani, nee Nigriar 
vel Cassiani inveniri potuerunt Christiani. Ad Scapulam, c. 2. If this assertion 
be strictly true, it excludes the Christians of that age from all civil and military 
employments, which would have compelled them to take an active part in the 
service of their respective governors. See Moyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 349. 

*This Christian doctrine of the divine right of kings, which is allied to that 
twin relic of barbarism, the doctrine of the divine right of priests, was boldly 
challenged by the leaders of the American Revolution ; and it is to the grand suc- 
cess of that revolt against established wrong, that the world is indebted to the 
now recognized doctrine of the unalienable rights of the people to " life, liberty, 
" and the pursuit of happiness." Paine's Rights of Man, which so clearly en- 
forces this principle, should be read by every freeman, and its author esteemed 
by every patriot. — £. 



302 DIVINE RIGHTS OF RULERS. 

ants of France, of Germany, and of Britain, who asserted 
with such intrepid courage their civil and religious freedom, 
have been insulted by the invidious comparison between 
the conduct of the primitive and of the reformed Christians. 20 
Perhaps, instead of censure, some applause may be due to 
the superior sense and spirit of our ancestors, who had 
convinced themselves that religion cannot abolish the un- 
alienable rights of human nature. 21 Perhaps the patience 
of the primitive church may be ascribed to its weakness, as 
well as to its virtue. A sect of unwarlike plebeians, without 
leaders, without arms, without fortifications, must have en- 
countered inevitable destruction in a rash and fruitless 
resistance to the master of the Roman legions. But the 
Christians, when they deprecated the wrath of Diocletian, 
or solicited the favor of Constantine, could allege with truth 
and confidence, that they held the principle of passive obe- 
dience, and that, in the space of three centuries, their 
conduct had always been conformable to their principles. 
They might add, that the throne of the emperors would be 
established on a fixed and permanent basis, if all their 
subjects embracing the Christian doctrine, should learn to 
suffer and to obey. 

Divine right I n tne general order of Providence, princes 
of . and tyrants are considered as the ministers of 
heaven, appointed to rule or to chastise the 
nations of the earth. But sacred history affords many 
illustrious examples of the more immediate interposition 
of the Deity in the government of his chosen people. 
The scepter and the sword were committed to the hands 
of Moses, of Joshua, of Gideon, of David, of the Maccabees ; 
the virtues of those heroes were the motive or the effect of 
the divine favor, the success of their arms was destined 
to achieve the deliverance or the triumph of the church. 
If the judges of Israel were occasional and temporary 
magistrates, the kings of Judah derived from the royal 
unction of their great ancestor, an hereditary and inde- 
feasible right, which could not be forfeited by their own 
vices, nor recalled by the caprice of their subjects. The 

20 See the artful Bossuet {Hist, des Variations des Eglises Protestantes, torn. iii. 
pp. 210-258), and the malicious Bayle (torn. ii. p. 620). I name Bavle. for he was 
certainly the author of the Avis aux Refugies ; consult the Dictionnaire Critique 
de Chauffepic , torn. i. part ii. p. 145. 

21 Buchanan is the earliest, or at least the most celehrated, of the reformers, 
who has justified the theory of resistance. See his Dialogue de Jure Regni apud 
Scotos, torn. ii. pp. 28, 30, edit. fol. Ruddiman. 



DEFEAT OF LICINIUS. 303 

same extraordinary providence, which was no longer con- 
fined to the Jewish people, might elect Constantine and his 
family as the protectors of the Christian world; and the* 
devout Lactantius announces, in a prophetic tone, the future 
glories of his long and universal reign. 22 Galerius and 
Maximin, Maxentius and Licinius, were the rivals who 
shared with the favorite of heaven the provinces of the 
empire. The tragic deaths of Galerius and Maximin soon 
gratified the resentment, and fulfilled the sanguine expecta- 
tions, of the Christians. The success of Constantine against 
Maxentius and Licinius removed the two formidable com- 
petitors who still opposed the triumph of the second David, 
and his cause might seem to claim the peculiar interposition 
of Providence. The character of the Roman tyrant dis- 
graced the purple and human nature ; and though the 
Christians might enjoy his precarious favor, they were ex- 
posed, with the rest of his subjects, to the effects of his 
wanton and capricious cruelty. The conduct of Licinius 
soon betrayed the reluctance with which he had consented 
to the wise and humane regulations of the edict of Milan. 
The convocation of provincial synods was prohibited in his 
dominions ; his Christian officers were ignominiously dis- 
missed ; and if he avoided the guilt, or rather danger, of a 
general persecution, his partial oppressions were rendered 
still more odious by the violation of a solemn and voluntary 
engagement. 23 While the East, according to the lively ex- 
pression of Eusebius, was involved in the shades of infernal 
darkness, the auspicious rays of celestial light warmed and 
illuminated the -provinces of the West. The piety of Con- 
stantine was admitted as an unexceptionable proof of the 
justice of his arms ; and his use of victory confirmed the 
opinion of the Christians, that their hero was inspired, and 
conducted, by the Lord of Hosts. The conquest of Italy 
produced a general edict of toleration ; and as soon as the 
defeat of Licinius had invested Constantine with 
the sole dominion of the Roman' world, he * ' ZH ' 
immediately, by circular letters, exhorted all his subjects to 
imitate without delay, the example of their sovereign, and 
to embrace the divine truth of Christianity. 24 

22 Lactant. Divin. Instuit. 1. i. Eusebius, in the course of his history, his life, 
and his oration, repeatedly inculcates the divine right of Constantine to the empire. 

23 Our imperfect knowledge of the persecution of Licinius is derived from 
Eusebius {Hist. Eccles. 1. x. c. 8. Vit. Constantin. 1. i. c. 49-56, 1. ii. c. 1, 2.) 
Aurelius Victor mentions his cruelty in general terms. 

24 Euseb. in Vit. Constant. 1. ii. c. 24-42, 48-60. 



304 CHRISTIAN LOYALTY TO CONSTANTINE. 

The assurance that the elevation of Constan- 
Loyaity and tine was intimately connected with the designs 
christian °^ Providence, instilled in the minds of the 
party. Christians two opinions, which, by very differ- 
ent means, assisted the accomplishment of the 
prophecy. Their warm and active loyalty exhausted in his 
favor every resource of human industry ; and they confi- 
dently expected that their strenuous efforts would be 
seconded by some divine and miraculous aid. The enemies 
of Constantine have imputed to interested motives the 
alliance which he insensibly contracted with the Catholic 
church, and which apparently contributed to the success of 
his ambition. In the beginning of the fourth century, the 
Christians still bore a very inadequate proportion to the 
inhabitants of the empire ; but among a degenerate people, 
who viewed the change of masters with the indifference of 
slaves, the spirit and union of a religious party might assist 
the popular leader, to whose sendee, from a principle of 
conscience, they had devoted their lives and fortunes. 25 The 
example of his father had instructed Constantine to esteem 
and to reward the merit of the Christians ; and in the dis- 
tribution of public offices, he had the advantage of strength- 
ening his government, by the choice of ministers or generals, 
in whose fidelity he could repose a just and unreserved con- 
fidence. By the influence of these dignified missionaries, 
the proselytes of the new faith must have multiplied in the 
court and army ; the barbarians of Germany, who filled the 
ranks of the legions, were of a careless temper, which 
acquiesced without resistance in the religion of their com- 
mander; and when they passed the Alps, it may fairly be 
presumed, that a great number of the soldiers had already 
consecrated their swords to the service of Christ and of 
Constantine. 26 The habits of mankind, and the interest of 
religion, gradually abated the horror of war and bloodshed, 
which had so long prevailed among the Christians : and in 
the councils which were assembled under the gracious pro- 

25 In the beginning of the last century, the Papists of England were only a 
thirtieth, and the Protestants of France only a fifteenth, part of the respective 
nations, to whom their spirit and power were a constant object of apprehension. 
See the relations which Bentivoglio (who was then nuncio at Brussels, and after- 
wards cardinal) transmitted to the court of Rome {Reiazione, torn. ii. pp. 211, 241). 
Bentivoglio was curious, well informed, but somewhat partial. 

26 This careless temper of the Germans appears almost uniformly in the history 
of the conversion of each of the tribes. The legions of Constantine were recruited 
with Germans (Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 86) ; and the court even of his father had been 
filled with Christians. See the first book of the Life of Constantine, by Eusebius. 



THE CROSS AS A STANDARD. 305 

tection of Constantine, the authority of the bishops was 
seasonably employed to ratify the obligation of the military 
oath, and to inflict the penalty of excommunication on those 
soldiers who threw away their arms during the peace of the 
church. 27 While Constantine in his own dominions, in- 
creased the number and zeal of his faithful adherents, he 
could depend on the support of a powerful faction in those 
provinces which were still possessed or usurped by his 
rivals. A secret disaffection was diffused among the Chris- 
tian subjects of Maxentius and Licinius ; and the resentment 
which the latter did not attempt to conceal, served only to 
engage them still more deeply in the interest of his com- 
petitor. The regular corespondence which connected the 
bishops of the most distant provinces, enabled them freely 
to communicate their wishes and their designs, and to 
transmit without danger any useful intelligence, or any 
pious contributions, which might promote the service of 
Constantine, who publicly declared that he had taken up 
arms for the deliverance of the church. 28 

The enthusiasm which inspired the troops, 
and perhaps the emperor himself, had sharpened ancPbeifefof 
their swords while it satisfied their conscience, a miracle. 
They marched to battle with the full assurance,- 
that the same God, who had formerly opened a passage to 
the Israelites through the waters of Jordan, and had thrown 
down the walls of Jericho at the sound of the trumpets of 
Joshua, would display his visible majesty and power in the 
victory of Constantine. The evidence of ecclesiastical his- 
tory is prepared to affirm, that their expectations were 
justified by the conspicuous miracle to which the conversion 
of the first Christian emperor has been almost unanimously 
ascribed. The real or imaginary cause of so important an 
event, deserves and demands the attention of posterity ; and 
I shall endeavor to form a just estimate of the famous vision 
of Constantine, by a distinct consideration of the standard, 
the dream, and the celestial sign ; by separating the his- 
torical, the natural, and the marvellous parts of this extra- 

27De his qui arma projiciunt in pace, placuit eos abstinere a communione,Cowc?7. 
Arelat. Canon, iii. The best critics apply these words to the peace of the church. 

28 Eusebius always considers the second civil war against Licinius as a sort ot 
religious crusade. At the invitation of the tyrant, some Christian officers had 
resumed their zones ; or, in other words, had returned to the military service. 
Their conduct was afterwards censured by the twelfth canon of the Council of 
Nice; if this particular application may be received, instead of the loose and 
general sense of the Greek interpreters, Balsamon, Zonaras, and Alexis Aristenus. 
See Beveridge, Pandect. Eccles. Grcec. torn. i. p. 72, torn. ii. p. 78, Annotation.- 



306 



THE LABARUM. 



ordinary story, which, in the composition of a specious 
argument, have been artfully confounded in one splendid 
and brittle mass. 

I. An instrument of the tortures which were 
inflicted only on slaves and strangers, became 
an object of horror in the eyes of a Roman 
citizen ; and the ideas of guilt, of pain, and of 
ignominy, were closely united with the idea 
of the cross. 29 The piety, rather than the hu- 
manity, of Constantine, soon abolished in his 
dominions the punishment which the Savior 
of mankind had condescended to suffer ; 30 but 
the emperor had already learned to despise 
the prejudices of his education and of his 
people, before he could erect in the midst of 
Rome his own statue, bearing a cross in its 
right hand ; with an inscription which referred 
the victory of his arms, and the deliverance 
of Rome, to the virtue of that salutary sign, 
the true symbol of force and courage. 31 The 
same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers 
*of Constantine ; the cross glittered on their 
helmets, was engraved on their shields, was 
interwoven into their banners ; and the conse- 
crated emblems, which adorned the person of the emperor 
himself, were distinguished only by richer materials and 
more exquisite workmanship. 32 But the principal standard 

20 Nomen ipsum cruris absit non modo a corpore civium Romanorum, sed 
etiam a cogitatione, ocuhs, auribus. Cicero pro Raberio, c. 5. The Christian 
writers, Justin, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, Jerom, and Maximus of Turin, have 
investigated with tolerable success the figure or likeness of a cross in almost 
every object of nature or art ; in the intersection of the meridian and equator, 
the human face, a bird flying, a man swimming, a mast and yard, a plough, a 
standard, &c, &c, &c. See Lipsius de Cruce, 1. i. c. 9. 

3» See Aurelius Victor, who considers this law as one of the examples of Con- 
stantine's piety. An edict so honorable to Christianity deserved a place in the 
Theodosian Code, instead of the indirect mention of it, which seems to result 
from the comparison of the fifth and eighteenth titles of the ninth book. 

31 Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. 1. i. c. 40. This statue, or at least the cross 
and inscription, may be ascribed with more probability to the second, or even 
third, visit of Constantine to Rome. Immediately after the defeat of Maxentius, 
the minds of the senate and people were scarely ripe for this public monument.* 
32Agnoscas, regina, libens mea signa necesse est; 
In quibus effigies cruris aut gemmata refulget. 
Aut longis solido ex auro prsefertur in hastis. 
Hoc signo invictus, transmissis Alpibus Ultor 
Servitium solvit miserabile Constantinus. 
***** 

Christus purpureum gemmanti textus in auro 
Signabat Labarum, clypeorum insignia Christus 
Scripserat ; ardebat summis crux addita cristis. 

Prudent, in Symmachum, 1. ii. 464, 486. 



The Labarum 
or standard of 
the cross. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE LABARUM. 307 

which displayed the triumph of the cross was styled the 
Labarum™ an obscure, though celebrated name, which has 
been vainly derived from almost all the languages of the 
world. It is described 34 as a long pike intersected by a 
transversal beam. The silken veil which hung down from 
the beam, was curiously inwrought with the images of the 
reigning monarch and his children. The summit of the 
pike supported a crown of gold, which enclosed the mys- 
terious monogram, at once expressive of the figure of the 
cross, and the initial letters of the name of Christ. 35 The 
safety of the labarum was intrusted to fifty guards of 
approved valor and fidelity ; their station was marked by 
honors and emoluments : and some fortunate accidents 
soon introduced an opinion, that as long as the guards of 
the labarum were engaged in the execution of their office, 
they were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts of the 
enemy. In the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded 
the power of this consecrated banner, the sight of which, in 
the distress of battle, animated the soldiers of Constantine 
with an invincible enthusiasm, and scattered terror and 
dismay through the ranks of the adverse legions. 36 The 
Christian emperors who respected the example of Constan- 
tine, displayed in all their military expeditions the standard 
of the cross ; but when the degenerate successors of Theo- 
dosius had ceased to appear in person at the head of their 
armies, the labarum was deposited as a venerable but useless 
relic in the palace of Constantinople. 37 Its honors are still 
preserved on the medals of the Flavian family. Their 

33 The derivation and meaning of the word Labarum or Laborum, which is 
employed by Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, Prudentius, &c, still remain totally 
unknown, in spite of the efforts of the critics, who have ineffectually tortured the 
Latin, Greek, Spanish, Celtic, Teutonic, Illyric, Armenian, &c, in search of an 
etymology. See Ducange, in Glos. Med. et itifim. Latinitat, sub voce Labarum, 
and Godefroy, ad Cod. Theodos. torn. ii. p. 143. 

34 Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. 1. i. c. 30, 31. Baronius {Anna!. Eccles. A. D. 312, 
No. 26) has engraved a representation of the Labarum. 

35 Transversa X litera, summo capite circumflexo, Christum in scutis notat. 
Ccscilius de M. P. c. 44. Cuper (ad M. P. in edit. Lactant. 
torn. ii. p. 500), and Baronius (A. D. 312, No. 25), have engraved 
from ancient monuments several specimens of these mono- 
grams, which became extremely fashionable in the Christian 
world. 

se Euseb. in Vit. Constantin. 1. ii. c. 7-9. He introduces the labarum before the 
Italian expedition ; but his narrative seems to indicate that it was never shown 
at the head of an army, till Constantine, above ten years afterwards, declared 
himself the enemy of Licinius, and the deliverer of the church. 

3" See Cod. Theod. 1. vi. tit. 25. Sozomen, 1. i. c. 2. Theophan. Chronograph. 
p. 11. Theophanes lived towards the eighth century, almost five hundred years 
after Constantine. The modern Greeks were not inclined to display in the field 
the standard of the empire and of Christianity; and though they depended on 
every superstitious hope of defence, the promise of victory would have appeared 
too bold a fiction. 



•M 



303 DREAM OF CONSTANTINE. 

grateful devotion has placed the monogram of Christ in the 
midst of the ensign of Rome. The solemn epithets of, 
Safety of the republic, Glory of the army, Restoration of 
public happiness, are equally applied to the religious and 
military trophies ; and there is still extant a medal of the 
emperor Constantius, where the standard of the labarum is 
accompanied with these memorable words, By this sign 

THOU SHALT CONQUER. 38 

II. In all occasions of danger and distress, 
The dream of it was the practice of the primitive Christians to 
Constantine. fortify their minds and bodies by the sign of the 
cross, which they used, in all their ecclesiastical 
rites, in all the daily occurrences of life, as an infallible pre- 
servative against every species of spiritual or temporal evil. 39 
The authority of the church might alone have had sufficient 
weight to justify the devotion of Constantine, who in the 
same prudent and gradual progress acknowledged the truth, 
and assumed the symbol, of Christianity. But the testimony 
of a contemporary writer, who in a formal treatise has 
avenged the cause of religion, bestows on the piety of the 
emperor a more awful and sublime character. He affirms, 
with the most perfect confidence, that in the night which 
preceded the last battle against Maxentius, Constantine was 
admonished in a dreamj to inscribe the shields of his 
soldiers with the celestial sign of God, the sacred monogram 
of the name of Christ ; that he executed the commands of 
heaven, and that his valor and obedience were rewaded by 

3S The abbe du Voisin, p. 103, &c, alleges several of these medals, and quotes a 
particular dissertation of a Jesuit, the pere de Grainville, on this subject.* 

39 Tertul. de Corona, c. iii. Athanasius, torn. i. p. 101. The learned Jesuit, Peta- 
vius, {Domata Theolog. 1. xv, c. 9, 10), has collected many similar passages on the 
virtues of the cross, which in the last age embarrassed our Protestant disputants.! 

* No genuine coins of. Constantine have been found with Christian emblems. 

Eckhel {Num. Vet. 8, 84) rejects, as decidedly spurious, one preserved in the 
T} "O Museum of Pisa, on which they are shown. The monogram 

-XT and N J^ on ' ater coins have two forms, the first of which resembles 

"| *uS some on early tetradrachms of Athens. Coins of the Ptolemys 

-^ also are inscribed with the Greek letters X P, the meaning 

Xof which is not known. Humphrey's Manual (p. 226, edit. 
Bonn) exhibits of the monogram of Achaia, about 350 B. C, 
which approaches very nearly to the Christian emblem. — 
Eng. Ch. 
t The early influence of such a notion caused the Greek translator of Matthew's 
Hebrew Gospel, to render Tephillin by phylacteria. (C. xxiii. v. 5.) By this, the 
prayer-signs of the Jews, which are strictly religious symbols, were assimilated 
to the talismans, which Eastern nations imagined possessed the virtue of pro- 
tecting them against diseases and calamities ; and hence arose the still prevailing 
but mistaken idea, that these remembrancers of devotion were used as " amulets 
" and charms." — Eng. Ch. 

J Manso has observed, that Gibbon ought not to have separated the vision of 
Constantine from the wonderful apparition in the sky, as the two wonders are 
closely connected in Eusebius. Manso, Leben Constantine. p. 82. — Milman. 



THE VISION DISCUSSED. 309 

the decisive victory of the Milvian Bridge. Some consider- 
ations might perhaps incline a skeptical mind to suspect the 
judgment or the veracity of the rhetorician, whose pen, 
either from zeal or interest, was devoted to the cause of the 
prevailing faction. 40 He appears to have published his 
Deaths of the Persectito?'s, at Nicomedia, about three years 
after the Roman victory ; but the interval of a thousand 
miles, and a thousand days, will allow an ample latitude for 
the invention of declaimers, the credulity of party, and the 
tacit approbation of the emperor himself; who might listen 
without indignation to a marvellous tale, which exalted his 
fame, and promoted his designs. In favor of Licinius, who 
still dissembled his animosity to the Christians, the same 
author has provided a similar vision, of a form of prayer,, 
which was communicated by an angel, and repeated by the 
whole army before they engaged the legions of the tyrant 
Maximin. The frequent repetition of miracles serves to 
provoke, where it does not subdue, the reason of mankind ; 41 
but if the dream of Constantine is separately considered, it 
may be naturally explained either by the policy or the en- 
thusiasm of the emperor. Whilst his anxiety for the ap- 
proaching day, which must decide the fate of the empire, 
was suspended by a short and interrupted slumber, the 
venerable form of Christ, and the well-known symbol of his 
religion, might forcibly offer themselves to the active fancy 
of a prince who reverenced the name, and had perhaps se- 
cretly implored the power, of the God of the Christians. As 
readily might a consummate statesman indulge himself in the 
use of one of those military stratagems, one of those pious 
frauds, which Philip and Sertorius had employed with such 
art and effect. 42 The preternatural origin of dreams was 

40 Ctzcilhis de M. P. c. 44. It is certain that this historical declamation was 
composed and published while Licinius, sovereign of the East, still preserved 
the friendship of Constantine and of the Christians. Every reader of taste must 
perceive that the style is of a very different and inferior character to that of 
Lactantius ; and such indeed is the judgment of Le Clerc and Lardner {Biblio- 
theque Ancienne et Moderne, torn. iii. p. 438. Credibility of the Gospel, d?c, part 
ii. vol. vii. p. 94.) Three arguments from the title of the book, and from the 
names of Donatus and Caecilius, are produced by the advocates for Lactantius. 
(See the P. Lestocq, torn. ii. pp. 46-60.) Each of these proofs is singly weak and 
defective; but their concurrence has great weight. I have often fluctuated, and 
shall tamely follow the Colbert MS. in calling the author (whoever he was) Caecilius. 

4i Ccecilins de M. P. c. 46. There seems to be some reason in the observation 
of M. de Voltaire (CEuvres, torn. xiv. p. 307), who ascribes to the success of 
Constantine the superior fame of his Labarum above the angel of Licinius. Yet 
even this angel is favorably entaintained by Pagi, Tillemont, Fleury, &c, who 
are fond of increasing their stock of miracles. 

42 Besides these well-known examples. Tollius (Preface to Boileau's translation 
of Longinus) has discovered a vision of Antigonus, who assured his troops that 
he had seen a pentagon (the symbol of safety) with these words, " In this conquer." 



3IO A CROSS IN THE SKY. 

universally admitted by the nations of antiquity, and a con- 
siderable part of the Gallic army was already prepared to 
place their confidence in the salutary sign of the Christian 
religion. The secret vision of Constantine could be dis- 
proved only by the event ; and the intrepid hero who had 
passed the Alps and the Apennine, might view with care- 
less despair the consequences of a defeat under the walls of 
Rome. The senate and people, exulting in their own 
deliverance from an odious tyrant, acknowledged that the 
victory of Constantine surpassed the powers of man, without 
daring to insinuate that it had been obtained by the pro- 
tection of the gods. The triumphal arch, which was erected 
about three years after the event, proclaims, in ambiguous 
language, that by the greatness of his own mind, and by an 
instinct or impulse of the Divinity, he had saved and 
avenged the Roman republic. 43 The Pagan orator, who had 
seized an earlier opportunity of celebrating the virtues of 
the conqueror, supposes that he alone enjoyed a secret and 
intimate commerce with the Supreme Being, who delegated 
the care of mortals to his subordinate deities ; and thus 
assigns a very plausible reason why the subjects of Con- 
stantine should not presume to embrace the new religion 
of their sovereign. 44 

Appearance m* The philosopher, who with calm suspicion 
of a cross in examines the dreams and omens, the miracles 
the sky. an ^ p ro digi es> f p ro fane or even of ecclesiastical 
history, will probably conclude, that if the eyes of the 
spectators have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the 
understanding of the readers has much more frequently 
been insulted by fiction. Every event, or appearance, or 
accident, which seems to deviate from the ordinary course 
of nature, has been rashly ascribed to the immediate action 
of the Deity ; and the astonished fancy of the multitude has 
sometimes given shape and color, language and motion, to 
the fleeting but uncommon meteors of the air. Nazarius 

But Tollius has most inexcusably omitted to produce his authority, and his own 
character, literary as well as moral, is not free from reproach. (See Chauffepie, 
Dictionnaire Critique, torn. iv. p. 460.) Without insisting on the silence of 
Diodorus, Plutarch, Justin, &c, it may be observed that Polyaenus, who, in a 
separate chapter (1. iv. c. 6) has collected nineteen military stratagems of 
Antigonus, is totally ignorant of this remarkable vision. 

43 Instinctu Divinitatis, mentis magnitudine. The inscription on the triumphal 
arch of Constantine, which has been copied by Baronius, Gruter, &c, may still 
be perused by every curious traveler. 

44 Habeas profecto aliquid cum ilia mente Divina secretum ; quae delegata nostra 
Diis Minoribus cura uni se tibi dignatur ostendere. Panegyr. Vet. ix. 2. 



A DOUBTFUL NARRATIVE. 3II 

and Eusebius are the two most celebrated orators, who, in 
studied panegyrics, have labored to exalt the A D 
glory of Constantine. 45 Nine years after the Ro- 
man victory, Nazarius 46 describes an army of divine warriors, 
who seemed to fall from the sky : he marks their beauty, 
their spirit, their gigantic forms, the stream of light which 
beamed from their celestial armor, their patience in suffer- 
ing themselves to be heard as well as seen by mortals ; and 
their declaration that they were sent, that they flew, to the 
assistance of the great Constantine. For the truth of this 
prodigy, the Pagan orator appeals to the whole Gallic na- 
tion, in whose presence he was then speaking ; and seems to 
hope that the ancient apparitions 47 would now obtain credit 
from this recent and public event. 

The Christian fable of Eusebius, which in the space of 
twenty-six years, might arise from the original A D> 
dream, is cast in a much more correct and ele- 
gant mould. In one of the marches of Constantine, he is 
reported to have seen with his own eyes the luminous trophy 
of the cross, placed above the meridian sun, and inscribed 
with the following words : By this, conquer. This amazing 
object in the sky astonished the whole army, as well as the 
emperor himself, who was yet undetermined in the choice 
of a religion : but his astonishment was converted into faith 
by the vision of the ensuing night. Christ appeared before 
his eyes ; and displaying the same celestial sign of the cross, 
he directed Constantine to frame a similar standard, and to 
march, w r ith an assurance of victory, against Maxentius and 
all his enemies. 48 The learned bishop of Caesarea appears to 

45 M. Freret {Memoires de V Academie des Inscriptions, torn. iv. pp. 411-437) 
explains, by physical causes, many of the prodigies of antiquity; and Fabricius, 
who is abused by both parties, vainly tries to introduce the celestial cross of 
Constantine among the solar halos. Bibliothec. Grcec. torn. iv. pp. 8-29.* 

46 Nazarius inter Panegyr. Vet. x. 14, 15. It is unnecessary to name the 
moderns, whose undistinguishing and ravenous appetite has swallowed even 
the Pagan bait of Nazarius. 

47 The apparitions of Castor and Pollux, particularly to announce the Macedo- 
nian victory, are attested by historians and public monuments. See Cicero de 
Natura Deorum, ii. 2, iii. 5, 6. Florus, ii. 12. Valerius Maximus, 1. i. c. 8. No. 1. 
Yet the most recent of these miracles is omitted, and indirectly denied, by Livy 
(xlv. i). 

48 Eusebius, 1. i. c. 28, 29, 30. The silence of the same Eusebius, in his Ecclesi- 
astical History, is deeply felt by those advocates for the miracle who are not 
absolutely callous. 

* The great difficulty in resolving it into a natural phenomenon, arises from 
the inscription ; even the most heated or awe-struck imagination would hardly 
discover distinct and legible letters in a solar halo. But the inscription may 
have been a later embellishment, or an interpretation of the meaning, which the 
sign was construed to convey. Compare Heinichen, Excursus in locum Eusebii, 
and the authors quoted.— Mi lman. 



312 TESTIMONY OF EUSEBIUS. 

be sensible, that the recent discovery of this marvellous 
anecdote would excite some surprise and distrust among 
the most pious of his readers. Yet, instead of ascertaining 
the precise circumstances of time and place, which always 
serve to detect falsehood, or establish truth ; 49 instead 
of collecting and recording the evidence of so many 
living witnesses, who must have been spectators of this stu- 
pendous miracle ; 50 Eusebius contents himself with alleging 
a very singular testimony — that of the deceased Constantine, 
who, many years after the event, in the freedom of conver- 
sation, had related to him this extraordinary incident of his 
own life, and had attested the truth of it by a solemn oath. 
The prudence and gratitude of the learned prelate forbade 
him to suspect the veracity of his victorious master ; but he 
plainly intimates, that, in a fact of such a nature, he should 
have refused his assent to any meaner authority. This 
motive of credibility could not survive the power of the 
Flavian family ; and the celestial sign, which the infidels 
might afterwards deride, 51 was disregarded by the Christians 
of the age which immediately followed the conversion of 
Constantine. 52 But the Catholic church, both of the East 
and of the West, has adopted a prodigy, which favors, or 
seems to favor, the popular worship of the cross. * The 

49 The narrative of Constantine seems to indicate, that he saw the cross in the 
sky before he passed the Alps against Maxentius. The scene has been fixed by 
provincial vanity at Treves, Besancon, &c. See Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, 
torn. iv. p. 573. 

^0 The pious Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. p. 1317) rejects with a sigh the 
useful Acts of Artemhis, a veteran and a martyr, who attests as an eye-witness 
the vision of Constantine. 

si Gelasius Cyzic. in Act. Concil. Nicen. 1. i. c. 4. 

52 The advocates for the vision are unable to produce a single testimony from 
the Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, who, in their volumious writings, 
repeatedly celebrate the triumph of the Church and of Constantine. As these 
venerable men had not any dislike to a miracle, we may suspect (and the suspi- 
cion is confirmed by the ignorance of Jerom) that they were all unacquainted 
with the life of Constantine by Eusebius. This tract was recovered by the dili- 
gence of those who translated or continued his Ecclesiastical History, and who 
have represented in various colors the vision of the cross. 

* " The Nile," says Rev. Robt. Taylor, " was worshiped as a god by the inhab- 
" itants of the countries fertilized by its inundations, before all records of human 
" opinions or actions. The ignorant gratitude of a superstitious people, while 
" they adored the river on whose inundations the fertility of their provinces 
" depended, could not fail of attaching notions of sanctity and holiness to the 
" posts that were erected along its course, and which, by a transverse beam, 
" indicated the height to which, at the spot where the beam was fixed, the waters 
" might be expected to rise. This cross at once warned the traveler to secure his 
" safety, and formed a standard of the value of the land. 

" It should never be forgotten, that the sign of the cross, for ages anterior to the 
" Augustan era, was in common use among the Gentiles. It was the most sacred 
" symbol of Egyptian idolatry. It is on most of the Egyptian obelisks, and was 
" believed to possess all the devil-expelling virtues which have since been 
" ascribed to it by Christians. The monogram, or symbol of the god Saturn, 



CONSTANTINES MOTIVES. 313 

vision of Constantine maintained an honorable place in the 
leg-end of superstition, till the bold and sagacious spirit of 
criticism presumed to depreciate the triumph, and to arraign 
the truth, of the first Christian emperor. 53 

The protestant and philosophic readers of Theconver- 
the present age, will incline to believe, that in Con S g t anSne 
the account of his own conversion, Constantine might be 
attested a wilful falsehood by a solemn and sincere - 
deliberate perjury. They may not hesitate to pronounce, 
that, in the choice of a religion, his mind was determined 
only by a sense of interest ; and that (according to the ex- 
pression of a profane poet 54 ) he used the altars of the 
church as a convenient footstool to the throne of the em- 
pire. A conclusion so harsh and so absolute is not, however, 
warranted by our knowledge of human nature, of Constan- 
tine, or of Christianity. In an age of religious fervor, the 
most artful statesmen are observed to feel some part of the 
enthusiasm which they inspire; and the most orthodox 
saints assume the dangerous privilege of defending the 
cause of truth by the arms of deceit and falsehood. Personal 
interest is often the standard of our belief, as well as of our 

53 Godefroy was the first, who in the year 1643 {Not. ad Philostorgium, 1. i. c. 6, 
p. 16), expressed any doubt of a miracle which had been supported with equal 
zeal by Cardinal Baronius, and the Centuriators of Madgeburgh. Since that 
time many of the Protestant critics have inclined toward doubt and disbelief. 
The objections are urged, with great force, by M. Chauffepie (Dictionnaire 
Critiqtte, torn. iv. pp. 6-1 1) ; and, in the year 1774, a doctor of Sorbonne, the 
Abbe du Voisin, published an apology, which deserves the praise of learning 
and moderation.* 

siLors Constantin dit ces propres paroles ; 

J'ai renverse le culte des idoles : 

Sur les debris de leurs temples fumans 

Au Dieu du Ciel j'ai prodigue l'encens. 

Mais tous mes soins pour sa grandeur supreme 

N'eurent jamais d'autre objet que moi-meme ; 

Les saints autels n'etoient a mes regards 

Qu'un marchepie du trone des Cesars. 

L'ambition, la fureur, les delices 

Etoient mes Dieux, avoient mes sacrifices. 

L'or des Chretiens, Ieur intrigues, leur sang 

Ont Cimente ma fortune et mon rang. 
The poem which contains these lines may be read with pleasure, but cannot be 
named with decencv. 



" was the sign of the cross, together with a ram's horn, in indication of the 
" Lamb of God. Jupiter also bore a cross with a horn, Venus a cross with a 
" circle. The famous Crux ansata is to be seen in all the buildings of Egypt; 
" and the most celebrated temples of the idol Chrishna in India, like our Gothic 
" cathedrals, were built in the form of crosses." — E. 

* The first Excursus of Heinichen (in Vitam Constantini, p. 507) contains a full 
summary of the opinions and arguments of the later writers who have discussed 
this interminable subject. As to his conversion, where interest and inclination, 
state policy, and, if not a sincere conviction of its truth, at least a respect, an 
esteem, an awe of Christianity, thus coincided, Constantine himself would probably 
have been unable to trace the actual history of the workings of his own mind, or 
to assign its real influence to each concurrent motive.— Milman, 



314 CHRISTIAN FRIENDS OF CONSTANTINE. 

practice; and the same motives of temporal advantage 
which might influence the public conduct and professions 
of Constantine, would insensibly dispose his mind to em- 
brace a religion so propitious to his fame and fortunes. 
His vanity was gratified by the flattering assurance that he 
had been chosen by heaven to reign over the earth ; success 
had justified his divine title to the throne, and that title 
was founded on the truth of the Christian revelation. As 
real virtue is sometimes excited by undeserved applause, the 
specious piety of Constantine, if at first it was only specious, 
might gradually, by the influence of praise, of habit, and of 
example, be matured into serious faith and fervent devo- 
tion. The bishops and teachers of the new sect, whose 
dress and manners had not qualified them for the residence 
of a court, were admitted to the imperial table ; they accom- 
panied the monarch in his expeditions ; and the ascendant 
which one of them, an Egyptian or a Spaniard, 55 acquired 
over his mind, was imputed by the Pagans to the effect of 
magic. 56 Lactantius, who had adorned the precepts of the 
gospel with the eloquence of Cicero; 57 and Eusebius, who 
has consecrated the learning and philosophy of the Greeks 
to the service of religion, 58 were both received into the 
friendship and familiarity of their sovereign ; and those able 
masters of controversy could patiently watch the soft and 
yielding moments of persuasion, and dexterously apply the 
arguments which were the best adapted to his character 
and understanding. Whatever advantages might be derived 
from the acquisition of an imperial proselyte, he was dis- 
tinguished by the splendor of his purple, rather than by 
the superiority of wisdom or virtue, from the many thou- 
sands of his subjects who had embraced the doctrines of 
Christianity. Nor can it be deemed incredible, that the 
mind of an unlettered soldier should have yielded to the 
weight of evidence, which, in a more enlightened age, has 
satisfied or subdued the reason of a Grotius, a Pascal, or a 

85 This favorite was probably the great Osius, bishop of Cordova, who preferred 
the pastoral care of the whole church to the government of a particular diocese. 
His character is magnificently, though concisely, expressed by Athanasius (torn. i. 
p. 793). See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. pp. 524-261. Osius was accused, 
perhaps unjustly, of retiring from court with a very ample fortune. 

5« See Eusebius (in Vii. Constant, passim) and Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 104. 

51 The Christianity of Lactantius was of amoral rather than of a mysterious cast. 
" Erat psene rudis (says the orthodox Bull) disciplinae Christianse, et in rhetorica 
" melius quam in theologia versatus." Defensio Fidei Nicence, sect. ii. c. 14. 

ss Fabricius, with his usual diligence, has collected a list ot between three and 
four hundred authors quoted in the Evangelical Preparation of Eusebius. See 
Bib. GrcBC. 1. v. c. 4, torn. vi. pp. 37-56. 



CONSTANTINES ARGUMENT FOR CHRISTIANITY. 315 

Locke. In the midst of the incessant labors of his great 
office this soldier employed, or affected to employ, the hours 
of the night in the diligent study of the Scriptures, and the 
composition of theological discourses ; which he afterwards 
pronounced in the presence of a numerous and applaud- 
ing audience. In a very long discourse, which is still extant, 
the royal preacher expatiates on the various proofs of re- 
ligion;* but he dwells with peculiar complacency on the 
Sybilline verses, 59 and the fourth eclogue of Virgil. 60 Forty 

59 See Constantiu. Orat. ad Sqnctos, c. 19, 20. He chiefly depends on a myste- 
rious acrostic, composed in the sixth age after the Deluge, by the Ervthnsan 
Sibyl, and translated by Cicero into Latin. The initial letters of the thirty-four 

^reek verses form this prophetic sentence : Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour 
of the World. 

60 In his paraphrase of Virgil, the emperor has frequently assisted and improved 
the literal sense of the Latin text. See Blondel des Sibylles, 1. i. c. 14, 15, 16. 

* Rev. Robt. Taylor, in the Diegesis, page 355, calls attention to the fact that 
Constantine was not only a Christian convert and disciple, but was also a teacher 
and preacher of the Christian religion. His great wealth, power and influence 
as emperor of Rome, placed at his disposal every particle of evidence that could 
be adduced in favor of the divine origin of Christianity. His conversion, which 
occurred but 279 years after the death of Christ, was so near in time to the 
Saviour's life and alleged miracles, that the records of those events — the history 
of those occurrences — must have been easily accessible to the royal advocate ; 
and when we consult his celebrated Oration, delivered before the most distin- 
guished Christian clergy of his age and empire, On the Evidences of the Christian 
Religion, we are prepared to listen at least to something tangible, — something 
better than the vague legends, the obscure prophecies, the questionable traditions, 
which pass for evidence among educated believers. 

"Here we must needs mention," says Constantine, chap. 18, of his Oration, 
" a certain testimony of Christ's divinity, fetched from those who were aliens 
" and strangers from the faith. For those who contumeliously detract from him, 
" if they will give credence to their own testimonies, may sufficiently understand 
" thereby that he is both God and the Son of God. For the Erythraean Sibyl, who 
" lived in the sixth age after the flood, being a priestess of Apollo, did yet, by the 
" power of divine inspiration, prophecy of future matters that were to come to 
" pass concerning God ; and, by the first letters, which is called an acrostic, 
" declared the history of Jesus. The acrostic is, Jestis Christus, Dei Films, 
" Servator, Crux. And these things came into the Virgin's mind by inspiration, 
" and by way of prophecy. And therefore I esteem her happy whom our Savior did 
" choose to be a prophetess, to divine and foretell of his providence toward us." 
" The acrostic is thus versified into English by the translator, Wye Saltonstall : 
"In that time, when the great Judge shall come, 
" E arth shall sweat ; the Eternal King from's throne 
" S hall judge the world, and all that in it be, 
" U nrighteous men and righteous, shall God see 
" S eated on high with saints eternall-EE. 
*' C ompassed, which in the last age have been 
" H ence shall the earth grow desolate again 
" R egardless statues and gold shall be held vain 
"In greedy flames shall burn earth seas and skies 
" S tand up again dead bodies shall, and rise,. 
" T hat they may see all these with their eyes. 
" C leansing the faithful in twelve fountains, He 
" R eign shall forever unto eternitee, 
" V ery God that he is, and our Saviour too, 
" X hrist that did suffer for us — and I hope that'll do ! 
" The royal preacher proceeds in the next chapter to reprove the incredulity 
" of those who doubt the genuineness of this sublime doggerel. 

" But the truth of the matter," he continues, " doth manifestly appear; for our 



316 



virgil's fourth eclogue. 



years before the birth of Christ, the Mantuan bard, as if 
inspired by the celestial muse of Isaiah, had celebrated, with 
all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the return of the virgin, 
the fall of the serpent, the approaching birth of a godlike 
child, the offspring of the great Jupiter, who should expiate 
the guilt of human kind, and govern the peaceful universe 
with, the virtues of his father; the rise and appearance of a 
heavenly race, a primitive nation throughout the world ; 
and the gradual restoration of the innocence and felicity of 
the golden age. The poet was perhaps unconscious of the 
secret sense and object of these sublime predictions, which 
have been so unworthily applied to the infant son of a con- 
sul, or a triumvir; 61 but if a more splendid, and indeed* 
specious, interpretation of the fourth eclogue contributed to 
the conversion of the first Christian emperor, Virgil may 

si The different claims of an elder and younger son of Pollio, of Julia, of Drusus, 
of Marcellus, are found to be incompatible with chronology, history, and the good 
sense of Virgil. 

" writers have with great study so accurately compared the times, that none can 
" suspect that this poem was made and came forth after Christ's coming; and, 
" therefore, they are convicted of falsehood who blaze abroad, that these verses 
" were not made by the Sibyl. 

"And then follows Chapter 20, entitled 'Other verses of Virgil concerning 
" 'Christ, in which under certain veils (as poets use) this knotty mystery is set 
" ' forth ; ' and to be sure, the fourth Bucolic of Virgil : commencing 

" Sicelides musae paulo majora canamus ; 
" is quoted as the ultimate proof and main evidence of the Christian revelation. 

" The amount of evidence then, for the Christian religion in the fourth century. 
" as far as evidence influenced the mind of the most illustrious convert it could 
" ever boast, was the Sibylline verses, now on all hands admitted to be a Christian 
" forgery; and a mystical interpretation arbitrarily put on an eclogue of Virgil, 
" which neither the poet himself, nor any rational man on earth, ever dreamed 
" of charging with such an application. 

" Surely we had a right to expect from Constantine, that if evidence to the 
" historical facts on which the gospel rests its claims, existed, he was the man who 
" should have been acquainted with it ;— this was the occasion on which it should 
u have been brought forward. Who, of all the human race, could better have 
" known the fact, or with .greater propriety have given a certificate of it, had it 
" been true that such a person as Jesus Christ had suffered an ignominious death." 

The Rev. Robert Taylor evidently believed with Gibbon, " that in the account 
" of his own conversion, Constantine attested a willful falsehood by a solemn and 
" deliberate perjury : " and if the language of the worthy clergyman now seems 
somewhat emphatic, it must be remembered that when the Diegesis was written 
its author was unjustiy imprisoned in Oakham jail for uttering heresies which are 
now tolerated in many pulpits. 

If the Sibylline verses and the fourth eclogue of Virgil may not now be consid- 
ered as historical evidence of the statements on which the Gospel rests, it must 
at least be admitted that Constantine so considered them, and that the first Chris- 
tian emperor, in his argument for Christianity, freely quoted Pagan poetry as 
proof of Holy-Writ. " Fortv years before the birth of Christ." says Gibbon, 
u the Mantuan bard had celebrated, with all the pomp of oriental metaphor, the 
.. r u^T n the vlr £ in ' the fal1 of the serpent, the approaching birth of a godlike 

child, the offspring of the great Jupiter, who should expiate the guilt of human 

kind; and if we but substitute Jehovah for Jupiter — the God of Israel for the 
immortal Jove — we may admit with Constantine the remarkable resemblance 
between ancient Paganism and primitive Christianity.— E. 






INITIATION OF CONSTANTINE. 317 

deserve to be ranked among the most successful mission- 
aries of the gospel. 62 

The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and Devotion and 
worship were concealed from the eyes of stran- privileges of 
gers, and even of catechumens, with an affected 
secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity. 63 
But the severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the 
bishops had instituted, were relaxed by the same prudence 
in favor of an imperial proselyte, whom it was so important 
to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale of 
the church ; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a 
tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges, before he 
had contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian. In- 
stead of retiring from the congregation, when the voice of 
the deacon dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with 
the faithful, disputed with bishops, preached on the most 
sublime and intricate subjects of theology, celebrated with 
sacred rites the vigil of Easter, and publicly declared him- 
self not only a partaker, but, in some measure, a priest and 
hierophant of the Christian mysteries. 64 The pride of Con- 
stantine might assume, and his services had deserved, some 
extraordinary distinction ;f an ill-timed rigor might have 

62 See Lowth de Sacra Poesi HebrcErorum Prczlect, xxi. pp. 289-293. In the 
examination of the fourth eclogue, the respectable bishop of London has dis- 
played, learning, taste, ingenuity, and a temperate enthusiasm, which exalts his 
fancy without degrading his judgment. 

63 The distinction between the public and the secret parts of divine service, 
the missa catechumenorum and the missa fidelium, and the mysterious veil which 
piety or policy had cast over the latter, are very judiciously explained by Thiers, 
Exposition du Saint Sacrament, 1. i. c. 8-12, pp. 59-91 : but, as on this subject, the 
Papists may reasonably be suspected, a Protestant reader will depend with more 
confidence on the learned Bingham, Antiquities, 1. x. c. 5. 

64 See Eusebius in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 15-32, and the whole tenor of Constan- 
tine's sermon. The faith and devotion of the emperor have furnished Earonius 
with a specious argument in favor of his early baptism.* 

* Compare Heinichen, Excursus iv. et v., where these questions are examined 
with candor and acuteness, and with constant reference to the opinions of more 
modern writers. — Milman. 

t" In the form and wording of several of Constantine's edicts," says Rev. Robt. 
Taylor, " we have specimens of that conjunction of holiness and blood-thirstiness, 
" religion and murder, which portrays his character with a precision and fidelity 
" that needs no further illustration. 

" 1. Constantine the puissant, the mighty and noble emperor, unto the bishops, 
pastors, and people wheresoever. 

"Moreover we thought good, that if there can be found extant any work or 
" book compiled by Arius, the same should be burned to ashes, so that not only 
" his damnable doctrine may thereby be wholly rooted out, but also that no relic 
" thereof may remain unto posterity. This also we straightly command and 
" charge, that if any man be found to hide or conceal any book made by Arius, 
" and not immediately bring forth the said book, and deliver it up to be burned, 
•' that the said offender for so doing shall die the death. For as soon as he is 
" taken, our pleasure is, that his head be stricken off from his shoulders. God 
" keep you in his tuition. (In Socrates Scholasticus, lib. 1. c. 6. fol. p. 227. 
" 2. Constantine's speech in the council concerning peace and concord. 

" Having by God's assistance, gotten the victory over mine enemies, I entreat 



318 constantine's delay of baptism. 

blasted the unripened fruits of his conversion ; and if the 
doors of the church had been strictly closed against a prince 
who had deserted the altars of the gods, the master of the 
empire would have been left destitute of any form of re- 
ligious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously dis- 
claimed and insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by 
refusing to lead the military procession of the equestrian 
order, and to offer the public vows to the Jupiter of the 
Capitoline hill. 65 Many years before his baptism and death, 
Constantine had proclaimed to the world, that neither his 
person nor his image should ever more be seen within the 
walls of an idolatrous temple ; while he distributed through 
the provinces a variety of medals and pictures, which 
represented the emperor in an humble and suppliant pos- 
ture of Christian devotion. 66 

The pride of Constantine, who refused the 
baptism till privileges of a catechumen, cannot easily be 
theapproach explained or excused ; but the delav of his 

of death. , r M . • ••/•««« • j 

baptism may be justified by the maxims and 
the practice of ecclesiastical antiquity- The sacrament of 
baptism 67 was regularly administered by the bishop himself, 
with his assistant clergy, in the cathedral church of the 

65 Zosimus, I. ii. p. 105. 

66 Eusebius in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 15, 16. 

67 The theory and practice of antiquity, with regard to the sacrament of bap- 
tism, have been copiously explained by Dom Chardon. Hist, des Sacramens, 
torn. i. pp. 3-405 ; Dom Martenne de Rittibus Ecclesice Antiquis, torn. i. ; and by 
Bingham, in the tenth and eleventh books of his Christian Antiquities. One 
circumstance may be observed, in which the modern churches have materially 
departed from the ancient custom. The sacrament of baptism (even when it was 
administered to infants) was immediately followed by confirmation and the holy 
communion. 



you therefore, beloved ministers of God, and servants of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ, to cut off the heads of this hydra of heresy, for so shall ye please 
both God and me. (Euseb. Vita. Const, lib. 3. c. 12.) 

" Motives of Constantine' s conversion . 
" Constantine the Emperor, being certified of the tyrannous government of 
Maxentius, devised with himself which way possibly he might rid the Romans 
from under this grievous yoke of servitude, and despatch the tyrant out of life. 
Deliberating thus with himself, he forecasted also what God, he were best to 
call upon for aid, to wage battle with the adversary. * * * Musing thus 
doubtfully with himself, and taking his journey with his soldiers, a certain 
vision appeared unto him, as it was strange to behold, so indeed incredible to 
be spoken of. About noon, the day somewhat declining, he saw in the sky, a 
pillar of light, in the form of a cross, whereon was engraved the inscription, 
' In this overcome.^ This vision so amazed the emperor, that he, mistrusting 
his own sight, demanded of them that were present, whether they perceived 
the vision, which when all with one consent had affrmed, the wavering mind 
of the Emperor, was settled with that divine and wonderful sight. The night 
following, Jesus Christ himself appeared to him, in his sleep, saying — ' Frame 
' to thyself the form of a cross after the example of the sign which appeared 
' unto thee, and bear the same against thy enemies as a fit banner, or token of 
' ' victory.' " (Socrates Eccl. Hist. lib. i. c. i.) — E. 



WHY BAPTISM WAS DEFERRED. 319 

diocese, during the fifty days between the solemn festivals 
of Easter and Pentecost; and this holy term admitted a 
numerous band of infants and adult persons into the bosom 
of the church. The discretion of parents often suspended 
the baptism of their children till they could understand the 
obligations which they contracted ; the severity of ancient 
bishops exacted from the new converts a noviciate of two or. 
three years ; and the catechumens themselves, from different 
motives of a temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom 
impatient to assume the character of perfect and initiated 
Christians. The sacrament of baptism was supposed to 
contain a full and absolute expiation of sin ; and the soul 
was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to 
the promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of 
Christianity, there were many who judged it imprudent to 
precipitate a salutary rite, which could not be repeated; 
to throw away an inestimable privilege, which could never 
be recovered. By the delay of their baptism, they could 
venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyments 
of this world, while they still retained in their own hands 
the means of a sure and easy absolution. 68 The sublime 
theory of the gospel had made a much fainter impression 
on the heart, than on the understanding, of Constantine 
himself. He pursued the great object of his ambition through 
the dark and bloody paths of war and policy ; and, after the 
victory, he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the 
abuse of his fortune. Instead of asserting his just superi- 
ority above the imperfect heroism and profane philosophy 
of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature age of Constantine 
forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in his youth. 

65 The fathers, who censured this criminal delay, could not deny the certain 
and victorious efficacy even of a death-bed baptism. The ingenious rhetoric of 
Chrysostom only could find three arguments against these prudent Christians. 
1. That we should love and pursue virtue for her own sake, and not merely for 
the reward. 2. That we may be surprised by death without an opportunity of 
baptism. 3. That although we shall be placed in heaven, we shall only twinkle 
like little stars when compared to the suns of righteousness who have run their 
appointed course with labor, with success, and with glory. Chrysostom in Epist. 
ad Hebrcsos, Homil- xiii. apud Chardon, Hist, des Sacremens, torn. i. p. 49. I 
believe that this delay of baptism, though attended with the most pernicious 
consequences, was never condemned by any general or provincial council, or by 
any public act or declaration of the church. The zeal of the bishops was easily 
kindled on much slighter occasions.* 

* This passage of Chrysostom, though not in his more forcible manner, is not 
quite fairly represented. He is stronger in other places, in Act. Horn, xxiii. — and 
Horn. i. Compare, likewise, the sermon of Gregory' of Nyssa on this subject, and 
Gregory Nazianzen. After all, to those who believed in the efficacy of baptism, 
what argument could be more conclusive than the danger of dying without it? 
Orat. xl. — Milman. 



320 LAST ILLNESS OF CONSTANTINE. 

As he gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he 
proportionally declined in the practice of virtue ; and the 
same year of his reign in which he convened the council 
of Nice, was polluted by the execution, or rather murder, 
of his eldest son. This date is alone sufficient to refute the 
ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus, 69 who affirms 
that after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his father 
accepted from the ministers of Christianity the expiation 
which he had vainly solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. 
At the time of the death of Crispus, the emperor could no 
longer hesitate in the choice of religion ; he could no longer 
be ignorant that the church was possessed # of an infallible 
remedy, though he chose to defer the application of it, till 
the approach of death had removed the temptation and 
danger of a relapse. The bishops whom he summoned 
in his last illness to the palace of Nicomedia, were edified 
by the fervor with which he requested and received the 
sacrament of baptism, by the solemn protestation that the 
remainder of his life should be worthy of a disciple of Christ, 
and by his humble refusal to wear the imperial purple after 
he had been clothed in the white garment of a neophyte. 
The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to 
countenance the delay of baptism. 70 Future tyrants were 
encouraged to believe, that the innocent blood which they 
might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed 
away in the waters of regeneration ; and the abuse of 
religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral 
virtue. 

Propagation The gratitude of the church has exalted the 
. of virtues and excused the failings of a generous 

Christianity. patronj w j 1Q seate d Christianity on the throne 

of the Roman world ; and the Greeks, who celebrate the 
festival of the imperial saint, seldom mention the name of 
Constantine without adding the title of " equal to the 

69 Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 104. For this disingenious falsehood he has deserved and 
experienced the harshest treatment from all the ecclesiastical writers, except 
Cardinal Baronius (A. D. 324, No. 15-28), who had occasion to employ the infidel 
on a particular service against the Arian Eusebius.f 

"o Eusebius, 1. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The bishop of Caesarea supposes the salvation 
of Constantine with the most perfect confidence. 

f Heyne, in a valuable note on this passage of Zosimus, has shown decisively 
that this malicious way of accounting for the conversion of Constantine was not 
an invention of Zosimus. It appears to have been the current calumny, eagerly 
adopted and propagated by the exasperated Pagan party. Reitemeyer, a later 
editor of Zosimus, whose notes are retained in the recent edition, in the collec- 
tion of the Byzantine historians, has a disquisition on the passage, as candid, but 
not more conclusive than some which have preceded him. — Milman. 



CHRISTIAN GRATITUDE TO CONSTANTINE. 32* 

" Apostles."" 11 Such a comparison, if it allude to the char- 
acter of those divine missionaries, must be imputed to the 
extravagance of impious flattery. But if the parallel be 
confined to the extent and number of their evangelic vic- 
tories, the success of Constantine might perhaps equal that 
of the apostles themselves. By the edicts of toleration, he 
removed the temporal disadvantages which had hitherto 
retarded the progress of Christianity ; and its active and 
numerous ministers received a free permission, a liberal en- 
couragement, to recommend the salutary truths of revelation 
by every argument which could affect the reason or piety 
of mankind. The exact balance of the two religions con- 
tinued but a moment ; and the piercing eye of ambition and 
avarice soon discovered that the profession of Christianity 
might contribute to the interest of the present as well as of 
a future life. 72 The hopes of wealth and honors, the example 
of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, 
diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds 
which usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities, 
which signalized a forward zeal by the voluntary destruction 
of their temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges, 
and rewarded with popular donatives ; and the new capital 
of the East gloried in the singular advantage, that Constan- 
tinople was never profaned by the worship of idols. 73 As 
the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the 
conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, 
of power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent 
multitudes. 74 The salvation of the common people was pur- 
chased at an easy rate, if it be true, that, in one year, twelve 
thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a propor- 
tionable number of women and children ; and that a white 
garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by 

71 See Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, torn. iv. p. 429. The Greeks, the Rus- 
sians, and, in the darker ages, the Latins themselves, have been desirous of 
placing Constantine in the catalogue of saints. 

"2 See the 3rd and 4th books of his life. He was accustomed to say that whether 
Christ was preached in pretence, or in truth, he should still rejoice, (1. iii. c. 58). 

T3 M. de Tillemont (Hist, des Empereurs, torn. iv. pp. 374, 616) has defended, 
with strength and spirit, the virgin purity of Constantinople against some malev- 
olent insinuations of the Pagan Zosimus. 

74 The author of the Histoire Politique et Philosophique des deux hides (torn. i. 
p. 9) condemns a law of Constantine, which gave freedom to all the slaves who 
should embrace Christianity. The emperor did indeed publish a law, which 
restrained the Jews from circumcising, perhaps from keeping, any Christian 
slave. (Euseb. in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 27, and Cod. Theod. 1. xvi. tit. ix., with 
Godefroy's Commentary, torn. vi. p. 247.) But this imperfect exception related 
only to the Jews ; and the great body of slaves, who were the property of Christian 
or Pagan masters, could not improve their temporal condition by changing their 



322 SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 

the emperor to every convert. 75 The powerful influence of 
Constantine was not circumscribed by the narrow limits 
of his life, or of his dominions. The education which he 
bestowed on his sons and nephews, secured to the empire 
a race of princes, whose faith was still more lively and 
sincere, as they imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the spirit, 
or at least the doctrine of Christianity. War and com- 
merce had spread the knowledge of the gospel beyond the 
confines of the Roman provinces ; and the barbarians, who 
had disdained an humble and proscribed sect, soon learned 
to esteem a religion which had been so lately embraced by 
the greatest monarch and the most civilized nation of the 
globe. 76 The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the 

religion.* I am ignorant by what guides the Abbe Raynal was deceived ; as the 
total absence of quotations is the unpardonable blemish of his entertaining history. 

"5 See Acta Sti Stives tri, and Hist. Eccles. Nicephor. Colli st. 1. vii. c. 34, ap. 
Baronium Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 67, 74. Such evidence is contemptible 
enough; but these circumstances are in themselves so probable that the learned 
Dr. Howell {History of the World, vol. iii. p. 14) has not scrupled to adopt them. 

'<& The conversion of the barbarians, under the reign of Constantine, is cele- 
brated by the ecclesiastical historians. (See Sozomen, 1. ii. c. 6, and Theodoret. 
1. i. c. 23, 24.) But Rufinus, the Latin translator of Eusebius, deserves to be con- 
sidered as an original authority. His information was curiously collected from 
one of the companions of the apostle of ^Ethiopia, and from Bacurius, an Iberian 
:ount of the cloi 



prince, who was count of the domestics. Father Mamachi has given an ample 
compilation on the progress c ' 
his great but imperfect work. 



compilation on the progress of Christianity, in the first and second volumes of 
rfei 



* Southern slaveholders always contended that negro slavery' was not opposed 
to the teachings of Christ and his apostles, and was justified by the example of 
the early Christians ; and even at the present day, Christian apologists for slavery 
— for the slavery of white people — are not wanting. 

In the August number of the North American Review for 1881, which is claimed 
to be the leading literary journal of America, Ex-Judge Jeremiah S. Black, the 
eminent jurist and devout Christian, says, in a paper on the Christian Religion, 
" My faith and my reason both assure me that the infallible God proceeded on 
" good grounds when he authorized slavery in Judea. Subordination of inferiors 
" to superiors is the groundwork of human society. All improvements of our 
" race, in this world and the next, must come from obedience to some master 
" better and wiser than ourselves. There can be no question that when a Jew 
" took a neighboring savage for his bond-servant, incorporated him into his 
" family, tamed him, taught him to work, and gave him a knowledge of the true 
" God, he conferred upon him a most beneficent boon." 

The rudest savage that ever felt the stinging lash upon his shoulders, could 
not be convinced by a statement like this, and philosophers, who realize that 
slavery debases both the enslaved and the enslaver, can but look upon such a 
statement, from a Christian jurist, with feelings of indignation and sorrow. 

"Those who look tenderly at the slave-owner, and with a cold heart at the 
" slave," says Darwin, in his Voyage of a Naturalist (vol. ii. p. 302), " never seem 
" to put themselves into the position of the latter. What a cheerless prospect, 
" and not even a hope of change ! And these deeds are done and palliated by 
" men who profess to love their neighbors as themselves ; who believe in God, 
" and pray that his will be done on earth." 

If blasphemy be a possible crime, those who accuse the Creator of authorizing 
human slavery must be guilty of that offence ; and what can we think of the 
morality and justice of a religion which inspires its most eminent advocate to 
assert that " My faith and my reason both assure me that the infallible God 
" proceeded on good grounds when he authorized slavery in Judea." 

" It were better," says Francis Bacon, " to have no opinion of God at all than 
"such an opinion as is unworthy of him ; for the one is unbelief, the other is 
" contumely." — E. 



CHRISTIANITY IN THE EAST. 323 

standard of Rome, revered die cross which glittered at the 
head of the legions, and their fierce countrymen received 
at the same time the lessons of faith and' of humanity. 
The kings of Iberia and Armenia* worshiped the God of 
their protector ; and their subjects, who have invariably 
preserved the name of Christians, soon formed a sacred and 
perpetual connection with their Roman brethren. The 
Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of war, of 
preferring their religion to their country; but as long as 
peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting 
spirit of the Magi was effectually restrained by the inter- 
position of Constantine. 77 The rays of the gospel illuminated 
the coast of India. The colonies of Jews, who had pene- 
trated into Arabia and Ethiopia, 78 opposed the progress of 
Christianity ; but the labor of the missionaries was in some 
measure facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic 
revelation ; and Abyssinia still reveres the memory of 
Frumentius,f who, in the time of Constantine, devoted his 
life to the conversion of those sequestered regions. Under 
the reign of his son Constantius, Theophilus, 79 who was 
himself of Indian extraction, was invested with the double 

f See, in Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 9), the pressing and pathetic 
epistle of Constantine in favor of his Christian brethren of Persia. 

is See Basnage, Hist, des Juifs, torn. vii. p. 182, torn. viii. p. 333, torn. ix. p. 810. 
The curious diligence of this writer pursues the Jewish exiles to the extremities 
of the globe. 

■J3 Theophilus had been given in his infancy as a hostage by his countrymen of 
the Isle of Diva, and was educated by the Romans in learning and piety. The 
Maldives, of which Male, or Diva, may be the capital, are a cluster of 1900 or 
2000 minute islands in the Indian Ocean. The ancients were imperfectly ac- 
quainted with the Maldives; but they are described in the two Mahometan trav- 
elers of the ninth century, published by Renaudot, Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 30, 31. 
D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientate, p. 704. Hist. Generate des Voyages, t. viii.J 

* According to the Georgian chronicles, Iberia (Georgia) was converted by the 
virgin Nino, who effected an extraordinary cure on the wife of the king, Mihran. 
The temple of the god Aramazt, or Armaz, not far from the capital Mtskitha, was 
destroyed, and the cross erected in its place. Le Beau, i. 202, with St. Martin's 
Notes. 

St. Martin has likewise clearly shown (St. Martin, Add. to Le Beau, i. 291) that 
Armenia was the first nation which embraced Christianity {Addition to Le Beau, 
i. 76, and Memoires sur V Armenie, i. 305). Gibbon himself suspected this truth. 
" Instead of maintaining that the conversion of Armenia was not attempted with 
" any degree of success, till the sceptre was in the hands of an orthodox emperor. 
" I ought to have said, that the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the 
" season of the last and greatest persecution, that many Roman exiles might assist 
'• the labors of Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the East, 
" may dispute with Constantine the honor of being the first sovereign who era- 
" braced the Christian religion." Vindication, Misc. Works, iv. 577. — Milman. 

fAbba Salama, or Fremonatos, is mentioned in the Tareek Negushti, or 
Chronicle of the kings of Abyssinia. Salt's Travels, vol. ii. p. 461. — Milman. 

X See the dissertation of M. Letronne on this question. He conceives that 
Theophilus was born in the Island of Dahlak, in the Arabian Gulf. His embassy 
was to Abyssinia rather than to India. Letronne, Materiaux pour V Hist, du 
Christ ianisme en Egypte, Indie, et Abyssinie. Paris, 1832, 3d Dissert. — Milman. 



324 CHANGE OF THE NATIONAL RELIGION. 

character of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on 
the Red Sea with two hundred horses of the purest breed 
of Cappadocia, which were sent by the emperor to the 
prince of the Sabaeans, or Homerites. Theophilus was in- 
trusted with many other useful or curious presents, which 
might raise the admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of 
the barbarians ; and he successfully employed several years 
in a pastoral visit to the churches of the torrid zone. 80 
Change of the The irresistible power of the Roman em- 
nationai perors was displayed in the important and 
re lgion. dangerous change of the national religion. The 
terrors of a military force silenced the faint and unsupported 
murmurs of the Pagans, and there was reason to expect, that 
the cheerful submission of the Christian clergy, as well as 
people, would be the result of conscience and gratitude. 
It was long since established, as a fundamental maxim of 
the Roman constitution, that every rank of citizens was 
alike subject to the laws, and that the care of religion was 
the right as well as the duty of the civil magistrate. Con- 
stantine and his successors could not easily persuade them- 
selves that they had forfeited, by their conversion, any 
branch of their imperial prerogatives, or that they were in- 
capable of giving laws to a religion which they had protected 
and embraced. The emperors still continued to exercise 
ad- a su P reme jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical 
• 312-43 . orc j er . an( j t j ie sixteenth book of the Theodosian 

Code represents, under a variety of titles, the authority which 
they assumed in the government of the Catholic church. 
■ . . But the distinction of the spiritual and tem- 

thVspirituai poral powers, 81 which had never been imposed 
and owefs° ral on t * ie free spirit of Greece and Rome, was 
introduced and confirmed by the legal establish- 
ment of Christianity. The office of supreme pontiff, which, 
from the time of Numa to that of Augustus, had always 
been exercised by one of the most eminent of the senators, 
was at length united to the imperial dignity. The first 
magistrate of the state, as often as he was prompted by 
superstition or policy, performed with his own hands the 

so Philostorgius, 1. iii. c. 4, 5, 6, with Godefroy's learned observations. The 
historical narrative is soon lost in an inquiry concerning the seat of Paradise, 
strange monsters, &c. 

8i See the epistle of Osius ap. Athanasium, vol. i. p. 840. The public remon- 
strance which Osius was forced to address to the son, contained the same princi- 
ples of ecclesiastical and civil government which he had secretly instilled into the 
mind of the father. 



EASTERN PRIESTHOODS. 325 

sacerdotal functions ; 82 nor was there any order of priests, 
either at Rome or in the provinces, who claimed a more 
sacred character among men, or a more intimate communi- 
cation with the gods. But in the Christian church, which 
intrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual succession of 
consecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is 
less honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated 
below the rails of the sanctuary, and confounded with the 
rest of the faithful multitude. 83 The emperor might be 
saluted as the father of his people, but he owed a filial duty 
and reverence to the fathers of the church ; and the same 
marks of respect, which Constantine had paid to the persons 
of saints and confessors, were soon exacted by the pride of 
the episcopal order. 84 A secret conflict between the civil 
and ecclesiastical jurisdictions embarrassed the operations 
of the Roman government ; and a pious emperor was 
alarmed by the guilt and danger of touching with a profane 
hand the ark of the covenant. The separation of men into 
the two orders of the clergy and of the laity was, indeed, 
familiar to many nations of antiquity ; and the priests of 
India, of Persia, of Assyria, of Judea, of ^Ethiopia, of 
Egypt, and of Gaul, derived from a celestial origin the 
temporal power and possessions which they had acquired. 
These venerable institutions had gradually assimilated 
themselves to the manners and government of their re- 
spective countries ; 85 but the opposition or contempt of the 
civil power served to cement the discipline of the primitive 
church. The Christians had been obliged to elect their 
own magistrates, to raise and distribute a peculiar revenue, 
and to regulate the internal policy of their republic, by a 
code of laws, which were ratified by the consent of the 

82 M. de la Bastiel {Memoires de VAcademie des Inscriptions, torn. xv. pp. 38-62) 
has evidently proved, that Augustus and his successors exercised in person all the 
sacred functions of Pontifex Maximus, or high priest, of the Roman empire. 

83 Something of a contrary practice had insensibly prevailed in the church of 
Constantinople : but the rigid Ambrose commanded Theodosius to retire below 
the rails, and taught him to know the difference between a king and a priest. See 
Theodoret, 1. v. c. 18. 

si At the table of the emperor Maximus, Martin, bishop of Tours, received the 
CU P fr° m an attendant, and gave it to the presbyter, his companion, before he 
allowed the emperor to drink ; the empress waited on Martin at table. Sulpicius 
Severus, in Vit. Sti Martin, c. 23, and Dialogue, ii. 7. Yet it may be doubted 
whether these extraordinary compliments were paid to the bishop'or the saint. 
The honors usually granted to the former character maybe seen in Bingham's 
Antigmtzes, 1. ii. c. 9, and Vales, ad Theodoret, 1. iv. c. 6. See the haughty cere- 
monial which Leontius. bishop of Tripoli, imposed on the empress. Tillemont, 
Hist, des Empereurs, torn. iv. p. 754. Patres Apostol. torn. ii. p. 179. 

85 Plutarch, in his treatise of Isis and Osiris, informs us, that the kings of 
Egypt, who were not already priests, were initiated, after their election, into the 
sacerdotal order. 



326 EPISCOPAL DIOCESES. 

people, and the practice of three hundred years. When 
Constantine embraced the faith of the Christians, he seemed 
to contract a perpetual alliance with a distinct and inde- 
pendent society; and the privileges granted or confirmed by 
that emperor, or by his successors, were accepted not as the 
precarious favors of the court, but as the just and inalien- 
able rights of the ecclesiastical order. 

The Catholic church was administered by 
b?sho e ps°undIr the spiritual and legal jurisdiction of eighteen 
the christian hundred bishops ; 86 of whom one thousand were 
emperors. seatec } - m t h e Greek, and eight hundred in the 
Latin, provinces of the empire. The extent and boundaries 
of their respective dioceses had been variously and ac- 
cidentally decided by the zeal and success of the first 
missionaries, by the wishes of the people, and by the pro- 
pagation of the gospel. Episcopal churches were closely 
planted along the banks of the Nile, on the seacoast of 
Africa, in the proconsular Asia, and through the southern 
provinces of Italy. The bishops of Gaul and Spain, of 
Thrace and Pontus, reigned over an ample territory, and 
delegated their rural suffragans to execute the subordinate 
duties of the pastoral office. 87 A Christian diocese might 
be spread over a province, or reduced to a village ; but all 
the bishops possessed an equal and indelible character : 
they all derived the same powers and privileges from the 
apostles, from the people, and from the laws. While the 
civil and military professions were separated by the policy 
of Constantine, a new and perpetual order of ecclesiastical 
ministers, always respectable, sometimes dangerous, was 
established in the church and state. The important review 
of their station and attributes may be distributed under the 
following heads: I. Popular election : II. Ordination of the 
clergy: III. Property: IV. Civil jurisdiction : V. Spiritual 
censures : VI. Exercise of public oratory : VII. Privilege 
of legislative assemblies. 

86 The numbers are not ascertained by any ancient writer or original catalogue ; 
for the partial lists of the eastern churches are comparatively modern. The 
patient diligence of Charles a Sto Paolo, of Luke Holstenius, and of Bingham, 
has laboriously investigated all the episcopal sees of the Catholic church, which 
was almost commensurate with the Roman empire. The ninth book of the 
Christian Antiquities is a very accurate map of ecclesiastical geography. 

8" On the subject of rural bishops, or Chorepiscopi, who voted in synods, and 
conferred the minor orders, see Thomassin, Discipline de VEglise, torn. i. p. 447, 
&c, and Chardon, Hist, des Sacremens, torn. v. p. 395, &c. They do not appear 
till the fourth century ; and this equivocal character, which had excited the 
jealousy of the prelates, was abolished before the end of the tenth, both in the 
East and the West. 



ELECTION OF BISHOPS. 327 

I. The freedom of elections subsisted long 
after the legal establishment of Christianity;* 8 L ^^. of 
and the subjects of Rome enjoyed in the church 
the privilege which they had lost in the republic, of choosing 
the magistrates whom they were bound to obey. As soon 
as a bishop had closed his eyes, the metropolitan issued a 
commission to one of his suffragans to administer the vacant 
see, and prepare, within a limited time, the future election. 
The right of voting was vested in the inferior clergy, who 
were best qualified to judge of the merit of the candidates ; 
in the senators or nobles of the city, all those who were dis- 
tinguished by their rank or property; and finally, in the 
whole body of the people, who, on the appointed day, 
flocked in multitudes from the most remote parts of the 
diocese, 69 and sometimes silenced, by their tumultuous accla- 
mations, the voice of reason and the laws of discipline. 
These acclamations might accidentally fix on the head of 
the most deserving competitor, of some ancient presbyter, 
some holy monk, or some layman, conspicuous for his zeal 
and piety. But the episcopal chair was solicited, especially 
in the great and opulent cities of the empire, as a temporal 
rather than as a spiritual dignity. The interested views, the 
selfish and angry passions, the arts of perfidy and dissimu- 
lation, the secret corruption, the open and even bloody 
violence which had formerly disgraced the freedom of elec- 
tion in the commonwealths of Greece and Rome, too often 
influenced the choice of the successors of the apostles. 

88 Thomassin {Discipline de V Eglise, torn. ii. 1. ii. c. 1-8, pp. 673-721) has 
copiously treated of the election of bishops during the first five centuries, both 
in the East and in the West ; but he shows a very partial bias in favor of the 
episcopal aristocracy. Bingham (1. iv. c. 2) is moderate; and Chardon {Hist, des 
Sacremens. torn. v. pp. 108-128) is very clear and concise.* 

89 Incredibilis multitudo, non solum ex eo oppido {Tours), sed etiam ex vicinis 
uribus ad suffragia ferenda convenerat, &c. Sulpicius Severus, in Vit. Martin. 
c. 7. The council of Laodicea (canon xiii.) prohibits mobs and tumults ; and 
Justinian confines the right of election to the nobility. Novell, cxxiii. 1. 

* This freedom was extremely limited, and soon annihilated : already, from the 
third century, the deacons were no longer nominated by the members of the 
community, but by the bishops. Although it appears by the letters of Cyprian, 
that even in his time, no priest could be elected without the consent of the com- 
munity {Ep. 63), that election was far from being altogether free. The bishop 
proposed to his parishioners the candidate whom he had chosen, and they were 
permitted to make such objections as might be suggested by his conduct and 
morals. (St. Cyprian, Ep. 33.) They lost this last right towards the middle of 
the fourth century-. — Guizot. 

The course of proceeding, pointed out by M. Guizot in this note, relates only 
to the election of presbyters, and has no immediate connection with that of 
bishops, which is the subject of Gibbon's observations. It illustrates, however, 
the influence which these gradually acquired in appointing the inferior clergy, 
by means of which, they of course operated indirectly on the choice of those who 
were selected to fill vacancies in their own ranks. — Eng. Ch. 



328 RIGHTS OF THE LAITY. 

While one of the candidates boasted the honors of his fam- 
ily, a second allured his judges by the delicacies of a plentiful 
table, and a third, more guilty than his rivals, offered to 
share the plunder of the church among the accomplices of 
his sacrilegious hopes. 90 The civil as well as ecclesiastical 
laws attempted to exclude the populace from this solemn 
and important transaction. The canons of ancient discipline, 
by requiring several episcopal qualifications of age, station, 
&c, restrained, in some measure, the indiscriminate caprice 
of the electors. The authority of the provincial bishops, 
who were assembled in the vacant church, to consecrate the 
choice of the people, was interposed to moderate their 
passions, and to correct their mistakes. The bishops could 
refuse to ordain an unworthy candidate ; and the rage of 
contending factions sometimes accepted their impartial 
mediation. The submission, or the resistance, of the clergy 
and people, on various occasions, afforded different pre- 
cedents, which were insensibly converted into positive laws 
and provincial customs; 91 but it was everywhere admitted, 
as a fundamental maxim of religious policy, that no bishop 
could be imposed on an orthodox church, without the 
consent of its members. The emperors, as the guardians 
of the public peace, and as the first citizens of Rome and 
Constantinople, might effectually declare their wishes in 
the choice of a primate ; but those absolute monarchs re- 
spected the freedom of ecclesiastical elections ; and while 
they distributed and resumed the honors of the state and 
army, they allowed eighteen hundred perpetual magistrates 
to receive their important offices from the free suffrages of 
the people. 92 It was agreeable to the dictates of justice, 
that these magistrates should not desert an honorable 
station from which they could not be removed ; but the 
wisdom of councils endeavored, without much success, to 

90 The epistles of Sidonius Apollinaris Civ. 25, vii. 5. 9) exhibit some of the 
scandals of the Gallican church ; and Gaul was less polished and less corrupt 
than the East. 

9i A compromise was sometimes introduced by law or bv consent ; either the 
bishops or the people chose one of the three candidates who had been named bv 
the other party. 

92 All the examples quoted by Thomassin {Discipline de TEglise, torn. ii. 1. ii. 
c. vi. pp. 704-714.) appear to be extraordinary acts of power, and even of oppression. 
The confirmation of the bishop of Alexandria is mentioned by Philostorgius as a 
more regular proceeding. {Hist. Eccles. 1. ii. 11.) * 



* The statement of Planck is more consistent with historv : " From the middle 
m of the fourth century, the bishops of some of the larger churches, particularly 
(i those ofthe imperial residence, were almost always chosen under the influence 
'of the court, and often directly and immediately nominated by the emperor." 
Geschichte der Christlich-kirchlichen Gesellschafts'-verfassung, vol. i. p. 263. — M. 



FUNCTIONS OF THE BISHOPS. 329 

enforce the residence, and to prevent the translation, of 
bishops. The discipline of the West was indeed less relaxed 
than that of the East ; but the same passions which made 
those regulations necessary, rendered them ineffectual. The 
reproaches which angry prelates have so vehemently urged 
against each other, serve only to expose their common 
guilt, and their mutual indiscretion. 

II. The bishops alone possessed the faculty of 
spiritual generation ; and this extraordinary t&ofdagy. 
privilege might compensate, in some degree, for 
the painful celibacy 93 which was imposed as a virtue, as a 
duty, and at length as a positive obligation. The religions 
of antiquity, which established a separate order of priests, 
dedicated a holy race, a tribe or family, to the perpetual 
service of the gods. 94 Such institutions were formed for 
possession, rather than conquest. The children of the priests 
enjoyed, with proud and indolent security, their sacred in- 
heritance ; and the fiery spirit of enthusiasm was abated by 
the cares, the pleasures, and the endearments of domestic life. 
But the Christian sanctuary was open to every ambitious 
candidate who aspired to its heavenly promises, or tem- 
poral possessions. The office of priests, like that of soldiers 
or magistrates, was strenuously exercised by those men 
whose temper and abilities had prompted them to embrace 
the ecclesiastical profession, or who had been selected by a 
discerning bishop as the best qualified to promote the glory 
and interest of the church. The bishops 95 (till the abuse 
was restrained by the prudence of the laws) might constrain 

93 The celibacy of the clergy during the first five or six centuries, is a subject 
of discipline, and indeed of controversv. which has been very diligently examined. 
See, in particular, Thomassin, Discipline de TEglise, torn. i. 1_ fi. c Ix. lxi. r>r>. 
8S6-902, and Bingham's Antiquities. 1. iv. c. 5. Bv each of these learned but 
partial critics, one-half of the truth is produced, and the other is concealed.* 

9-t Diodorus Sicilus attests and approves the hereditary succession of the priest- 
hood among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, and the Indians (1. i. p. 84, 1. ii. pp. 
142, 153- edit. Wesseling). The Magi are described by Ammianus as a very 
numerous family: " Per seecula multa ad prassens una eademque prosapia mul- 
" titudo creata, Deorum cultibus dedicata." (xxiii. 6.) Ausonius celebrates the 
Stirps Druidamm (De Professorib Burdigal. iv.) ; but we mav infer from the 
remark of Cssar fvi. 13), that in the Celtic hierarchy, some room was left for 
choice and emulation. 

95 The subject of the vocation, ordination, obedience, &c. , of the clergv, is 
laboriously discussed by Thomassin (Discipline de FEglise, torn. ii. pp. 1-83)" and 
Bingham (in the 4th book of his Antiquities, more especially the 4th, 6th, and 7th 
chapters. When the brother of St. Jerom was ordained in Cyprus, the deacons 
forcibly stopped his mouth, lest he should make a solemn protestation, which 
might invalidate the holy rites. 

* Compare Planck (vol. i. p. 384). This century, the third, first brought forth 
the monks, and the monks, or the spirit of monkerv, the celibacv of the clergv. 
Planck likewise observes, that from the history of Eusebius alone, names' of 
married bishops and presbyters may be adduced by dozens. — Milman. 



330 IMMUNITIES OF THE CLERGY, 

the reluctant, and protect the distressed ; and the imposi- 
tion of hands for ever bestowed some of the most valuable 
privileges of civil society. The whole body of the Catholic 
clergy, more numerous perhaps than the legions, was 
exempted,* by the emperors, from all service, private or 
public, all municipal offices, and all personal taxes and con- 
tributions, which pressed on their fellow-citizens with 
intolerable weight : and the duties of their holy profession 
were accepted as a full discharge of their obligations to the 
republic. 96 Each bishop acquired an absolute and inde- 
feasible right to the perpetual obedience of the clerk whom 
he ordained : the clergy of each episcopal church, with its 
dependent parishes, formed a regular and permanent so- 
ciety ; and the cathedrals of Constantinople 97 and Carthage 98 
maintained their peculiar establishment of five hundred 
ecclesiastical ministers. Their ranks 99 and numbers were 
insensibly multiplied by the superstition of the times, which 
introduced into the church the splendid ceremonies of a 
Jewish or Pagan temple ; and a long train of priests, deacons, 
sub-deacons, acolythes, exorcists, readers, singers, and 
door-keepers, contributed, in their respective stations, to 
swell the pomp and harmony of religious worship. The 

96 The charter of immunities, which the clergy obtained from the Christian 
emperors, is contained in the 16th book of the Theodosian Code; and is illustrated 
with tolerable candor by the learned Godefroy, whose mind was balanced by the 
opposite prejudices of a civilian and a Protestant. 

9" Justinian. Novell, ciii. Sixty presbyters, or priests, one hundred deacons, 
fortv deaconesses, ninety sub-deacons, one hundred and ten readers, twenty-five 
chanters, and one hundred door-keepers ; in all, five hundred and twenty-five. 
This moderate number was fixed by the emperor to relieve the distress of the 
church, which had been involved in debt and usury by the expense of a much 
higher establishment. 

w Universus clerus ecclesiae Carthaginiensis * * * fere quingenti vel amplius ; 
inter quos quamplurimi erant lectores infantuli. Victor Vitensis, de Persecut. 
Vandal, v. 9, p. 78, edit. Ruinart. This remnant of a more prosperous state sub- 
sisted under the oppression of the Vandals. 

99 The number of seven orders has been fixed in the Latin church, exclusive of 
the episcopal character. But the four inferior ranks, the minor orders, are now 
reduced to empty and useless titles. 

* This exemption was very much limited. The municipal officeswereof two 
kinds: the one attached to the individual m his character of inhabitant the 
other in that of proprietor. Constantine had exempted ecclesiastics from offices 
of the first description. (Cod. Theod. xvi. t. 11. leg. 12. Eusebius, Htst.Eccles 
1. x. c. vii.) Thev sought, also, to be exempted from those of the second niunera 
patrimoniorum.)' The rich, to obtain this privilege, obtained subordinate [Situa- 
tions among the clerev. Constantine published in 320 an edict, by which tie pro- 
hibited the more opulent citizens (decuriones and cunales) from embracing tne 
ecclesiastical profession, and the bishops from admitting new ecclesiastics, hetore 
a place should be vacant by the death of an occupant (Godefroy ad Cod. i neoa. 
1. xii. t. i. de Decur.). Valentinian the First, by a rescript still "noregenenu, 
enacted that no rich citizen should obtain a situation in the church (De ±.pisc. 
1. lxvii.). He also enacted that ecclesiastics, who wished to be exempt trom 
offices which thev were bound to discharge as proprietors, should be obliged to 
give up their property to their relations. Cod. Theodus. 1. xn. 1. 1. leg 49.— t >uizot. 



INFERIOR CHURCH OFFICERS. 33I 

clerical name and privilege were extended to many pious 
fraternities, who devoutly supported the ecclesiastical 
throne 10 ° Six hundred parabolani, or adventurers, visited 
the sick at Alexandria ; eleven hundred copiatce, or grave- 
diggers, buried the dead at Constantinople ; and the swarms 
of monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and dark- 
ened the face of the Christian world.* 

III. The edict of Milan secured the revenue as 
well as the peace of the church. 101 The Christians a. d?^^' 
not only recovered the lands and houses of which 
they had been stripped by the persecuting laws of Diocle- 
tian, but they acquired a perfect title to all the possessions 
which they had hitherto enjoyed by the connivance of the 
magistrate. As soon as Christianity became the religion of 
the emperor and the empire, the national clergy might 
claim a decent and honorable maintenance ; and the pay- 
ment of an annual tax might have delivered the people from 
the more oppressive tribute which superstition imposes on 
her votaries. But as the wants and expenses of the church 
increased with her prosperity, the ecclesiastical order was 
still supported and enriched by the voluntary oblations of 
the faithful. Eight years after the edict of Milan, a d -21 
Constantine granted to all his subjects the free 
and universal permission of bequeathing their fortunes 
to the holy Catholic church ; 102 and their devout liberality, 

100 See Cod. Tlieodos. 1. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 42, 43. Godefroy's Commentary, and 
the Ecclesiastical History of Alexandria, show the danger of these pious institu- 
tions, which often disturbed the peace of that turbulent capital. 

101 The edict of Milan (de M. P. c. 4S) acknowledges, by reciting, that there 
existed a species of landed property, ad jus corporis eorum, id est, ecclesiarum 
non hominum singulorum pertinentia. Such a solemn declaration of the supreme 
magistrate must have been received in all the tribunals as a maxim of civil law. 

102 Habeat unusquisque licentiam sanctissimo Catholicee [etcle^uz) venerabilique 
concilio, decedens bonorum quod optavit relinquere. Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. ii. 
leg. 4. This law was published at Rome, A. D. 321, at a time when Constantine 
might foresee the probability of a rupture with the emperor of the East. 

* Gibbon has here laid open the true cause, which produced the fall of the 
Roman empire, and the dark ages that followed. But he has not traced its 
working distinctly. M. Schreiter has justly accused him of confounding Chris- 
tianity with its hierarchy, and ascribing to the former, evils which are strictly 
attributable only to the latter. The mischief originated in the abuse, which 
ingrafted on Christianity a powerful, ambitious and imperious priesthood. The 
awe which this institution inspired, and the submission which it exacted, led to a 
torpidity of spirit and prostration of mind, which gradually enfeebled and ruined the 
whole social system. This power and the universal decay began together and pro- 
gressed together. They were coeval, co-gradient, co-regent, for fifteen centuries, 
"darkening the face of the Christian world," till the Reformation, by dethroning 
the one, checked the other, and gave a new impulse to liberated mind. — Eng. Ch. 

" By their fruits ye shall know them," said Jesus ; and, judged by this standard, 
the religion which induced this paralysis of mind, and accelerated this fungus 
growth of superstition, was in truth inimical to human welfare. The advent of 
Protestantism was like the dawn of a brighter day, and those sects and indi- 
viduals who believed the least, and protested the most, have always composed 
the more intelligent, public-spirited and moral portion of the community. — E. 



332 INCREASING WEALTH OF THE CHURCH. 

which during their lives was checked by luxury or avarice, 
flowed with a profuse stream at the hour of their death. 
The wealthy Christians were encouraged by the example 
of their sovereign. An absolute monarch, who is rich 
without patrimony, may be charitable without merit ; and 
Constantine too easily believed that he should purchase the 
favor of Heaven, if he maintained the idle at the expense 
of the industrious, and distributed among the saints the 
wealth of the republic. The same messenger who carried 
over to Africa the head of Maxentius, might be intrusted 
with an epistle to Csecilian, bishop of Carthage. The em- 
peror acquaints him that the treasurers of the province are 
directed to pay into his hands the sum of three thousand 
folks, or 18,000/. sterling, and to obey his farther requisi- 
tions for the relief of the churches of Africa, Numidia, and 
Mauritania. 103 The liberality of Constantine increased in a 
just proportion to his faith and to his vices. He assigned 
in each city a regular allowance of corn to supply the fund 
of ecclesiastical charity ; and the persons of both sexes, who 
embraced the monastic life, became the peculiar favorites 
of their sovereign. The Christian temples of Antioch, 
Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople, &c, displayed the 
ostentatious piety- of a prince, ambitious, in a declining age, 
to equal the perfect labors of antiquity. 104 The form of these 
religious edifices was simple and oblong ; though they 
might sometimes swell into the shape of a dome, and 
sometimes branch into the figure of a cross. The timbers 
were framed for the most part of cedars of Libanus ; the 
roof was covered with tiles, perhaps of gilt brass ; and the 
walls, the columns, the pavement, were incrusted with 
variegated marbles. The most precious ornaments of gold 
and silver, of silk and gems, were profusely dedicated to the 
service of the altar ; and this specious magnificence was 
supported on the solid and perpetual basis of landed pro- 
perty. In the space of two centuries, from the reign of 
Constantine to that of Justinian, the eighteen hundred 
churches of the empire were enriched by the frequent and 

103 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. I. x. 6 ; in Vit. Constantin. 1. iv. c. 28. He repeatedly 
expatiates on the liberality of the Christian hero, which the bishop himself had 
an opportunity of knowing, and even of tasting. 

104 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 1. x. c. 2, 3, 4. The bishop of Caesarea, who studied 
and gratified the taste of his master, pronounced in public an elaborate description 
of the church of Jerusalem (in Vit. Cons. 1. iv. c. 46). It no longer exists, but he 
has inserted in the Life of Constantine (1. iii. c. 36) a short account of the archi- 
tecture and ornaments. He likewise mentions the church of the Holy Apostles 
at Constantinople (1. iv. c. 59). 



SPLENDOR OF THE CHURCHES. 333 

unalienable gifts of the prince and people. An annual in- 
come of six hundred pounds sterling may be reasonably 
assigned to the bishops, who were placed at an equal dis- 
tance between riches and poverty, 105 but the standard of 
their wealth insensibly rose with the dignity and opulence 
of the cities which they governed. An authentic but im- 
perfect 106 rent-roll specifies some houses, shops, gardens and 
farms, which belonged to the three Basilica of Rome, 
St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John 'Lateran, in the provinces 
of Italy, Africa and the East. They produce, besides a 
reserved rent of oil, linen, paper, aromatics, &c, a clear 
annnal revenue of twenty-two thousand pieces of gold, or 
12,000/. sterling. In the age of Constantine and Justinian, 
the bishops no longer possessed, perhaps they no longer 
deserved, the unsuspecting confidence of their clergy and 
people. The ecclesiastical revenues of each diocese were 
divided into four parts ; for the respective uses of the bishop 
himself, of his inferior clergy, of the poor, and of the public 
worship ; and the abuse of this sacred trust was strictly and 
repeatedly checked. 107 The patrimony of the church was 
still subject to all the public impositions of the state. 108 

The clergy of Rome, Alexandria, Thessalonica, <&c, might 
solicit and obtain some partial exemptions ; but the prema- 
ture attempt of the great council of Rimini, which aspired 
to universal freedom, was successfully resisted by the son 
of Constantine. 109 

105 See Justinian. Novell, cxxii. 3. The revenue of the patriarchs, and the most 
wealthy bishops is not expressed : the highest annual valuation of a bishopric is 
stated at thirty, and the lowest at two, pounds of gold ; the medium might be 
taken at sixteen, but these valuations are much below the real value- 

106 See Baronius {AnnaL Eccles. A. D. 324, No. 58, 65, 70, 71). Every record 
which comes from the Vatican is justly suspected ; yet these rent-rolls have an 
ancient and authentic color; and it is at least evident, that if forged, they were 
forged in a period when farms, not kingdoms, were the objects of papal avarice. 

10" See Thomassin, Discipline de I'Eglise, torn. iii. 1. ii. c. 13, 14, 15, pp. 6S9-706. 
The legal division of the ecclesiastical revenue does not appear to have been 
established in the time of Ambrose and Chrysostom. Simplicius and Gelasius, 
who were bishops of Rome in the latter part of the fifth century, mention it in 
their pastoral letters as a general law, which was already confirmed by the custom 
of Italy. 

10s Ambrose the most strenuous assertor of ecclesiastical privileges, submits 
without a murmur to the payment of the land tax. " Si tributum petit Imperator, 
" non negamus ; agri ecclesiae solvunt tributum ; solvimus quae sunt Caesaris 
" Caesari, et quae sunt Dei Deo ; tributum Caesaris est ; non negatur." Baronius 
labors to interpret this tribute as an act of charity rather than of duty {AnnaL 
Eccles. A. D. 387) ; but the words, if not the intentions, of Ambrose, are more 
candidly explained by Thomassin, Discipline de V Eglise, torn. iii. 1. i. c. 34, p. 268. 

109 In Ariminense synodo super ecclesiarum et clencorum privilegiis traetatu 
habito, usque eo dispositio progressa est, ut juga quae viderentur ad ecclesiam 
pertinere, a publica functione cessarent inquietudine desistente ; quod nostra 
videtur dudum sanctio repulsisse. Cod. Theod. 1. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 15. Had the 
synod of Rimini carried this point, such practical merit might have atoned for 
some speculative heresies. 



334 RIGHTS OF THE CLERGY. 

IV. The Latin clergy, who erected their 
jurisdiction, tribunal on the ruins of the civil and common 
law, have modestly accepted as the gift of Con- 
stantine, 110 the independent jurisdiction, which was the fruit 
of time, of accident, and of their own industry. But the 
liberality of the Christian emperors had actually endowed 
them with some legal prerogatives, which secured and 
dignified the sacerdotal character. 111 I. Under a despotic 
government, the bishops a-lone enjoyed and asserted the in- 
estimable privilege of being tried only by their peers ; and 
even in a capital accusation, a synod of their brethren were 
the sole judges of their guilt or innocence. Such a tribunal, 
unless it was inflamed by personal resentment or religious 
discord, might be favorable, or even partial, to the sacer- 
dotal order : but Constantine was satisfied, 112 that secret 
impunity would be less pernicious than public scandal : and 
the Nicene council was edified by his public declaration, 
that if he surprised a bishop in the act of adultery he should 
cast his imperial mantle over the episcopal sinner.* 2. The 
domestic jurisdiction of the bishops was at once a privilege 
and a restraint of the ecclesiastical order, whose civil causes 
were decently withdrawn from the cognizance of a secular 
judge. Their venial offences were not exposed to the shame 
of a public trial or punishment ; and the gentle correction 
which the tenderness of youth may endure from its parents 
or instructors, was inflicted by the temperate severity of the 
bishops. But if the clergy were guilty of any crime which 
could not be sufficiently expiated by their degradation from 
an honorable and beneficial profession, the Roman magis- 
trate drew the sword of justice, without any regard to 

no From Eusebius (in Vii. Constant. 1. iv. c. 27) and Sozomen (1. i. c. 9), we are 
assured that the episcopal jurisdiction was extended and confirmed by Constan- 
tine ; but the forgery of a famous edict, which was never fairly inserted in the 
Theodosian Code (see at the end, torn. vi. p. 303), is demonstrated by Godefroy in 
the most satisfactory manner. It is strange that M. de Montesquieu, who was a 
lawyer as well as a philosopher, should allege this edict of Constantine {Esprit 
des Loix, 1. xxix. c. 16). without intimating any suspicion. 

in The subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction has been involved in a mist of 
passion, of prejudice, and of interest. Two of the fairest books which have fallen 
into my hands, are the Institutes of the Canon Law, by the Abbe de Fleury, and the 
Civil History of Naples, by Giannone. Their moderation was the effect of situa- 
tion as well as of temper. Fleury was a French ecclesiastic, who respected the 
authority of the parliaments ; Giannone was an Italian lawyer, who dreaded the 
power of the church. And here let me observe, that as the general propositions 
which I advance are the result of many particular and imperfect facts, I must 
either refer the reader to those modern authors who have expressly treated the 
subject, or swell these notes to a disagreeable and disproportioned size. 

112 Tillemont has collected from Rufinus, Theodoret, &c, the sentiments and 
language of Constantine. Mem. Eccles. torn. iii. pp. 749, 750. 

* Such royal charity for episcopal indiscretion has seldom been equalled and 
never excelled. — E. 



CANONICAL JURISPRUDENCE. 335 

ecclesiastical immunities. 3. The arbitration of the bishops 
was ratified by a positive law ; and the judges were in- 
structed to execute, without appeal or delay, the episcopal 
decrees, whose validity had hitherto depended on the con- 
sent of the parties. The conversion of the magistrates 
themselves, and of the whole empire, might gradually 
remove the fears and scruples of the Christians. But they 
still resorted to the tribunal of the bishops, whose abilities 
and integrity they esteemed ; and the venerable Austin 
enjoyed the satisfaction of complaining that his spiritual 
functions were perpetually interrupted by the invidious labor 
of deciding the claim or the possession of silver and gold, 
of lands and cattle. 4. The ancient privilege of sanctuary 
was transferred to the Christian temples, and extended, by 
the liberal piety of the younger Theodosius, to the precincts 
of consecrated ground. 113 The fugitive, and even guilty, sup- 
pliants were permitted to implore, either the justice, or the 
mercy, of the Deity and his ministers. The rash violence of 
despotism was suspended by the mild interposition of the 
church ; and the lives or fortunes of the most eminent sub- 
jects might be protected by the mediation of the bishop. 

V. The bishop was the perpetual censor of 
the morals of his people. The discipline of v - s P iritual 

.. i • r r r • ■* censures. 

penance was digested into a system of canonical 
jurisprudence, 114 which accurately defined the duty of pri- 
vate or public confession, the rules of evidence, the degrees 
of guilt, and the measure of punishment. It was impossible 
to execute this spiritual censure, if the Christian pontiff, 
who punished the obscure sins of the multitude, respected 
the conspicuous vices and destructive crimes of the magis- 
trate ; but it was impossible to arraign the conduct of the 
magistrate, without controlling the administration of civil 
government. Some considerations of religion, or loyalty, 
or fear, protected the sacred persons of the emperors from 
the zeal or resentment of the bishops ; but they boldly 

us See Cod. Theod. 1. ix. tit. xlv. leg. 4. In the works of Fra Paolo (torn. iv. 
p. 192, &c), there is an excellent discourse on the origin, claims, abuses, and 
limits of sanctuaries. He justly observes, that ancient Greece might perhaps 
contain fifteen or twenty azyla or sanctuaries ; a number which at present may be 
found in Italy within the walls of a single city. 

Hi The penitential jurisprudence was continually improved by the canons of 
the councils. But as many cases were still left to the discretion of the bishops, 
they occasionally published, after the example of the Roman Praetor, the rules of 
discipline which they proposed to observe. Among the canonical epistles of the 
fourth century, those of Basil the Great were the most celebrated. They are 
inserted in the Pandects of Beveridge (torn. ii. pp. 47-151), and are translated by 
Chardon, Hist, des Sac?-emens, torn. iv. pp. 219-277. 






336 SPIRITUAL CENSURES. 

censured and excommunicated the subordinate tyrants, 
who were not invested with the majesty of the purple. 
St. Athanasius excommunicated one of the ministers of 
Egypt ; and the interdict which he pronounced, of fire and 
water, was solemnly transmitted to the churches of Cappa- 
docia. 115 Under the reign of the younger Theodosius, the 
polite and eloquent Synesius, one of the descendants of 
Hercules, 116 filled the episcopal seat of Ptolemais, near the 
ruins of ancient Cyrene, 117 and the philosophic bishop 
supported with dignity the character which he had assumed 
with reluctance. 118 He vanquished the monster of Lybia, 
the presiding Andronicus, who abused the authority of a 
venal office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and 

us Easil, Epistol. xlvii. in Earonius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 370, Xo. 91), who 
declares that he purposely relates it, to convince governors that they were not 
exempt from a sentence of excommunication. In his opinion, even a royal head 
is not safe from the thunders of the Vatican ; and the cardinal shows himself 
much more consistent than the lawyers and theologians of the Gallican church. 

lie The long series of his ancestors, as high as Eurysthenes, the first Doric 
king of Sparta, and the fifth in lineal descent from Hercules, was inscribed in the 
public registers of Cyrene, a Lacedaemonian colony. (Synes. Epist. lvii. p. 197, 
edit. Petav.). Such a pure and illustrious pedigree of seventeen hundred vears, 
without adding the royal ancestors of Hercules, cannot be equalled in the history 
of mankind.* 

11T Synesius {de Regno, p. 2) pathetically deplores the fallen and ruined state of 
Cyrene, 7r6/Uf 'l^TCArjvlc, Tra!haiov ovo/ua kcu C£/ivbv, kcu tv d)6rj fivpia tuv TruXai 
oo<po)v, vvv ttevtjc nal Karr/^r, Kou fiiya ipairiov. Ptolemais, a new city, 82 
miles to the westward of Cyrene, assumed the metropolitan honors of the Penta- 
polis, or upper Libya, which were afterwards transferred to Sozusa. See Wesse- 
ling, Itinerar. pp. 67. 6S, 732. Cellarius. Geograph. torn. ii. p. ii. p. 7a, 74. Carolus 
r. Sto Paulo, Geograph. Sacra, p. 273; D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, torn, iii, 
p. 43, 44; Memoires de fAcad. des Inscriptions, torn, xxxvii. pp. 363-391 

us Synesius had previously represented his own disqualifications {Epist. c. v. 
pp. 246-250). He loved profane studies and profane sports ; he was incapable of 
supporting a life of celibacy ; he disbelieved the resurrection ; and he refused to 
preach fables to the people, unless he might be permitted to philosophize at home. 
Theophilus, primate of Egypt, who knew his merit, accepted this extraordinary 
compromise. See the life of Synesius in Tillemont, Alan. Eccles. torn. xii. pp. 
499-554- 1 

* Clinton (F. H. i, 101) gives the pedigree of Hercules, beginning with Danaus. 
The kingdom of Lacedaemon was founded by his descendant, Aristodemus, 
whose sons, Eurysthenes and Procles, commenced, B. c. 1102, the bi-regal succes- 
sion of the Agidae and Proclidte, which subsisted so many centuries at Sparta. 
To the former of these lines belonged Battus, who founded Cyrene, B. c. 63. — E. C. 

t Synesius was a native of Cyrene, and might be honestly proud of the " ancient 
" and illustrious name." In the last days of ancient learning, he feebly supported 
the philosophic character, which the place of his birth had early acquired and 
long maintained. The celebrity which he gained, while studying at Alexandria, 
under the talented but unfortunate Hypatia, recommended him to Theophilus. 
His philosophy embraced many of the mystical absurdities of the New Platonists, 
without, however, running into their wild extravagance. The resurrection 
which he disbelieved, was that of the body ; he could not have borne the patro- 
nymic of his school, had he denied the immortality of the soul. Erucker {Hist, 
of Philos. vol. ii. p. 312), admits that he "held opinions not perfectly consistent 
"with the popular creed." Vet Dupin {Hist. Ecc. vol. i. p. 410), says, that not- 
withstanding this, he was " a very wise, prudent, and good bishop." Warburton 
{Div. Leg. vol. iii. p. 196), was so scandalized by the philosophical heresies of 
Synesius, that he calls him " no small fool ; " and proceeds thus : " He went into 
" the church a Platonist, and a Platonist he remained, as extravagant and absurd 
" as any he had left behind him."—ENG. Ch. 



EXCOMMUNICATION. 337 

aggravated the guilt of oppression by that of sacrilege. 119 
After a fruitless attempt to reclaim the haughty magistrate by 
mild and religious admonition, Synesius proceeds to inflict 
the last sentence of ecclesiastical justice, 120 which devotes 
Andronicus, with his associates and their families, to the ab- 
horrence of earth and heaven. The impenitent sinners, more 
cruel than Phalaris or Sennacherib, more destructive than 
war, pestilence, or a cloud of locusts, are deprived of the name 
and privileges of Christians, of the participation of the sacra- 
ments, and of the hope of paradise. The bishop exhorts the 
clergy, the magistrates, and the people, to renounce all 
society with the enemies of Christ ; to exclude them from 
their houses and tables ; and to refuse them the common 
offices of life, and the decent rights of burial. The church of 
Ptolemais, obscure and contemptible as she may appear, ad- 
dresses this declaration to all her sister churches of the world ; 
and the profane, who reject her decrees, will be involved in 
the guilt and punishment of Andronicus and his impious 
followers. These spiritual terrors were enforced by a dexter- 
ous aplication to the Byzantine court ; the trembling presi- 
dent implored the mercy of the church ; and the descendant 
of Hercules enjoyed the satisfaction of raising a prostrate 
tyrant from the ground. 121 Such principles, and such ex- 
amples, insensibly prepared the triumph of the Roman 
pontiffs, who have trampled on the necks of kings. 

VI. Every popular government has experi- 
enced the effects of rude or artificial eloquence. ' T of pubj?c° ra 
The coldest nature is animated, the firmest preaching, 
reason is moved, by the rapid communication of the pre- 
vailing impulse ; and each hearer is affected by his own 
passions,, and by those of the surrounding multitude. The 
ruin of civil liberty had silenced the demagogues of Athens, 
and the tribunes of Rome ; the custom of preaching, which 
seems to constitute a considerable part of Christian devo- 
tion, had not been introduced into the temples of antiquity ; 
and the ears of monarchs were never invaded by the harsh 

119 See the invective of Synesius, Epist. Ivii. pp. 191-201. The promotion of 
Andronicus was illegal ; since he was a native of Berenice in the same province. 
The instruments 01 torture are curiously specified; the KieoTqpiov, or press, the 
tan-vAr/tipa, the TrodooTpdSy, the pivoAudiC, the firalpa, and the X eilaTpo<pwv, 
that variously pressed or distended the fingers, the feet, the nose, the ears, and 
the lips of the victims. 

120 The sentence of excommunication is expressed in a rhetorical stvle. 
(bynesms, Epist. lvn. pp. 201-203.) The method of involving whole families, 
though somewhat unjust, was improved into national interdicts. 

121 See Synesius, Epist. xlvii. pp. 186, 187. Epist. lxxii. pp. 21S, 219. Epist. 
xxxix. pp. 230, 231. ** * r 



338 POPULAR PREACHING. 

sound of popular eloquence, till the pulpits of the empire 
were filled with sacred orators, who possessed some ad- 
vantages unknown' to their profane predecessors. 122 The 
arguments and rhetoric of the tribune were instantly op- 
posed, with equal arms, by skillful and resolute antagonists ; 
and the cause of truth and reason might derive an accidental 
support from the conflict of hostile passions. The bishop, 
or some distinguished presbyter, to whom he cautiously 
delegated the powers of preaching, harangued, without the 
danger of interruption or reply, a submissive multitude, 
whose minds had been prepared and subdued by the awful 
ceremonies of religion. Such was the strict subordination 
of the Catholic church, that the same concerted sounds 
might issue at once from a hundred pulpits of Italy or 
Egypt, if they were tuned™ by the master hand of the 
Roman or Alexandrian primate. The design of this insti- 
tution was laudable, but the fruits were not always salutary. 
The preachers recommended the practice of the social 
duties, but they exalted the perfection of monastic virtue, 
which is painful to the individual, and useless to mankind. 
Their charitable exhortations betrayed a secret wish, that 
the clergy might be permitted to manage the wealth of the 
faithful, for the benefit of the poor. The most sublime 
representations of the attributes and laws of the Deity were 
sullied by an idle mixture of metaphysical subtleties, puerile 
rites, and fictitious miracles ; and they expatiated, with the 
most fervent zeal, on the religious merit of hating the ad- 
versaries, and obeying the ministers, of the church. When 
the public peace was distracted by heresy and schism, the 
sacred orators sounded the trumpet of discord and, perhaps, 
of sedition. The understandings of their congregations 
were perplexed by mystery, their passions were inflamed 
by invectives ; and they rushed from the Christian temples 

122 See Thomassin {Discipline de V Eglise. torn, i I i- 1. iii. c. 83, pp. 1761-1770), and 
Bingham (Antiquities, vol. 1. xiv. c. 4, pp. 688-717). Preaching was considered as 
the most important office of the bishop; but this function was sometimes intrusted 
to such presbyters as Chrysostom and Augustin.* 

123 Queen Elizabeth used this expression, and practiced this art, whenever she 
wished to prepossess the minds of her people in favor of any extraordinary measure 
of government. The hostile effects of this music were a'pprehended by her suc- 
cessor, and severely felt bv his son. " When pulpit, drum ecclesiastic," &c. See 
Heylm's Life of Archbishop Laud, p. 153. 



* For this powerful assistant, the early church was again indebted to philosophy. 
The lectures of the schools were the examples on which the first meetings of the 
Greek believers and the addresses of their preachers were modeled. It was thus 
that the "traditions of the apostles" and the interpretations of the conferences 
at Antioch were made known. Rival lecturers saw with jealousy the increasing 
numbers of those who attended ; and this made Origen say, in reply to Celsus: 

How would the philosophers rejoice to gather such hearers of their exhorta- 
" tions to the beautiful ! " (Cont. Cels. lib. 3.)— Eng. Ch. 



PROVINCIAL SYNODS. 339 

of Antioch or Alexandria, prepared either to suffer or to 
inflict martyrdom. The corruption of taste and language 
is strongly marked in the vehement declamations of the 
Latin bishops ; but the compositions of Gregory and 
Chrysostom have been compared with the most splendid 
models of Attic, or at least of Asiatic, eloquence. 124 

VII. The representatives of the Christian 
republic were regularly assembled in the spring: vn. Privilege 

A C u j^i. j of legislative 

and autumn 01 each year; and these synods assemblies. 
diffused the spirit of ecclesiastical discipline and 
legislation through the hundred and twenty provinces of 
the Roman world. 125 The archbishop, or metropolitan, was 
empowered, by the laws, to summon the suffragan bishops 
of his province ; to revise their conduct, to vindicate their 
rights, to declare their faith, and to examine the merit of 
the candidates who were elected by the clergy and people 
to supply the vacancies of the episcopal college. The 
primates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Carthage, and 
afterwards Constantinople, who exercised a more ample 
jurisdiction, convened the numerous assembly of their de- 
pendent bishops. But the convocation of great and ex- 
traordinary synods was the prerogative of the emperor 
alone. Whenever the emergencies of the church required 
this decisive measure, he despatched a peremptory sum- 
mons to the bishops, or the deputies of each province, with 
an order for the use of post-horses, and a competent allow- 
ance for the expenses of their journey. At an early period, 
when Constantine was the protector, rather than A D 
the proselyte, of Christianity, he referred the 
African controversy to the council of Aries ; in which the 
bishops of York, of Treves, of Milan, and of Carthage, 
met as friends and brethren, to debate in their native 
tongue on the common interest of the Latin or Western 
church. 126 Eleven years afterwards, a more nu- D 

merous and celebrated assembly was convened 
at Nice in Bithynia, to extinguish, by their final sentence, 
the subtle disputes which had arisen in Egypt on the subject 

124 Those modest orators acknowledged, that, as the}' were destitute of the gift 
of miracles, they endeavored to acquire the arts of eloquence. 
" 125 The council of Nice, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh canons, has made 
some fundamental regulations concerning synods, metropolitans, and primates. 
The Nicene canons have been variously tortured, abused, interpolated, or forged, 
according to the interest of the clergy. The Suburbicarian churches, assigned 
(by Rufinus) to the bishop of Rome, have been made the subject of vehement 
controversy. (See Sirmond, Opera, torn. iv. p. 1-23S.) 

lis We have only thirty-three or forty-seven episcopal subscriptions: but Ado. 
a writer indeed of small account, reckons six hundred bishops in the council of 
Aries. Tillemont, Mem. Eccte. torn. vi. p. 422. 



34-0 GENERAL COUNCILS. 

of the Trinity. Three hundred and eighteen bishops obeyed 
the summons of their indulgent master ; the ecclesiastics of 
every rank, and sect, and denomination, have been com- 
puted at two thousand and forty-eight persons; 127 the 
Greeks appeared in person ; and the consent of the Latins 
was expressed by the legates of the Roman pontiff. The 
session, which lasted about two months, was frequently 
honored by the presence of the emperor. Leaving his 
guards at the door, he seated himself (with the permission 
of the council) on a low stool in the midst of the hall. 
Constantine listened with patience, and spoke with modesty; 
and while he influenced the debates, he humbly professed 
that he was the minister, not the judge, of the successors of 
the apostles, who had been established as priests and as 
gods upon earth. 128 Such profound reverence of an absolute 
monarch towards a feeble and unarmed assembly of his 
own subjects, can only be compared to the respect with 
which the senate had been treated by the Roman princes 
who adopted the policy of Augustus. Within the space of 
fifty years, a philosophic spectator of the vicissitudes of 
human affairs, might have contemplated Tacitus in the 
senate of Rome, and Constantine in the council of Nice. 
The fathers of the Capitol, and those of the church, had 
alike degenerated from the virtues of their founders ; but as 
the bishops were more deeply rooted in the public opinion, 
they sustained their dignity with more decent pride, and 
sometimes opposed, with a manly spirit, the wishes of their 
sovereign. The progress of time and superstition erased 
the memory of the weakness, the passion, the ignorance, 
which disgraced these ecclesiastical synods ; and the Cath- 
olic world has unanimously submitted 129 to the infallible 
decrees of the general councils. 130 

127 See Tillemont, torn. vi. p. 915, and Beausobre, Hist, du Manicheisme, torn. i. 
p. 529. The name of bishop, which is given by Eutychius to the 2048 ecclesiastics 
(Annal. torn. i. p. 440, vers. Pocock), must be extended far beyond the limits of 
an orthodox or even an episcopal ordination. 

128 See Euseb. in Vit. Con. 1. iii. c. 6-21. Tillemont, Mem. Eccl. torn. vi. pp. 669-759. 

129 Sancimus igitur vicem legum obtinere, quae a quatuor Sanctis Conciliis 
* * * expositae sunt aut firmatse. Praedictarum enim quatuor synodorum dog- 
mata sicut sanctus Scripturas et regulas sicut leges observamus. Justinian. 
Novell, cxxxi. Beveridge (ad Pandect, proleg. p. 2) remarks that the emperor 
never made new laws in ecclesiastical matters ; and Giannone observes, in a very 
different spirit, that they gave a legal sanction to the canons of councils. Jstoria 
Civile di Napoli, torn. i. p. 136. 

130 See the article Concile in the Encyclopedie, torn. iii. pp. 668-679, edition de 
Lucques. The author, M. le docteur Bouchaud, has discussed, according to the 
principles of the Gallican church, the principal questions which relate to the form 
and constitution of general, national, and provincial councils. The editors (see 
Preface, p. xvi) have reason to be proud of this article. Those who consult their 
immense compilation, seldom depart so well satisfied. 




MERCURY. 



MERCURY. 

MERCURY, called Mercurius by the Apostles, (Acts xiv. 12,) and also by the 
Romans, was the son of Jupiter and Maia, a daughter of Atlas. He was 
celebrated for his activity, perseverance, cunning, intelligence, and elo- 
quence. He became the herald of the immortals— the chosen and trusted 
messenger of Jove— and transmitted and published, to both gods and men, the 
tvords and commands of that august potentate. Hence he was known to the 
ancient Pagans as the Herald, the Messenger, the Living Word, or the Logos. 
With the aid of his winged cap and sandals, he traversed space with the rapidity 
of the wind, and was only outstripped in speed by the glittering sunbeam, which 
was the messenger from Ormuzd to the devout Magian, or by the subtle electric 
spark, which was the lightning's flash of Zeus. 

"This god" says Taylor, "was distinguished in the Pagan world bv the 
" evangelical title of the Logos or the Word—' The Word that in the beginning 
" ' was with God, and that also was a God.' Our Christian writers discover con- 
" siderable apprehension, and a jealous caution in their language, where the 
" resemblance between Paganism and Christianity might be apt to strike the 
" mind too cogently. Where Horace gives us a very extraordinary account of 
" Mercury's descent into hell, (He also descended into hell.— Apostles' Creed.) 
" and his causing a cessation of the sufferings there, our Christian mythologist 
" checks our curiosity, by the sudden break off — 'As this perhaps mav be a 
" ' mystical nart of his character, we had better let it alone.'— BelVs Panih. vol. 
" 2. p. 72. But the further back we trace the evidences of the Christian religion, 
" the less concerned we find its advocates to maintain, or even to pretend that 
" there was any difference at all between the essential doctrines of Christianity 
" and Paganism." 

" For by declaring the Logos, the first begotten of God, our Master, Jesus 
" Christ, to be born of a virgin without any human mixture, to be crucified and 
" dead, and to have risen again into heaven ; we say no more in this, than what 
" you say of those whom you style the sons of Jove. As to the son of God, called 
" jesus, should we allow him to be nothing more than man, yet the title of the 
" Son of God is very justifiable upon the account of his wisdom, considering that 
" you have your Mercury in worship under the title of The Word, and Mes- 
" senger of God." — Reeve's Apologies of the Fathers, vol. 1, London, 1716. 

" The celebrated passage, ' In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
" 'with God, and the Word was God,' &c, {John i. 1.) is a fragment of some 
" Pagan treatise on the Platonic philosophy, and as such is quoted as early as the 
" year 26.} by Amelius, a Pagan philosopher, as strictly applicable to the Logos or 
" Mercury, or the Word, and is quoted appropriately as an honorable testimony 
" borne to the Pagan deity, by a barbarian. ' And this plainly was the Word, by 
" ' whom all things were made, he being himself eternal, as Heraclitus also 
" ' would say ; and by Jove, the same w horn the barbarian affirms to have been 
" ' in the place and dignity of a principal, and to be with God, and to be God, by 
" ' whom all tilings were made, and in whom every thing that was made, has its 
'' 'life and being: who, descending into body, and putting on flesh, took the 
" 'appearance of a man, though even then he gave proof of the majesty of his 
" ' nature ; nay, and after his dissolution, he was deified again.' This is the lan- 
" guage of one, of whom there is not the least pretence to show that he was a 
" believer of the Gospel, or had ever heard of it, or that he did not reject it ; it was 
" the language of clear, undisguised, and unmingled Paganism. The Logos then, 
" or Word, was a designation purely and exclusively appropriate to the Pagan 
" mythology." Taylor's Diegesis, pp. 183 — 186. 

Indeed, the resemblance between orthodox Paganism and pure Christianity, as 
taught in the first century, was so absolute, that Pagan priests, who may be con- 
sidered competent judges, could not always detect the difference between the two 
religions or mythologies, and were sometimes strangely deceived. A remark- 
able instance of this fact is recorded in Acts, xiv : 7-13, which occurred in 
Lystra, a city of Lyconia. Paul and Barnabas, after their expulsion from 
Iconium, visited this place. " And there they preached the gospel," says the 
author of The Acts, and there they also cured a cripple, who had never walked, 
" being impotent in his feet." This miracle and the doctrines the apostles 
preache i were mistaken by the Pagans for genuine Paganism. " The priest of 
" Jupiter," continues the sacred historian, " brought oxen and garlands unto the 
" gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people." " The gods are come 
" down to us in the likeness of men," said the credulous Pagans of Lystra. 
" And they called Barnabus yupiter, and Paul Mercurius, because he was the 
" chief speaker." The acute Greeks, says Voltaire, could split a theological 
hair into four parts, but these devout natives of Lystra could detect no difference 
between Paganism and Christianity. They had listened to Paul's eloquence, and 
it was to them the echo of their own belief: they had witnessed the wonderful 
cure he performed, and this miracle confirmed their faith : and they honestly 
believed that the two apostles, St. Paul and St. Barnabas, were Pagan gods.— E. 




The Parcae or Fates. 



V. 



PERSECUTION OF HERESY. — THE SCHISM OF THE DON- 
ATISTS. — THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. — ATHANASIUS. — 
DISTRACTED STATE OF THE CHURCH AND EMPIRE 
UNDER CONSTANTINE AND HIS SONS. — TOLERATION OF 
PAGANISM/)" 

THE grateful applause of the clergy has consecrated 
the memory of a prince who indulged their passions 
and promoted their interest. Constantine gave them 
security, wealth, honors, revenge ; and the support of the 
orthodox faith was considered as the most sacred and im- 
portant duty of the civil magistrate. The edict of Milan, 
the great charter of toleration, had confirmed to each in- 

* According to Hesiod, these three goddesses who presided over the birth 
and life of mortals, were the daughters of Nox and Erebus, and it was their 
province to execute the eternal, inexorable decrees of Necessity, before whose 
imperial fiat both gods and men must bow. 

These weird sisters are represented as placidly weaving — insensible to our love 
and indifferent to our hate — the web and woof of human destiny; joining, mean- 
while, in the song of the Sirens. Clotho, the younger, presides over the moment 
in which we are born. She holds in her hand a distaff, from which the beautiful, 
but inscrutable, Lachesis, spins out the events and actions, the hopes and fears, 
the joys and sorrows, of our chequered life; whilst the elder sister, Atropos, — 
the stern embodiment of fate and destiny— holds suspended the fatal shears, 
whose slightest movement severs the fragile thread of being, blots out the con- 
sciousness of existence, and ends for all at last in sober sadness — too oft in grief 
and anguish— the mystery, the tragedy of life.— E. 

f Chap. XXI. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

(34i) 



342 INQUIRY INTO HERETICAL DOCTRINES. 

dividual of the Roman world, the privilege of choosing 
and professing his own religion. But this inestimable 
privilege was soon violated : with the knowledge of truth, 
the emperor imbibed the maxims of persecution ; and the 
sects which dissented from the Catholic church, were 
afflicted and oppressed by the triumph of Christianity. 
Constantine easily believed that the heretics, who presumed 
to dispute his opinions, or to oppose his commands, were 
guilty of the most absurd and criminal obstinacy ; and that 
a seasonable application of moderate severities might save 
those unhappy men from the danger of an everlasting con- 
demnation. Not a moment was lost in excluding the 
ministers and teachers of the separated congregations from 
any share of the rewards and immunities which the emperor 
had so liberally bestowed on the orthodox clergy. But as 
the sectaries might still exist under the cloud of royal dis- 
grace, the conquest of the East was immediately followed 
by an edict which announced their total destruction. 1 After 
a preamble filled with passion and reproach, Constantine 
absolutely prohibits the assemblies of the heretics, and con- 
fiscates their public property to the use either of the revenue 
or of the Catholic church. The sects against whom the 
imperial severity was directed, appear to have been the 
adherents of Paul of Samosata ; the Montanists of Phrygia, 
who maintained an enthusiastic succession of prophecy ; the 
Novatians, who sternly rejected the temporal efficacy of 
repentance ; the Marcionites and Valentinians, under whose 
leading banner the various Gnostics of Asia and Egypt had 
insensibly rallied ; and perhaps the Manichaeans, who had 
recently imported from Persia a more artful composition of 
oriental and Christian theology. 2 The design of extirpa- 
ting the name, or at least of restraining the progress, of 
these odious heretics, was prosecuted with vigor and effect. 
Some of the penal regulations were copied from the edicts 
of Diocletian ; and this method of conversion was applauded 
by the same bishops who had felt the hand of oppression, 
and had pleaded for the rights of humanity. Two imma- 
terial circumstances may serve, however, to prove that the 
mind of Constantine was not entirely corrupted by the spirit 

1 Eusebius in Vit, Constantin. I. iii. c. 63, 64, 65, 66. 

2 After some examination of the various opinions of Tillemont, Beausobre, 
Lardner, &c, I am convinced that Manes did not propagate his sect, even in 
Persia, before the vear 270. It is strange that a philosophic and foreign heresy 
should have penetrated so rapidly into the African provinces; yet I cannot easily 
reject the edict of Diocletian against the Manichaeans, which may be found 111 
Baronius, (Annal. Eccl. A. D. 287.) 



THE NOVATIANS. 343 

of zeal and bigotry. Before he condemned the Manichseans,* 
and their kindred sects, he resolved to make an accurate 
inquiry into' the nature of their religious principles. As 
if he distrusted the impartiality of his ecclesiastical coun- 
sellors, this delicate commission was intrusted to a civil 
magistrate, whose learning and moderation he justly es- 
teemed, and of whose venal character he was probably 
ignorant. 3 The emperor was soon convinced, that he had 
too hastily proscribed the orthodox faith and the exemplary 
morals of the Novatians, who had dissented from the church 
in some articles of discipline which were not perhaps 
essential to salvation. By a particular edict, he exempted 
them from the general penalties of the law ; 4 allowed them 
to build a church at Constantinople ; respected the miracles 
of their saints ; invited their bishop Acesius to the council 
of Nice ; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect 
by a familiar jest ; which, from the mouth of a sovereign, 
must have been received with applause and gratitude. 5 

s Constantinus enim, cum limatius superstitionum quaereret sectas, Mani- 
chaeorum et similium, &c. Ammian. xv. 15. Strategius, who from this commis- 
sion obtained the surname of Mitsonianus, was a Christian of the Arian sect. He 
acted as one of the counts at the council of Sardica. Libanius praises his mild- 
ness and prudence. Vales, ad locum Ammian. 

4 Cod. Theod. 1. xvi. tit. 5, leg. 2. As the general law is not inserted in the 
Theodosian Code, it is probable that, in the year 438, the sects which it had 
condemned were already extinct. 

6 Sozomen, 1. i. c. 22. Socrates, 1. i. c. 10. These historians have been suspected, 
but I think without reason, of an attachment to the Novatian doctrine. The 
emperor said to the bishop, " Acesius, take a ladder, and get up to heaven by 
" yourself." Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed the ladder of 
Acesius.f 

*"Mani, properly so called, though more commonly Manes or Manichaeus, 
" from whom the most important Christian sect that ever existed, takes its 
" designation," says Rev. Robt. Taylor, in Diegesis, "was by birth a Persian, 
" educated amongst the Magi, or wise men of the East, and himself originally 
" one of that order. 

" In the edict of Diocletian, preserved in the fragments of Hermogenes, the 
" Christians are called Manichees. It sufficiently appears that the Gentiles in 
" general confounded the Christians and Manichees, and that there really was no 
" difference, or appeared to be none, between the followers of Christ and of 
" Manes. Let who will or can, determine the curious question, whether Manes 
" and his followers were heretical seceders from Christianity, or whether those 
"who afterwards acquired the name of Christians, were heretics from the primi- 
" tive sect of Manichees. The admitted fact of the existence of upwards of 
" ninety different heresies, or manners and variation of telling the Gospel story, 
" within the first three centuries, is proof demonstrative that there could have 
" been no common authority to which Christians could appeal. 

" It is admitted by Mosheim (vol. 1, cent. 3, chap. 2), that the more intelligent 
" among the Christian people in the third century had been taught, that true 
" Christianity, as it was inculcated by Jesus, and not as it was afterwards cor- 
" rupted by his disciples, differed in few points from the Pagan religion, properly 
" explained and restored to its primitive purity. 

"St. Augustin himself," continues Taylor, was originally a member of this sect, 

" till he found that higher distinctions and better emoluments were to be gained 

" by joining the stronger party. Whereupon he left the poor presbytery of the 

" Manichaean church, to become the orthodox bishop of Hippo Regius." — E. 

t These very first acts of Constantine manifest the influence not of the religion, 



344 DOUBLE ELECTION AT CARTHAGE. 

African The complaints and mutual accusations which 

controversy, assailed the throne of Constantine as soon as the 
a. d. 312. death f Maxentius had submitted Africa to his 
victorious arms, were ill adapted to edify an imperfect 
proselyte. He learned, with surprise, that the provinces of 
that great country, from the confines of Cyrene to the 
columns of Hercules, were distracted with religious discord. 6 
The source of the division was derived from a double elec- 
tion in the church of Carthage ; the second, in rank and 
opulence, of the ecclesiastical thrones of the West. Caecilian 
and Majorinus were the two rival primates of Africa ; and 
the death of the latter soon made room for Donatus, who, 
by his superior abilities and apparant virtues, was the firmest 
support of his party. The advantage which Caecilian might 
claim from the priority of his ordination, was destroyed by 
the illegal, or at least indecent, haste, with which it had 
been performed, without expecting the arrival of the bishops 
of Numidia. The authority of these bishops, who, to the 
number of seventy, condemned Caecilian, and consecrated 
Majorinus, is again weakened by the infamy of some of 
their personal characters ; and by the female intrigues, 
sacrilegious bargains, and tumultuous proceedings, which 
are imputed to this Numidian council. 7 The bishops of 
the contending factions maintained, with equal ardor and 
obstinacy, that their adversaries were degraded, or at least 
dishonored, by the odious crime of delivering the Holy 

s The best materials for this part of ecclesiastical history may be found in the 
edition of Optatus Milevitanus, published (Paris, 1700) by M. Dupin, who has 
enriched it with critical notes, geographical discussions, original records, and an 
accurate abridgment of the whole controversy. M. de Tillemont has bestowed 
on the Donatist the greatest part of a volume (torn. vi. part i.) ; and I am indebted 
to him for an ample collection of all the passages of his favorite, St. Augustin, 
which relate to those heretics. 

■ Schisma igitur illo tempore confusee mulieris iracundia peperit , ambitus 
nutrivit; avantia roboravit. Optatus, 1. i. c. 19. The language of Purpurius is 
that of a furious madman. Dicitur te necasse filios sororis tuse duos. Purpurius 
respondit : Putas me terreri a te * * * occidi ; et occido eos qui contra me 
faciunt. Acta Coned. Cirtensis, ad calc. Optat. p. 274. When Ca?cilian was 
invited to an assembly of bishops, Purpurius said to his brethren, or rather to his 
accomplices 'Let him come hither to receive our imposition of hands, and we 
' will break his head by way of penance." Optat. 1. i. c. 19. 

which he rather used than embraced, but of the hierarchv. through whom he saw 
that the masses might be made subservient to his designs. To secure these 
chiefeofthe church, their artful patron indulged their desire to exclude all rivals, 
and bestowed on them new rewards and immunities. So, too, the schisms which 
are the subjects of this chapter, would never have distracted the world, had there 
been no such objects of ambitious desires as episcopal thrones and revenues.— E. C. 
Says Butler, in Hudibras : 

" What makes all doctrines plain and clear?— 

'' About two hundred pounds a year. 
" And that which was prov'd true' before, 
" Prov'd false again ?— Two hundred more."— E. 



SCHISM OF THE DONATISTS. 345 

Scriptures to the officers of Diocletian. From their mutual 
reproaches, as well as from the story of this dark transac- 
tion, it may* justly be inferred, that the late persecution had 
imbittered the zeal, without reforming the manners, of the 
African Christians. That divided church was incapable of 
affording an impartial judicature ; the controversy was 
solemnly tried in five successive tribunals, which were ap- 
pointed by the emperor ; and the whole proceeding, from 
the first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above three 
years. A severe inquisition which was taken by the prae- 
torian vicar and the pro-consul of Africa, the report of two 
episcopal visitors who had been sent to Carthage, the 
decrees of the councils of Rome and of Aries, and the su- 
preme judgment of Constantine himself in his sacred con- 
sistory, were all favorable to the cause of Csecilian, and he 
was unanimously acknowledged by the civil and ecclesias- 
tical powers, as the true and lawful primate of Africa. The 
honors and estates of the church were attributed to his 
suffragan bishops ; and it was not without difficulty that 
Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the punishment of 
exile on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As 
their cause was examined with attention, perhaps it was de- 
termined with justice. Perhaps their complaint was not 
without foundation, that the credulity of the emperor had 
been abused by the insidious arts of his favorite Osius. 
The influence of falsehood and corruption might procure 
the condemnation of the innocent, or aggravate the sentence 
of the guilty. Such an act, however, of injustice, if it con- 
cluded an importunate dispute, might be numbered among 
the transient evils of a despotic administration, which are 
neither felt nor remembered by posterity. 

But this incident, so inconsiderable that it cm '^r *,« 

' . Schism 01 the 

scarcely deserves a place in history, was pro- Donatists. 
ductive of a memorable schism, which afflicted A " D " 3I5 " 
the provinces of Africa above three hundred years, and 
was extinguished only with Christianity itself. The inflexible 
zeal of freedom and fanaticism animated the Donatists to 
refuse obedience to the usurpers, whose election they dis- 
puted, and whose spiritual powers they denied. Excluded 
from the civil and religious communion of mankind, they 
boldly excommunicated the rest of mankind who had em- 
braced the impious party of Caecilian, and of the traditors, 
from whom he derived his pretended ordination. They 



346 FANATICISM OF THE DONATISTS. 

asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation, that 
the apostolical succession was interrupted ; that all the 
bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion 
of guilt and schism ; and that the prerogatives of the Cath- 
olic church were confined to the chosen portion of the 
African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the 
integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory 
was supported by the most uncharitable conduct. When- 
ever they acquired a proselyte, even from the distant 
provinces of the East, they carefully repeated the sacred 
rites of baptism 8 and ordination ; as they rejected the validity 
of those which he had already received from the hands of 
heretics or schismatics. Bishops, virgins, and even spotless 
infants, were subjected to the disgrace of a public penance, 
before they could be admitted to the communion of the 
Donatists. If they obtained possession of a church which 
had been used by their Catholic adversaries, they purified 
the unhallowed building with the same jealous care which 
a temple of idols might have required. They washed the 
pavement, scraped the walls, burnt the altar, which was 
commonly of wood, melted the consecrated plate, and cast 
the holy eucharist to the dogs, with every circumstance of 
ignominy which could provoke and perpetuate the ani- 
mosity of religious factions. 9 Notwithstanding this irrecon- 
cilable aversion, the two parties, who were mixed and 
separated in all the cities of Africa, had the same language 
and manners, the same zeal and learning, the same faith and 
worship. Proscribed by the civil and ecclesistical powers 
of the empire, the Donatists still maintained in some 
provinces, particularly in Numidia, their superior numbers ; 
and four hundred bishops acknowledged the jurisdiction of 
their primate. But the invincible spirit of the sect some- 
times preyed on its own vitals ; and the bosom of their 
schismatical church was torn by intestine divisions. A 
fourth part of the Donatist bishops followed the inde- 
pendent standard of the Maximianists. The narrow and 
solitary path which their first leaders had marked out, 
continued to deviate from the great society of mankind. 

8 The councils of Aries, of Nice, and of Trent, confirmed the wise and moderate 
practice of the church of Rome. The Donatists, however, had the advantage of 
maintaining the sentiment of Cyprian, and of a considerable part of the primitive 
church. Vincentius Lirinensis (p. 332, ap. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. vi. p. 138) 
has explained why the Donatists are eternally burning with the Devil, while St. 
Cyprian reigns in heaven with Jesus Christ. 

9 See the sixth book of Optatus Milevitanus, pp. 91-100. 



THE TRINITARIAN CONTROVERSY. 347 

Even the imperceptible sect of the Rogatians could affirm, 
without a blush, that when Christ should descend to judge 
the earth, he would find his true religion preserved only in 
a few nameless villages of the Caesarean Mauritania. 10 

The schism of the Donatists was confined to The 
Africa : the more diffusive mischief of the Trini- Trinitarian 
tarian controversy successively penetrated into COIltlovers y- 
every part of the Christian world. The former was an 
accidental quarrel, occasioned by the abuse of freedom ; the 
latter was a high and mysterious argument, derived from 
the abuse of philosophy. From the age of Constantine to 
that of Clovis and Theodoric, the temporal interests both 
of the Romans and Barbarians were deeply involved in the 
theological disputes of Arianism. The historian may there- 
fore be permitted respectfully to withdraw the veil of the 
sanctuary ; and to deduce the progress of reason and faith, 
of error and passion, from the school of Plato to the decline 
and fall of the empire. 

The genius of Plato, informed by his own _ , 

.. P . , ' . . 11-11 r Thesvstemof 

meditation or by the traditional knowledge ot Plato. 
the priests of Egypt, 11 had ventured to explore Befor ^ hnst - 
the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he 
had elevated his mind to the sublime contemplation of the 
first self-existent necessary cause of the universe, the 
Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple 
unity of his essence could admit the infinite variety of dis- 
tinct and successive ideas which compose the model of the 
intellectual world ; how a Being purely incorporeal could 
execute that perfect model, and mould with a plastic hand 
the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of ex- 
tricating himself from these difficulties, which must ever 
oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce 
Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold 
modification of the first cause, the reason or Logos, and the 

soul or spirit of the universe. His poetical _. T 

. r . , , . *% . i he Logos. 

imagination sometimes fixed and animated these 

10 Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiastiques, torn. vi. part i. p. 253. He laughs at their 
partial credulity. He revered Augustin, the great doctor of the system of pre- 
destination. 

11 Plato iEgyptum peragravit ut a sacerdotibus Barbaris numeros et ccelestia 
acciperet. Cicero de Finibus, v. 25. The Egyptians might still preserve the tra- 
ditional creed of the Patriarchs. Josephus has persuaded many of the Christian 
fathers, that Plato derived a part of his knowledge from the Jews; but this vain 
opinion cannot be reconciled with the obscure state and unsocial manners of the 
Jewish people, whose scriptures were not accessible to Greek curiosity till more 
than one hundred years after the death of Piato. See Marsham, Canon. Chron. 
p. 144. Le Clerc, Epistol. Critic, vii. p. 177-194. 



34§ THE LOGOS OF PLATO. 

metaphysical abstractions ; the three archical or original 
principles were represented in the Platonic system as three 
gods, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable 
generation ; and the Logos was particularly considered 
under the more accessible character of the Son of an eternal 
Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world. Such 
appear to have been the secret doctrines which were cau- 
tiously whispered in the gardens of the Academy ; and 
which, according to the more recent disciples of Plato* 

* This exposition of the doctrine of Plato appears to me contrary to the true 
sense of that philosopher's writings. The hrilliant imagination which he carried 
into metaphysical inquiries, his style, full of allegories and figures, have misled 
those interpreters who did not seek, from the whole tenor of his works and 
beyond the images which the writer employs, the system of this philosopher. In 
my opinion, there is no Trinity in Plato ; he has established no mysterious genera- 
tion between the three pretended principles which he is made to distinguish. 
Finally, he conceived only as attributes of the Deity, or of matter, those ideas, of 
which it is supposed that be made substances, real beings. 

According to Plato, God and matter existed from ail eternity. Before the 
creation of the world, matter had in itself a principle of motion, but without end 
oi laws : it is this principle which Plato calls the irrational soul of the world 
(a'Aoyor ipi'xv); because, according to his doctrine, every spontaneous and 
original principle of motion is called soul. God wished to impress form upon 
matter, that is to say, i. To mould matter, and make it into a body; 2. To regu- 
late its motion, and subject it to some end and to certain laws. The Deity, in this 
operation, could not act but according to the ideas existing in his intelligence: 
their union filled this, and formed the ideal type of the world. It is this ideal 
world, this divine intelligence, existing with God from all eternity, and called by 
Plato vovc or Abyoc, which he is supposed to personify, to substantialize ; while 
an attentive examination is sufficient to convince us that he has never assigned it 
an existence external to the Deity (hors de la Divinite), and that he considered 
the '/.///.or as the aggregate of the ideas of God, the divine understanding in its 
relation to the world. The contrary opinion is irreconcilable with all his phi- 
losophy: thus he says (Timceus, p. 348. edit. Bip.) that to the idea of the Deity 
is essentially united that of an intelligence, of a logos. He would thus have 
admitted a double logos ; one inherent in the Deitv as an attribute, the other 
independently existing as a substance. He affirms ( Timceus, 316, 337, 348, Sophista, 
v. ii. pp. 265, 266) that the intelligence, the principle of order, vovc or 'Aoyoc, can- 
not exist but as an attribute of a soul (ipox7}), the principle of motion and of life, of 
which the nature is unknown to us. How, then, according to this, could he consider 
the logos as a substance endowed with an independent existence ? In other places, 
he explains it by these two words, i-iarr)ur} (knowledge, science), and dtdvoia, 
(intelligence), which signify the attributes of the Deity. {Sophist, v. ii. p. 299.) 
Lastly, it follows from several passages, among others, from Phileb. v. iv. pp. 247, 
24S, that Plato has never given to the words vovc, Abyoc, but one of these two 
meanings : 1. Ttie result of the action of the Deity ; that is, order, the collective 
laws which govern the world : and 2. The rational soul of the world (AoyirjTLKr) 
~d)VXv)i or tne cause OI this result, that is to say, the divine intelligence. When 
he separates God, the ideal archetype of the world and matter, it is to explain 
how, according to his system, God has proceeded, at the creation, to unite the 
principle of order, which he had within himself, his proper intelligence, the 
Aoyoc, the principle of motion, to the principle of motion, the irrational soul, the 
u/.oyoc ipvxy, which was in matter. When he speaks of the place occupied by 
the ideal world (tottoc votjtoc), it is to designate the divine intelligence, which is 
its cause. Finally, in no part of his writings do we find a true personification of 
the pretended beings of which he is said to have formed a trinity ; and if this 
personification existed, it would equally apply to many other notions, of which 
might be formed many different trinities. 

This error, into which many ancient as well as modern interpreters of Plato 
have fallen, was very natural. Besides the snares which were concealed in his 



PLATONISM TAUGHT AT ALEXANDRIA. 349 

could not be perfectly understood till after an assiduous 
study of thirty years. 12 

The arms of the Macedonians diffused over 
Asia and Egypt the language and learning of T ™$^ ?* 
Greece and the theological system of Plato was ^Aiexandn^ 
taught, with less reserve, and perhaps with some e 30O . 
improvements, in the celebrated school of Alex- 
ia The modern guides who lead me to the knowledge of the Platonic system are 
Cudworth (Intellectual System, pp. 568-620), Basnage (Hist, des Juifs, 1. iv. c. 4, 
pp. S3-86), Le Clerc (Epist. Crit. vii. pp. 193-209), and Brueker (Hist, Philosoph. 
tomT i pp 675-706). As the learning of these writers was equal, and their inten- 
tion different, an inquisitive observer may derive instruction Irom their disputes 

and certainty from their agreement. 

figurative stvle ; besides the necessity of comprehending as a whole the system 
of his ideas, and not to explain isolated passages, the nature of his doctrine itself 
would conduce to this error. When Plato appeared, the uncertainty of human 
knowledge, and the continual illusions of the senses were acknowledged, and 
had given rise to a general skepticism. Socrates had aimed at raising morality 
above the influence of this skepticism : Plato endeavored to save metaphysics, by 
seeking in the human intellect a source of certainty which the senses could not 
furnish. He invented the system of innate ideas, of which the aggregate formed, 
according to him, the ideal world, and affirmed that these ideas were real attri- 
butes, not only attached to our conceptions of objects, but to the nature of the 
objects themselves ; a nature of which from them we might obtain a knowl- 
edge. He gave, then, to these ideas a positive existence as attributes : his com- 
mentators could easily give them a real existence as substances ; especially as the 
terms which he used to designate them, avro TOttuXov, uvro to dya-dov, essential 
beauty, essential goodness, lent themselves to this substantialization (hypostasis). 
—Guizot. 

We have retained this view of the original philosophy of Plato, in which there 
is probably much truth. The genius of Plato was rather metaphysical than 
impersonative : his poetry was in his language, rather than, like that of the 
Orientals, in his conceptions. — Milman. 

In a very profound disquisition, M. Guizot has endeavored to show, that " the 
" true meaning of Plato's philosophical writings is here not presented to us," and 
that " in no part of them is there any real personification of the pretended beings 
" who are said to form his trinity." Yet he admits that most of Plato's interpre- 
ters, as well ancient as modern, have been betrayed into this error, by the very 
nature of his doctrine, by the ambiguities of his figurative style, and by dwelling 
on detached passages, instead of comprehending all his ideas in one entire 
system. The question, however, is not how Plato's words ought to be inter- 
preted, but how they were understood at the period of which Gibbon was writing. 
M. Guizot has confessed that the Greek philosopher was then and has been since 
generally considered to have personified or substantialized his three principles. 
This may have been an error, but the fact justifies Gibbon. — Eng. Ch. 

As none can comprehend the mystery of the Trinity — which is intended to be 
believed and not understood — it affords an admirable theme for endless discussion 
among learned theologians ; and the doctrine of the triad — of the trinity in unity — 
is equally opposed to human reason, whether it originated in Egypt or in Greece 
— with the monks of Alexandria, or of Rome. 

Ludwig Feuerbach, in his Essence of Christianity, became puzzled in striving 
to unravel the subject, because, " Imagination gives the Trinity, reason the Unity 
" of the persons ; " because, " The idea of the Trinity demands that man should 
" think the opposite of what he imagines, and imagine the opposite of what he 
" thinks ; " because, " The three persons of the Christian Godhead are not tres 
" Dii, three Gods ; — at least they are not meant to be such ; — but units Dens, one 
" God. The three Persons end, not, as might have been expected, in a plural, 
" but in a singular ; the}- are not only Unum — the Gods of Olympus are that — but 

Unus. Unity has here the significance not of essence only, but also of existence ; 
" unity is the existential form of God. Three are one: the plural is a singular. 
"God is a personal being consisting of three persons." The great reformer, 
Martin Luther, suggests the only explanation possible or necessary when he 
plainly asks (Luther, t. x. iv. p. 13), " How can reason bring itself into accord with 
' this, or believe, that three is one and one is three?"— E. 



350 PHILOSOPHICAL HEBREWS. 

andria. 13 A numerous colony of Jews had been invited, by 
the favor of the Ptolemies, to settle in their new capital. 14 
While the bulk of the nation practiced the legal ceremonies, 
and pursued the lucrative occupations of commerce, a few 
Hebrews, of a more liberal spirit, devoted their lives to 

is Brucker, Hist. Philosoph. torn. i. pp. 1349-1357. The Alexandrian school is 
celebrated by Strabo (1. xvii.) and Ammianus (xxii. 6).* 
14 Josephi. 'Antiquitat. xl. ii. c. i, 3. Basnage, Hist, des puips, 1. vii. c. j.f 

* The philosophy of Plato was not the only source of that professed in the 
school of Alexandria. That city, in which Greek, Jewish, and Egyptian men of 
letters were assembled, was the scene of a strange fusion of the system of these 
three people. '.The Greek brought a Platonism, already much changed ; the Jews, 
who had acquired at Babylon a great number of Oriental notions, and whose 
theological opinions had undergone great changes by this intercourse, endeavored 
to reconcile Platonism with their new doctrine, and disfigured it entirely ; lastly, 
the Egyptians, who were not willing to abandon notions for which the Greek-; 
themselves entertained respect, endeavored on their side to reconcile their own 
with those of their neighbors. It is in Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon 
that we trace the influence of Oriental philosophy rather than that of Platonism. 
We find in these books, and in those of the later prophets, as in Ezekiel, notions 
unknown to the Jews before the Babylonian captivity, of which we do not discover 
the germ in Plato, but which are manifestly derived from the Orientals. Thus 
God represented under the image of light, and the principle of evil under that of 
darkness; the history of the good and bad angels; paradise and hell, &c , are 
doctrines of which the origin, or least the positive determination, can only be 
referred to the Oriental philosophy. Plato supposed matter eternal ; the Orien- 
tals and the Jews considered it as a creation of God, who alone was eternal. It 
is impossible to explain the philosophy of the Alexandrian school solely by the 
blending of the Jewish theology with the Greek philosophy. The Oriental phi- 
losophy, however little it may be known, is recognized at every instant. Thus, 
according to the Zend Avesta, it is by the Word (honover) more ancient than the 
world, that Ormuzd created the universe. J This word is the logos of Philo, 
consequently very different from that of Plato. I have shown that Plato never 
personified the logos as the ideal archetype of the world : Philo ventured this 
personification. The Deity, according to him, has a double logos ; the first 
("knyoc evdiudeTOc;) is the ideal archetype of the world, the ideal world, the. first- 
born of the Deity ; the second (7„6yo<; izpntybpLKo) is the word itself of God, per- 
sonified under the image of a being acting to create the sensible world, and to 
make it like to the ideal world : it is the second born of God. Following out his 
imaginations, Philo went so far as to personify anew the ideal world, under the 
image of a celestial man (uvpuviot; avtypurroc;), the primitive type of man, and 
the sensible world under the image of another man less perfect than the celestial 
man. Certain notions of the Oriental philosophy may have given rise to this 
strange abuse of allegory, which it is sufficient to relate, to show what alterations 
Platonism had already undergone, and what was their source. Philo, moreover, 
of all the Jews of Alexandria, is the one whose Platonism is the most pure. (See 
Buhle, Introd. to Hist, of Mod. Philosophy. Michaelis, Introd. to New Test, in 
German, part ii. p. 973.) It is from this mixture of Orientalism, Platonism, and 
Judaism, that Gnosticism arose, which has produced so many theological and 
philosophical extravagancies, and in which oriental notions evidently pre- 
dominate. — Guizot. 

t According to Josephus, they were also settled at Cyrene.— Eng. Ch. 

% " In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
" was God." St. yohn, c. i. v. 1. 

M. Guizot, assisted by Milman, could possibly have explained wherein this text 
of the inspired apostle differs from the "oriental philosophy" of the Zend Avesta ; 
and yet, it cannot be denied that the Indian trimurti or trinity — Brahma, the 
Creator; Vishnu, the Preserver; and Siva, the Destroyer; and also the triad of 
Plato— the Supreme Good, the Reason, and the Soul— bear a striking resemblance 
to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. As both these Heathen or Pagan beliefs 
antedate Christianity, it cannot be proven that they are copied from our sacred 
writings, and to admit that they are the original sources from which our belief 
has descended, would be fatal to the claim of inspiration on which the Christian 
religion is founded.— E, 



WISDOM OF SOLOMON. 35! 

religious and philosophical contemplation. 15 They cultivated 
with diligence, and embraced with ardor, the theological 
system of the Athenian sage. But their national pride 
would have been mortified by a fair confession of their 
former poverty : and they boldly marked, as the sacred in- 
heritance of their ancestors, the gold and jewels which they 
had so lately stolen from their Egyptian masters. One 
hundred years before the birth of Christ, a phi- 
losophical treatise, which manifestly betrays the BeforeChdst. 
style and sentiments of the school of Plato, was 
produced by the Alexandrian Jews, and unanimously re- 
ceived as a genuine and valuable relic of the inspired wisdom 
of Solomon. 16 A similar union of the Mosaic faith and the 
Grecian philosophy distinguishes the works of Philo,* which 

is For the origin of the Jewish philosophy, see Eusebius, Prceparat. Evangel. 
viii. 9, 10. According to Philo, the Theraputse studied philosophy ; and Brucker 
has proved {Hist. Philosoph. torn. ii. p. 787) that they gave the preference to that 
of Plato. 

i« See Calmet, Dissertations sur la Bible, torn. ii. p. 277. The book of the 
Wisdom of Solomon was received by many of the fathers as the work of that 
monarch ; and although rejected by the Protestants for want of a Hebrew 
original, it has obtained, with the rest of the Vulgate, the sanction of the council 
of Trent. 



* In Chap. IX. of The Diegesis, the Rev. Robt. Taylor gives a careful sketch of 
Philo-Judseus, and shows the remarkable resemblance between modern Chris- 
tianity and the religious community of which Philo was a member. " 1. Having 
"parishes, 2. Churches, 3. Bishops, priests, and deacons; 4. Observing the 
" grand festivals of Christianity ; 5. Pretending to have had apostolic founders ; 
" 6. Practicing the very manners that distinguished the immediate apostles of 
" Christ ; 7. Using Scriptures which they believed to be divinely inspired, 8. And 
" which Eusebius himself believed to be none other than the substance of our 
" Gospels ; 9. And the selfsame allegorical method of interpreting those Scrip- 
" cures, which has since obtained among Christians; 10. And the selfsame 
" manner and order of performing public worship; 11. And having missionary 
" stations or colonies — of their community established in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, 
" Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and Thessalonica; precisely such, and in such cir- 
" cumstances, as those addressed by St. Paul, in his respective epistles to the 
" Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thes- 
" salonians ; and 12. Answering to every circumstance described of the state and 
" discipline of the first community of Christians, to the very letter ; 13. And all 
" this, as nothing new in Philo's time, but of then long-established notoriety and 
" venerable antiquity: yet Philo, who wrote before Josephus, and gave this par- 
" ticular description of Egyptian monkery, when Jesus Christ, if such a person 
" had ever existed, was not above ten years of age, and at least fifty years, before 
" the existence of any Christian writing whatever, has never once thrown out the 
" remotest hint, that he had ever heard of the existence of Christ, of Christianity, 
" or of Christians." 

" Here then have we, in the cities of Egypt, and in the deserts of Thebais, the 
" whole already established system of ecclesiastical polity, its hierarchy of bishops. 
" its subordinate clergy, the selfsame sacred scriptures, the selfsame allegorical 
" method of interpreting those scriptures, so convenient to admit of the evasion 
" or amendment from time to time, of any defects that criticism might discover 
" in them ; the same doctrines, rites, ceremonies, festivals, discipline, psalms, 
" repeated in alternate verses by the minister and the congregation, epistles and 
" gospels— in a word, the every-thing, and every iota of Christianity, previously 
" existing from time immemorial, and certainly known to have been in existence, 
" and as such, recorded and detailed by an historian of unquestioned veracity, 
" living and writing at least fifty years before the earliest date that Christian 
" historians have assigned to any Christian document whatever." — E. 



352 THE LOGOS OF ST. JOHN. 

were composed, for the most part, under the reign of 
Augustus. 17 The material soul of the universe 18 might offend 
the piety of the Hebrews : but they applied the character 
of the Logos to the Jehovah of Moses and the patriarchs : 
and the Son of God was introduced upon earth under a 
visible and even human appearance, to perform those 
familiar offices which seem incompatible with the nature 
and attributes of the universal cause. 19 

17 The Platonism of Philo, which was famous to a proverb, is proved beyond 
a doubt by Le Clerc (Epist. Crit. viii. pp. 211-228). Basnage (Hist, des Juifs',\. iv. 
c. 5) has clearly ascertained, that the theological works of Philo were composed 
before the death, and most probably before the birth, of Christ. In such a time 
of darkness, the knowledge of Philo is more astonishing than his errors. Bull, 
Defens. Fid. Nicen. s. i. c. i. p. 12.* 

is Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. 

Besides this material soul, Cudworth has discovered (p. 562) in Amelius, 
Porphyry, Plotinus, and, as he thinks, in Plato himself, a superior, spiritual, 
supercosmian soul of the universe. But this double soul is exploded by Brucker, 
Basnage, and Le Clerc, as an idle fancy of the latter Platonists. 

iy Patav. Dogmata Theologica, torn. iii. 1. vii. c. 2, p. 791. Bull, Defens. Fid 
Nicen. s. i. c. 1. pp. 8, 13. This notion, till it was abused by the Arians, was freely 
adopted in the Christian theology. Tertullian (ad. Praxeam, c. 16) has a remark- 
able and dangerous passage. After contrasting, with indiscreet wit, the nature of 
God, and the actions of Jehovah, he concludes : Scilicet ut hsec de filio Dei non 
credenda fuisse, si nonscripta essent ; fortasse non credenda de Patre licet scripta.J 

* Gibbon's accuracy is here again impugned by M. Guizot, who contends that 
" the philosophy taught in the schools of Alexandria! was not derived from that 
" of Plato alone, but from a bewildering confusion of Jewish, Greek, and Egyptian 
" systems," and that the first of these consisted of " oriental notions acquired at 
" Babylon." From these he maintains that Philo took his Logos, which " is con- 
" sequently very different from that of Plato," and that his "sensible and ideal 
" worlds " are borrowed from the same source. This still evades the main ques- 
tion, which is, not how the opinions of a few yews may have been tinctured by 
Chaldsean or Magian fancies ; but how the general mind of educated Greeks was 
affected when the knowledge of a spiritual Deity, worshiped by the Hebrew race, 
mingled with and gave precisenesss and consistency to the imperfect notions of 
such a Being, which their philosophy had created.' From this point, attention 
should not be withdrawn by apocryphal episodes or slight shades of difference. 
M. Guizot has trusted too much to Mosheim's fallacious "oriental philosophy." 
It was not there that Philo found his " sensible and ideal worlds," but in 
Aristotle's ii6r) aio67jTil and £ L dq vorjra. {Met. Zeta. c. 7, et passim ) The chief of 
the Peripatetics is here strangely overlooked or kept in the background. — E. C. 

f" This Philosophy," says Rev. Robt. Taylor, " comprehended the Epicureans, 
" who maintained that wisely consulted pleasure, was the ultimate end of man ; 
" the Academics, who placed the height of wisdom in doubt and skepticism ; 
" the Stoics, who maintained a fortitude indifferent to all events ; the Aristotelians, 
" who held the most subtle disputations concerning God, religion, and the social 
" duties ; the Platonists, from their master, Plato, who taught the immortality of 
" the soul, the doctrine of the trinity, of the manifestation of a divine man, who 
'• should be crucified, and the eternal rewards and punishments of a future life; 
" and from all these resulting, the Eclectics, who, as their name signifies, elected, 
" and chose what they held to be wise and rational, out of the tenets of all sects, 
" and rejected whatever was considered futile and pernicious. The Eclectics 
" held Plato in the highest reverence. Their college or chief establishment was 
" at Alexandria in Egypt. t The most indubitable testimonies prove, that this 
" Philosophy was in a flourishing state, at the period assigned to the birth of 
" Christ. The Eclectics are the same as the Therapeuts or Essenes of Philo, and 
" in every rational sense that can be attached to the word, they were the authors 
" and real founders of Christianity." — E. 

X Tertullian is here arguing against the Patripassians ; those who asserted that 
the Father was of the Virgin, died and was buried. — Milman. 

These things surely could not have been believed of the Son of God, had they 
not been written ; and are perhaps not to be believed of the Father, although 
written. — Translation by Eng. Ch. 



THE LOGOS OF PLATO CONFIRMED BY ST. JOHN. 353 

The eloquence of Plato, the name of Solomon, 
the authority of the school of Alexandria, and the the Apostle 
consent of the Jews and Greeks, were insufficient Jjf'iK?' 
to establish the truth of a mysterious doctrine, 
which might please, but could not satisfy a rational mind. 
A prophet, or apostle, inspired by the Deity, can alone ex- 
ercise a lawful dominion over the faith of mankind; and the 
theology of Plato might have been forever confounded with 
the philosophical visions of the Academy, the Porch, and 
the Lyceum, if the name and divine attributes of the Logos 
had not been confirmed by the celestial pen of the last and 
most sublime of the evangelists. 20 The Christian revelation, 

20 The Platonists admired the beginning of the Gospel of St. yohn, as containing 
an exact transcript of their own principles. Augustin, de Civitat. Dei, x. 29. 
Amelius apud Cyril advers. Julian. 1. viii. p. 283. But in the third and fourth 
centuries, the Platonists of Alexandria might improve their Trinity, by the secret 
study of the Christian theology.* 

* A short discussion on the sense in which St. John has used the word Logos 
will prove that he has not borrowed it from the philosophy of Plato. The evan- 
gelist adopts this word without previous explanation, as a term with which his 
contemporaries were already familiar, and which they could at once comprehend. 
To know the sense which he gave to it, we must inquire that which it generally 
bore in his time. We find two : the one attached to the word logos by the Jews 
of Palestine, the other by the school of Alexandria, particularly by Philo. The 
Jews had feared at all times to pronounce the name of Jehovah ; they had formed 
a habit of designating God by one of his attributes ; they called him sometimes 
Wisdom, sometimes the Word. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made. 
(Psalm xxxiii. 6.) Accustomed to allegories, they often addressed themselves to 
this attribute of the Deity as a real being. Solomon makes Wisdom say, " The 
" Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I 
" was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was." (Prov. 
viii. 22. 23.) Their residence in Persia only increased this inclination to sustained 
allegories. In the Ecclesiasticus of the son of Sirach, and the Book of Wisdom, 
we find allegorical descriptions of Wisdom like the following : " I came out of 
" the mouth of the Most High : I covered the earth as a cloud ; * * * I alone 
" compassed the circuit of heaven, and walked in the bottom of the deep * * .* 
" The Creator created me from the beginning, before the world, and I shall never 
" fail." (Eccles. xxiv. 35-39. > See also the Wisdom of Solomon, c. vii. v. 9. 
[The latter book is clearly Alexandrian.— Milman.] We see from this that the 
Jews understood from the Hebrew and Chaldaic words which signify Wisdom, 
the Word, and which were translated into Greek by copla, 7.byoq, a simple 
attribute of the Deity, allegorically personified, but of which they did not make a 
real particular being, separate from the Deity. 

The school of Alexandria, on the contrary, and Philo among the rest, mingling 
Greek with Jewish and Oriental notions, and abandoning himself to his inclination 
to mysticism, personified the logos and represented it (see note preceding) as a 
distinct being, created by God, and intermediate between God and man. This is 
the second logos of Philo CXbyog 7rpo<p6pt.Kog') that which acts from the beginning 
of the world, alone in its kind (uovo/Jvtjc). creator of the sensible world (kocuoq 
atcBTjrbq), formed by God according to the ideal world (icao/uoc kotjtoc), which 
he had in himself, and which was the first logos (6 uvurdrtd), the first born 
(6 TrpiaSvrepog vtog) of the Deity. The logos taken in this sense, then, was a 
created being, but anterior to the creation of the world, near to God, and charged 
with his revelations to mankind. 

Which of these two senses is that which St. John intended to assign to the 
word logos in the first chapter of his Gospel, and in all his writings? 

St. John was a Jew, born and educated in Palestine ; he had no knowledge, at 
least very little, of the philosophy of the Greeks, and that of the Grecizing Jews ; 
he would naturally, then, attach to the word logos the sense attached to it by the 






354 THE LOGOS INCARNATE. 

which was consummated under the reign of Nerva, disclosed 
to the world the amazing secret, that the Logos, who was 
with God from the beginning, and was God, who had made 
all things, and for whom all things had been made, was in- 
carnate in the person of Jesus of Nazareth ; who had been 
born of a virgin, and suffered death on the cross. Besides 
the general design of fixing on a perpetual basis the divine 
honors of Christ, the most ancient and respectable of the 

Jews of Palestine. If, in fact, we compare the attributes which he assigns to the 
logos with those which are assigned to it in Proverbs, in the Wisdom of Solomon, 
in F.cclesiasticus. we shall see that they are the same. The Word was in the 
world, and the world was made by him ; in him was life, and the life was the 
light of men (c. i. v. 10-14). It is impossible not to trace in this chapter the ideas 
which the Jews had formed of the allegorized logos. The evangelist afterwards 
really personifies that which his predecessors have personified only poetically ; 
for he affirms " that the Word became flesh " (v. 14). It was to prove this that he 
wrote. Closely examined, the ideas which he gives of the logos cannot agree with 
those of Philo and the school of Alexandria ; they correspond, on the contrary, 
with those of the Jews of Palestine. Perhaps St. John, employing a well-known 
term to explain a doctrine which was yet unknown, has slightly altered the sense ; 
it is the alteration which we appear to discover on comparing different passages 
of his writings. 

It is worthy of remark, that the Jews of Palestine, who did not perceive this 
alteration, could find nothing extraordinary in what St. John said of the Logos ; 
at least they comprehended it without difficulty, while the Greeks and Grecizing 
Jews, on their part, brought to it prejudices and preconceptions easily reconciled 
with those of the evangelist, who did not expressly contradict them. This cir- 
cumstance must have much favored the progress of Christianity. Thus the 
fathers of the church in the two first centuries and later, formed almost all in the 
school of Alexandria, gave to the Logos of St. John a sense nearly similar to that 
which it received from Philo. Their doctrine approached very near to that which 
in the fourth century the council of Nice condemned in the person of Arius. — G. 

M. Guizot has forgotten the long residence of St. John at Ephesus, the centre 
of the mingling opinions of the East and West, which were gradually growing 
up into Gnosticism. (See Matter. Hist, du Gnosticisme ,\o\. i. p. 154.) St. John's 
sense of the Logos seems as far removed from the simple allegory ascribed to the 
Palestinian Jews as from the Oriental impersonation of the Alexandrian. The 
simple truth may be, that St. John took the familiar term, and, as it were, infused 
into it the peculiar and Christian sense in which it is used in his writings.— M. 

In a long note, M. Guizot has here taken great pains to make it appear that 
" St. John did not borrow his Logos from the philosophy of Plato." He asserts 
that, in the time of the evangelist, this term had only two meanings, one "adopted 
" by the Jews of Palestine, and the other by the school of Alexandria, especially 
" Philo." Of the first he finds proofs in such expressions as the " Word of the 
" Lord," {Ps. 33, v. 6), and in the description of Wisdom (Prov. c. 8, v. 22, 23), 
forgetting that the two royal authors, to whom he refers, lived six hundred years 
before Plato ; and he relies equally on similar passages in Ecclesiasticus (c. 24, 
v - 3. 5. 9, 20), and the Book of Wisdom (c. 7 and 9), the last of which, Dean 
Milman, in his comment on this note, reminds him, was not produced in Palestine, 
but " is clearly Alexandrian." On the other hand, M. Guizot takes no account 
of the several Greek schools, the Old Academy, or direct followers of Plato ; the 
New Academy, or disciples of Carneades, and the Peripatetic adherents of Aris- 
totle, all of whom had their Logos, agreeing in some points and differing in others. 
These had teachers in every city, and studied not only the works of their two 
great masters and those of Xenophon, which we now possess, but also the sixty 
treatises of Xenocrates and others, which have since been lost. For some time 
Antioch continued to be the centre of Christian energy. After going forth from 
that city to preach to the Gentiles, Paul and Barnabus returning thither, reported 
their success to those "by whom they had been recommended to the grace of 
" God for the work which they fulfilled," and projected with them future missions 
(Acts, c. 14, v. 26, 28; c. 15, v. 36). It is evident, therefore, that Plato's Logos was 
well known to the educated Greeks, among whom the new faith was introduced. 
Of this M. Guizot affirms, that "St. John knew nothing or very little," although 
he had lived sixty years in the midst of it, and, as pointed out by Dean Milman, 



THE EBIONITES AND DOCETES. 355 

ecclesiastical writers have ascribed to the evangelic theolo- 
gian, a particular intention to confute two opposite heresies, 
which disturbed the peace of the primitive The 

church. 21 I. The faith of the Ebionites, 22 perhaps Ebionites 
of the Nazarenes, 23 was gross and imperfect. andDocetes - 
They revered Jesus as the greatest of the prophets, endowed 
with supernatural virtue and power. They ascribed to his 
person and to his future reign all the predictions of the 
Hebrew oracles which relate to the spiritual and everlasting 
kingdom of the promised Messiah. 24 Some of them might 

21 See Beausobre, Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, torn i. p. 377. The Gospel 
according to St. yohn is supposed to have been published about seventy years 
after the death of Christ. 

22 The sentiments of the Ebionites are fairly stated by Mosheim (p. 331) and Le 
Clerc {Hist. Eccies. p. 535). The Clementines, published among the apostolical 
fathers, are attributed by the critics to one of these sectaries. 

23 Staunch polemics, like Bull (Judicium, Eccies. Cat hoi. c. 2), insist on the 
orthodoxy of the Nazarenes ; which appears less pure and certain in the eyes 
of Mosheim (p. 330). 

2t The humble condition and sufferings of Jesus have always been a stumbling 
block to the Jews. '' Deus * * * contrariis coloribus Messiam depinxerat ; 
" futurus, erat Rex, Judex, Pastor," &c. See Limborch et Orobio Arnica Collat. 
pp. 8, 19, 53-76, 192-234. But this objection has obliged the believing Christians 
to lift up their eyes to a spiritual and everlasting kingdom. 

had long resided " at Ephesus, the centre of the mingling opinions of the East 
" and the West." It was not till after this, and when he was ninety years old, 
that his gospel was written ; and then, we learn from Jerome, (Prologue to his 
Commentary on Matthew), and Chrysostom (Introd. to his Homilies on Matthew, 
and again, fourth Homily on John), the importunities of the Asiatic bishops 
obtained, from the last surviving apostle, a confirmation of their faith. "Coactus 
" est," are the words of Jerome, " de Divinitate Salvatoris altius scribere." 
There are other mistakes in M. Guizot's note, on which it is not necessary to 
dilate. He concludes, however, by admitting, that the philosophy of the age 
" greatly favored the progress of Christianity, although during the two first cen- 
" turies, the fathers of the church were led by it to a doctrine tending to that 
" which was afterwards held by Arius."— Eng. Ch. 

M. Guizot has wasted man}' words in explaining the difference between the 
Pagan and original Logos of Plato ; the copied or borrowed Logos of Philo ; and, 
(as he believes), the genuine, Christian Logos of St. John. We have thus a 
Trinity of these phantasms— substantially the same, yet still possessing technical 
shades of difference, sufficient for immediate and positive identification. It is in 
such hair-splitting controversies that theologians acquire fame and fortune ; and 
the contestant who, in these sectarian tournaments, uses the greatest number of 
words to express the fewest possible ideas, is ultimately crowned with the laurel 
wreath of victory. 

The Logos of Plato is undoubtedly the oldest— the original— of which the others 
are copies, and if the originator of a system does not comprehend its meaning, to 
whorft must we apply for a definition ? 

Philo, the Jew, differs from Plato, the Greek, only as one sectarian differs 
from another, and St. John, the Apostle, who wrote later than either, differs in 
the same manner from both. Still, the original idea, coined in Plato's brain cen- 
turies before the Christian era, pervades the writings of both his followers ; and 
if there be any merit in asserting, in the language of St. John, that " In the begin- 
ning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," and 
that this Trinity of Words, or God, was Logos, or the Son incarnate, let us hon- 
estly award the honor to the Athenian sage, who deserves, by the right of original 
invention, all the fame that may accrue from his incomprehensible" metaphysical 
abstraction, which comprizes three gods — " the First Cause, the reason or Logos, 
" and the Soul or Spirit of the universe — united with each other by a mysterious 
" and ineffable generation : " — these three persons forming one essence, or Trinity, 
in the Platonic philosophy, precisely as the three persons, the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, form one Triune God in the Christian theology. — E. 



356 THE GNOSTICS. 

confess that he was born of a virgin ; but they obstinately- 
rejected the preceding existence and divine perfections of the 
Logos, or Son of God, which are so clearly defined in the 
Gospel of St. John. About fifty years afterwards, the 
Ebionites, whose errors are mentioned by Justin Martyr 
with less severity than they seem to deserve, 25 formed a 
very inconsiderable portion of the Christian name. II. The 
Gnostics, who were distinguished by the epithet of Docetes, 
deviated into the contrary extreme ; and betrayed the 
human, while they asserted the divine, nature of Christ. 

-"■Justin Martyr. Dialog, cum Tryphonte, pp. 143, 144. See Le Clerc, Hist. 
Eccles. p. 615. Bull and his editor Grabe (judicium Eccles. Cathol. c. 7, and 
Appendix), attempt to distort either the sentiments or the words of Justin; but 
their violent correction of the text is rejected even by the Benedictine editors.* 



* The greater part of the Docetse rejected the true divinity of Jesus Christ, as 
well as his human nature. They belonged to the Gnostics, whom philosophers, 
in whose party Gibbon has enlisted, make to derive their opinions from those of 
Plato. These'philosophers did not consider that Platonism had undergone con- 
tinual alterations, and that those which gave it some analogy with the notions of 
the Gnostics were later in their origin than most of the sects comprehended under 
this name. Mosheim has proved (in his Instit. Histor. Eccles. Major, s. i p. 136, 
soq and p. 339, sqq.), that the oriental philosophy, combined with the cabalistical 
philosophy of the Jews, had given birth to Gnosticism. The relations which exist 
between this doctrine and the records which remain to us of that of the Orientals, 
the Chaldean, and Persian, have been the source of the errors of the Gnostic 
Christians, who wished to reconcile their ancient notions with their new belief. 
It is on this account that, denying the human nature of Christ, they also denied 
his intimate union with God, and took him for one of the substances (a;ons) 
created by God. As they believed in the eternity of matter, and considered it to 
be the principle of evil, in opposition to the Deity, the first cause and principle of 
good, they were unwilling to admit that one of the pure substances, one of the 
teons which came forth from God, had, by partaking in the material nature, allied 
himself to the principle of evil; and this was their motive for rejecting the real 
humanity of Jesus Christ. See Ch. G. F. Walch, Hist, of Heresies, in Germ. t. i. 
p 217, sqq. Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. ii. p. 639. — Guizot. 

Some modifications of Platonism had undoubtedly been made in the course of 
four centuries, especially by the New Academy ; but its fundamental principles 
remained the same, and to a certain extent, even the school of Aristotle was but 
one of its branches. In the Augustan era, this philosophy became more widely 
known, and had more various constructions put on its mysterious doctrines. 
This, as observed in a former note, gave rise to Gnosticism, in the fifty sub-divi- 
sions of which there must have been such a medley of opinions, that some might 
be picked out of them to suit any theory. We must look only at the broad facts 
of the case. If Mosheim's idea had been correct, Gnosticism ought to have pre- 
vailed most in Palestine. Instead of this, its adherents "were almost without 
" exception of the race of the Gentiles ; " they were the most anti-Jewish, too, in 
their notions, denying the " divine legation" of Moses, disputing and even ridi- 
culing many portions of the Hebrew scriptures, and severely criticising tfee his- 
tory of the people. On the other hand, he has greatly overrated the influence of 
oriental philosophy, which few but himself have been able to perceive. (See the 
note of his English translator, Inst, of Ecc. Hist. v. i, p. 68.) Some infusion of it 
there may have been. But when Manes tried this more copiously, it was a 
secondary object with him to form a Christian sect ; his first was, to construct a 
Christianity which the Persians might receive. {Beausobre, 1. 2, c. 2, p. 179.) 
It can then have been only from various constructions of their own philosophy, 
that "the most polite, the most learned, and the most wealthy" of the Christian 
Greeks derived those tenets, to which the appellation of Gnosticism was given. 
If, at an after period, Ammonius Saccusf conformed to any of these his New 
Platonism. which is apparently the later change alluded to by M. Guizot, this 
indicates more clearly the original source.— Eng. Ch. 

t Ammonius Saccus, the tutor of Origen, was the gentleman who taught that 
" Christianity and Paganism, when rightly understood, were one and the same 
"religion." See note on page 125. — E. 



DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 357 

Educated in the school of Plato, accustomed to the sublime 
idea of the Logos, they readily conceived that the brightest 
SEon, or Emanation of the Deity, might assume the out- 
ward shape and visible appearances of a mortal ; 26 but they 
vainly pretended, that the imperfections of matter are in- 
compatible with the purity of a celestial substance. While 
the blood of Christ yet smoked on Mount Calvary, the 
Docetes invented the impious and extravagant hypothesis, 
that, instead of issuing from the womb of the Virgin, 27 he 
had descended on the banks of the Jordan in the form of 
perfect manhood ; that he had imposed on the senses of his 
enemies, and of his disciples; and that the ministers of 
Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on an airy phantom, 
who seemed to expire on the cross, and, after three days, to 
rise from the dead. 28 

The divine sanction, which the Apostle had M sterious 
bestowed on the fundamental principle of the naufrlofThe 
theology of Plato, encouraged the learned prose- Tnmt y- 
lytes of the second and third centuries to admire and study 
the writings of the Athenian sage, who had thus marvel- 
lously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of 

20 The Arians reproached the orthodox party with borrowing their Trinity from 
the Valentinians and Mareionites. See Beausobre, Hist, du Manich., 1. iii. c. 5. 7. 

2J Non dignum est Ux utero credere Deum, et Deum Christum * * * non 
dignum est ut tanta majestas per sordes et squalores mulieris transire credatur. 
The Gnostics asserted the impurity of matter and of marriage ; and they were 
scandalized by the gross interpretations of the fathers, and even of Augustin 
himself. See Beausobre, torn. ii. p. 523. 

2s Apostolis adhuc in sseculo superstitibus apud Judseam Christi sanguine 
recente, et phantasma corpus Domini asserebatur. Cotelerius thinks (Patres 
Apostol. torn. ii. p. 24) that those who will not allow the Docetes to have arisen 
in the time of the Apostles, may with equal reason deny that the sun shines at 
noonday. These Docetes, who formed the most considerable party among the 
Gnostics, were so called, because they granted only a seeming body to Christ.* 

* The name of Docetae was given to these sectaries only in the course of the 
second century ; this name did not designate a sect, properly so called ; it applied 
to all the sects who taught the non-reality of the material body of Christ ; of this 
number were the Valentinians, the Basilidians, the Ophites, the Mareionites 
(against whom Tertullian wrote his book, De Came Christi), and other Gnostics. 
In truth, Clement of Alexandria (1. iii. Strom, c. 13, p. 552) makes express mention 
of a sect of Docetas, and even names as one of its heads a certain Cassianus ; but 
evervthing leads us to believe that it was not a distinct sect. Philastrius (de 
Hczres, c. 31) reproaches Saturninus with being a Docete. Irenaeus (adv. Hczr. 
c. 23) make the same reproach against Basilides. Epiphanius and Philastrius, 
who have treated in detail on each particular heresv, do not specially name that 
of the Docetae. Serapion, bishop of Antioch (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. vi. c. 12), 
and Clement of Alexandria (1. vii. Strom, p. 900), appear to be the first who have 
used the generic name. It is not found in any earlier record, though the error 
which it points out existed even in the time of the Apostles. (See Ch. G. F. 
Walch, Hist, of Her. v. i. p. 283. Tillemont, Mem. pour servir a la Hist. Eccles. 
ii. p. 50. Buddczus de Eccles. Apost. c. 5, § 7. — Guizot. 

Gibbon's words do not imply, that the Docetes were a separate sect, but that the 
term denoted the holders of an opinion, common to the largest portion of the fifty 
sects into which Gnosticism was divided. The early origin and philosophical char-, 
acterof these variations of Christianity are here placed beyond all doubt.— E. C. 






358 THE CHRISTIAN LOGOS. 

the Christian revelation. The respectable name of Plato 
was used by the orthodox, 29 and abused by the heretics, 30 
as the common support of truth and error : the authority of 
his skillful commentators, and the science of dialectics, were 
employed to justify the remote consequences of his opinions 
and to supply the discreet silence of the inspired writers. 
The same subtle and profound questions concerning the 
nature, the generation, the distinction, and the equality of 
the three divine persons of the mysterious Triad, or 
Trinity^ were agitated in the philosophical and in the 
Christian schools of Alexandria. An eager spirit of curi- 
osity urged them to explore the secrets of the abyss ; and 
the pride of the professors, and of their disciples, was satis- 
fied with the science of words. But the most sagacious 
of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius himself, 
has candidly confessed, 32 that whenever he forced his under- 
standing to meditate on the divinity of the Logos, his 
toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves ; that 
the more he thought, the less he comprehended : and the 
more he wrote the less capable was he of expressing his 
thoughts. f In every step of the inquiry, we are compelled 
to feel and acknowledge the immeasurable disproportion 
between the size of the object and the capacity of the 
human mind. We may strive to abstract the notions of 
time, of space, and of matter, which so closely adhere to all 

29 Some proofs of the respect which the Christians entertained for the person 
and doctrine of Plato may be found in De la Mothe le Vayer, torn. v. p. 135, &c, 
edit. 1757; and Basnage, Hist, des Juifs, torn. iv. pp. 29, 70, &c* 

30 Doleo bona fide, Platonem omnium heraeticorum condimentarium factum. 
Tertullian. de Anima, c. 23. Petavius (Dogm. Theolcg. torn. iii. proleg. 2) shows 
that this was a general complaint. Beausobre (torn. i. 1. iii. c. 9, 10) has deduced 
the Gnostic errors from Platonic principles : and as, in the school of Alexandria, 
those principles were blended with the Oriental philosophy (Brucker, torn. i. 
p. 1356), the sentiment of Beausobre may be reconciled with the opinion of 
Mosheim {General History of the Church, vol. i. p. 37). 

si If Theophilus, bishop of Antioch (see Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastiqne, 
torn. i. p. 66), was the first who employed the word Triad, Trinity, that abstract 
term, which was already familiar to the schools of philosophy, must have been 
introduced into the theology of the Christians after the middle of the second 
century. 

32 Athanasius, torn. i. p. 808. His expressions have an uncommon energy : and 
as he was writing to monks, there could not be any occasion for him to affect a 
rational language. 

* They studied the Greek philosophers before they became Christians, and 
used them in training others to believe. Examples of this have been given in 
former notes, to which many more might be added.— Eng. Ch. 

f This curious statement of the great Athanasius, may be considered as an 
emphatic warning for believers in the mysterious Logos, not to investigate, not 
to reason, not to think. For the fact that'the more this original and indomitable 
advocate of trinitarianism thought on the subject, the less he comprehended, 
shows that earnest and sincere thought is the enemy of belief, and that reason 
and investigation lead even orthodox believers into heretical doubt, jf not 
positive unbelief.— E. 



THE CHURCH AND THE PLATONISTS. 359 

the perceptions of our experimental knowledge ; but as soon 
as we presume to reason of infinite substance, of spiritual 
generation ; as often as we deduce any positive conclusions 
from a negative idea, we are involved in darkness, per- 
plexity, and inevitable contradiction. As these difficulties 
arise from the nature of the subject, they oppress, with the 
same insuperable weight, the philosophic and the theo- 
logical disputant; but we may observe two essential and 
peculiar circumstances, which discriminated the doctrines of 
the Catholic church from the opinions of the Platonic school. 

I. A chosen society of philosophers, men of a 
liberal education and curious disposition, might christians! 
silentiy meditate, and temperately discuss in the 
gardens of Athens or the library of Alexandria, the abstruse 
questions of metaphysical science. The lofty speculations, 
which neither convinced the understanding, nor agitated the 
passions, of the Platonists themselves, were carelessly over- 
looked by the idle, the busy, and even the studious part of 
mankind. 33 But after the Logos had been revealed as the 
sacred object of the faith, the hope, and the religious wor- 
ship of the Christians, the mysterious system was embraced 
by a numerous and increasing multitude in every province 
of the Roman world. Those persons who, from their age, 
or sex, or occupations, were the least qualified to judge, who 
were the least exercised in the habits of abstract reasoning, 
aspired to contemplate the economy of the divine nature ; 
and it is the boast of Tertullian, 34 that a Christian mechanic 
could readily answer such questions as had perplexed the 
wisest of the Grecian sages. Where the subject lies so far 
beyond our reach, the difference between the highest and the 
lowest of human understandings may indeed be calculated 
as infinitely small ; yet the degree of weakness may perhaps 
be measured by the degree of obstinacy and dogmatic 
confidence. These speculations, instead of being treated as 
the amusement of a vacant hour, became the most serious 
business of the present, and the most useful preparation for 
a future life. A theology, which it was incumbent to be- 
lieve, which it was impious to doubt, and which it might 

33 In a treatise, which professed to explain the opinions of the ancient philoso- 
phers concerning the nature of the gods, we might expect to discover the theo- 
logical Trinity of Plato. But Cicero very honestly confessed, that although he 
had translated the Timcsus, he could never understand that mysterious dialogue. 
See Hieronym. prsef. ad. 1. xii. in Isaiam, torn. v. p. 154. 

3J Tertullian, in Apolog. c. 46. See Bayle, Dictionnaire, au mot Simonide. 
His remarks on the presumption of Tertullian are profound and interesting. 



360 CONFLICTING OPINIONS. 

be dangerous, and even fatal, to mistake, became the familiar 
topic of private meditation and popular discourse. The 
cold indifference of philosophy was inflamed by the fervent 
spirit of devotion ; and even the metaphors of common 
language suggested the fallacious prejudices of sense and 
experience. The Christians, who abhorred the gross and 
impure generation of the Greek mythology, 35 were tempted 
to argue from the familiar analogy of the filial and paternal 
relations. The character of Son seemed to imply a per- 
petual subordination to the voluntary author of his exist- 
ence; 36 but as the act of generation, in the most spiritual 
and abstracted sense, must be supposed to transmit the 
properties of a common nature, 37 they durst not presume to 
circumscribe the powers or the duration of the Son, of an 
eternal and omnipotent Father. Fourscore years after the 
death of Christ, the Christians of Bithynia declared before 
the tribunal of Pliny, that they invoked him as a God ; and 
his divine honors have been perpetuated in every age and 
country, by the various sects who assume the name of his 
disciples. 38 Their tender reverence for the memory of 
Christ, and their horror for the profane worship of any 
created being, would have engaged them to assert the 
equal and absolute divinity of the Logos, if their rapid 
ascent towards the throne of heaven had not been imper- 
ceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating the 
unity and sole supremacy of the great Father of Christ and 
of the universe. The suspense and fluctuation produced in 
the minds of the Christians, by these opposite tendencies, 
may be observed in the writings of the theologians who 
flourished after the end of the apostolic age, and before the 
origin of the Arian controversy. Their suffrage is claimed 
with equal confidence, by the orthodox and by the heretical 

35 Lactantius, iv. 8. Yet the Probole, or Prolatio, which the most orthodox 
divines borrowed without scruple from the Valentinians, and illustrated by the 
comparisons of a fountain and stream, the sun and its rays, &c, either meant 
nothing, or favored a material idea of the divine generation. See Beausobre, 
torn. i. 1. iii. c. 7, p. 548. 

3'i Many of the primitive writers have frankly confessed, that the Son owed his 
being to the will of the Father. See Clarke's Scripture Trinity, pp. 2S0-287. On 
the other hand, Athanasius and his followers seem unwilling to grant what they 
are afraid to deny. The schoolmen extricate themselves from this difficulty by 
the distinction of a preceding and a concomitant will. Petav. Dogm. Theolog. 
torn. ii. 1. vi. c. S, pp. 5S7-603. 

37 See Petav. Dogm. Theolog. torn. ii. 1. ii. c. 10, p. 159. 

3S Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere secum invicem. PHo. Epist. x. 97. 
The sense of Deus 6 cor, Elohim, in the ancient languages, is critically examined 
by Le Clerc (Ars. Critica, pp. 150-156), and the propriety of worshiping a very ex- 
cellent creature is ably defended by the Socinian Emlyn ( Tracts, pp. 29-36, 51-145). 



INTRODUCTION OF CREEDS. 361 

parties ; and the most inquisitive critics have fairly allowed, 
that if they had the good fortune of possessing the Catholic 
verity, they have delivered their conceptions in loose, in- 
accurate, and sometimes contradictory language. 39 

II. The devotion of individuals was the first 
circumstance which distinguished the Christians ^^chireh* 
from the Platonists ; the second was the au- 
thority of the Church. The disciples of philosophy asserted 
the rights of intellectual freedom, and their respect for the 
sentiments of their teachers was a liberal and voluntary 
tribute, which they offered to superior reason. But the 
Christians formed a numerous and disciplined society ; and 
the jurisdiction of their laws and magistrates was strictly 
exercised over the minds of the faithful. The loose wan- 
derings of the imagination were gradually confined by 
creeds and confessions ; 40 the freedom of private judgment 
submitted to the public wisdom of synods ; the authority of 
a theologian was determined by his ecclesiastical rank ; 
and the episcopal successors of the apostles inflicted the 
censures of the church on those who deviated from the 
orthodox belief. But in an age of religious controversy, 
every act of oppression adds new force to the elastic vigor 
of the mind ; and the zeal or obstinacy of a spiritual rebel 
was sometimes stimulated by secret motives of ambition 
or avarice. A metaphysical argument became 

,1 r J r .. . & 1 , Factions. 

the cause or pretence of political contests ; the 
subtleties of the Platonic school were used as the badges of 
popular factions ; and the distance which separated their 
respective tenets was enlarged or magnified by the acrimony 
of dispute. As long as the dark heresies of Praxeas and 
Sabellius labored to confound the Father with the Son, iX 
the orthodox party might be excused if they adhered more 
strictly and more earnestly to the distinction, than to the 

39 See Daille de Usu Patrum, and Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Universelle, torn. x. 
p. 409. To arraign the faith of the Anti-Nicene fathers, was the object, or at 
least has been the effect, of the stupendous work of Petavius on the Trinity 
{Dogm. Theolog. torn, ii.) ; nor has the deep impression been erased by the 
learned defence of Bishop Bull.* 

40 The most ancient creeds were drawn up with the greatest latitude. See Bull 
(?udicum. Eccles. Cathol.) who tries to prevent Episcopius from deriving any 
advantage from this observation. 

41 The heresies of Praxeas, Sabellius, &c, are accurately explained by Mosheim 
(pp. 425, 680-714). Praxeas, who came to Rome about the end of the second cen- 
tury, deceived, for some time, the simplicity of the bishop, and was confuted by 
the pen of the angry Tertullian. 

* Dr. Burton's work on the doctrine of the Anti-Nicene fathers must be con- 
sulted by those who wish to obtain clear notions on this subject. — Milman. 



362 THE SABELLIAN HERESY. 

equality, of the divine persons. But as soon as the heat of 
controversy had subsided, and the progress of the Sabellians 
was no longer an object of terror to the churches of Rome, 
of Africa, or of Egypt, the tide of theological opinion began 
to flow with a gentle but steady motion towards the con- 
trary extreme ; and the most orthodox doctors allowed 
themselves the use of the terms and definitions which had 
been censured in the mouth of the sectaries. 42 After the edict 
of toleration had restored peace and leisure to the Chris- 
tians, the Trinitarian controversy was revived in the ancient 
seat of Platonism, the learned, the opulent, the tumultuous, 
city of Alexandria ; and the flame of religious discord was 
rapidly communicated from the schools to the clergy, the 
people, the province, and the East. The abstruse question 
of the eternity of the Logos was agitated in ecclesiastical 
conferences, and popular sermons ; and the heterodox 
opinions of Arius 43 were soon made public by 
his own zeal and by that of his adversaries. 
His most implacable adversaries have acknowledged the 
learning and blameless life of that eminent presbyter, who, 
in a former election, had declared, and perhaps generously 
declined, his pretensions to the episcopal throne. 44 His 
competitor, Alexander, assumed the office of his judge. The 
important cause was argued before him ; and if at first he 
seemed to hesitate, he at length pronounced his final sen- 
tence, as an absolute rule of faith. 45 The undaunted presby- 
ter, who presumed to resist the authority of his angry 
bishop, was separated from the communion of the church ; 
but the pride of Arius was supported by the applause of a 
numerous party. He reckoned among his immediate fol- 
lowers, two bishops of Egypt, seven presbyters, twelve 
deacons, and (what may appear almost incredible) seven 
hundred virgins. A large majority of the bishops of Asia 

42 Socrates acknowledges, that the heresy of Arius proceeded from his strong 
desire to embrace an opinion the most diametrically opposite to that of Sabellius. 

43 The figure and manners of Arius, the character and numbers of his first 
proselytes, are painted in very lively colors by Epiphanius (torn. i. Hceres. lxix. 
3, p. 729), and we cannot but regret 'that he should soon forget the historian, to 
assume the task of controversy. 

44 See Philostorgius (1. i. c. 3), and Godefroy's ample Commentary. Yet the 
credibility of Philostorgius is lessened, in the eyes of the orthodox, by his Arianism ; 
and in those of rational critics, by his passion, his prejudice, and his ignorance. 

*s Sozomen (1. i. c. 15) represents Alexander as indifferent, and even ignorant in 
the beginning of the controversy; while Socrates (1. i. c. 5) ascribes the origin of 
the dispute to the vain curiosity of his theological speculations. Dr. Jortin 
(Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 178) has censured, with his usual 
freedom, the conduct of Alexander; 7rpdf bpArjv l^a^rkrai * * * 6fioiu>S 
Qpoveiv kn&evoe. 



ARIUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS. 363 

appeared to support or favor his cause ; and their measures 
were conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, the most learned 
of the Christian prelates ; and by Eusebius of Nicomedia, 
who had acquired the reputation of a statesman without 
forfeiting that of a saint. Synods in Palestine and Bithynia 
were opposed to the synods of Egypt. The attention of 
the prince and people was attracted by this theological 
dispute ; and the decision, at the end of six 
years, 46 was referred to the supreme authority ' ' 3I 325 ' 
of the general council of Nice. 

When the mysteries of the Christian faith were Three 
dangerously exposed to public debate, it might systems of 
be observed, that the human understanding was the Tnmty - 
capable of forming three distinct, though imperfect systems, 
concerning the nature of the divine Trinity ; and it was pro- 
nounced, that none of these systems, in a pure and absolute 
sense, were exempt from heresy and error. 47 I. According 
to the first hypothesis, which was maintained by Arius and 
his disciples, the Logos was a dependent and spontaneous 
production, created from nothing by the will of the Father. 
The Son, by whom all things were made, 48 had been begotten 
before all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods 
could be compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent 
of his duration ; yet this duration was not infinite, 49 and there 
had been a time which preceded the ineffable generation of 
the Logos. On this only begotten Son, the Almighty 
Father had transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the 
effulgence of his glory. Visible image of invisible perfection, 
he saw, at an immeasurable distance beneath his feet, the 
thrones of the brightest archangels ; yet he shone only with 

46 The flames of Arianism might burn for some time in secret ; but there is 
reason to believe that they burst out with violence as early as the year 319. 
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. vi. pp. 774-780. 

47 Quid credidit? Certe, aut tria nomina audiens tres Deos esse credidit, et 
idololatra effectus est ; aut in tribus vocabulis trinominem credens Deum, in 
Sabeiyi haereism incurrit ; aut edoctus ab Arianis unum esse verum Deum 
Patrem, filium et spiritum sanctum credidit creaturas. Aut extra haec quid 
credere potuerit nescio. ■ Hieronym. adv. Luciferianos.* Jerom reserves for the 
last the orthodox, system, which is more complicated and difficult. 

48 As the doctrine of absolute creation from nothing was gradually introduced 
among the Christians {Beatisobre, torn. ii. pp. 165-215), the dignity of the work- 
man very naturally ijose with that of the work. 

49 The metaphysics of Dr. Clarke {Scripture Trinity, pp. 276-280) could digest 
an eternal generation from an infinite cause. 

* What did he believe ? Certainly, either hearing three names, he believed that 
there were three gods, and so became an idolator; or, believing that the three 
words were three names of one God, he fell into Sabellianism ; or, taught by the 
Arians, he believed that there was only one true God, the Father, and that the 
Son and the Holy Ghost were created beings. What else he could have believed, 
I know not. — Translation by Eng. Ch. 



364 THREE SYSTEMS OF THE TRINITY. 

a reflected light, and, like the sons of the Roman emperors, 
who were invested with the titles of Caesar or Augustus, 51 
he governed the universe in obedience to the will of his 
. . Father and Monarch. II. In the second hy- 

pothesis, the Logos possessed all the inherent, 
incommunicable perfections, which religion and philosophy 
appropriate to the Supreme God. Three distinct and 
infinite minds or substances, three coequal and coeternal 
beings, composed the divine essence ; 51 and it would have 
implied contradiction, that any of them should not have 
existed, or that they should ever cease to exist. 62 The ad- 
vocates of a system which seemed to establish three inde- 
pendent deities, attempted to preserve the unity of the First 
Cause, so conspicuous in the design and order of the world, 
by the perpetual concord of their administration, and the 
essential agreement of their will. A faint resemblance of 
this unity of action may be discovered in the societies of 
men, and even of animals. The causes which disturb their 
harmony proceed only from the imperfection and inequality 
of their faculties ; but the omnipotence, which is guided by 
infinite wisdom and goodness, cannot fail of choosing the 
same means for the accomplishment of the same ends. 
_ , ... III. Three beings, who, by the self-derived ne- 

Sabelhanism. . r . . ° . J 11 ■, *• • 

cessity of their existence, possess all the divine 
attributes in the most perfect degree ; who are eternal in 
duration, infinite in space, and intimately present to each 
other, and to the whole universe ; irresistibly force them- 
selves on the astonished mind, as one and the same Being, 53 
who, in the economy of grace, as well as in that of nature, 
may manifest himself under different forms, and be con- 
sidered under different aspects. By this hypothesis, a real 
substantial Trinity is refined into a trinity of names, and 
abstract modifications, that subsist only in the mind which 
conceives them. The Logos is no longer a person, but an 

so This profane and absurd simile is employed by several of the primitive 
fathers, particularly by Athenagoras, in his Apology to the emperor Marcus and 
his son ; and it is alleged, without censure, by Bull himself. See Defetis. Fid. 
Nicen. sect. iii. c. 5, No. 4. 

si See Cudworth's Intellectual System, pp. 559, 579. This dangerous hvpothesis 
was countenanced by the two Gregories, of Nvssa and Nazianzen, bv Cyril of 
Alexandria, John of Damascus, &c. See Cudworth, p. 603. Le Clerc, Biblio- 
iheque Universelle, torn, xviii. pp. 97-105. 

52 Augustin seems to envy the freedom of the philosophers. Liberis verbis 
loquuntur philosophi * *** Nos autem non dicimus duo vel tria principia, 
duos vel tres Deos. De Civitat, Deo, x. 23. 

53 Boetius, who was deeply versed in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, 
explains the unity of the Trinity by the indifference of the three persons. See 
the judicious remarks of Le Clerc, Bibliotheque Choisie, torn. xvi. p. 225, &c. 



ARIANISM CONDEMNED. 305 

attribute ; and it is only in a figurative sense that the epithet 
of Son can be applied to the eternal reason which was with 
God from the beginning, and by which, not by whom, all 
things were made. The incarnation of the Logos is reduced 
to a mere inspiration of the divine wisdom, which filled the 
soul, and directed all the actions of the' man Jesus. Thus, 
after revolving round the theological circle, we are surprised 
to find that the Sabellian ends where the Ebionite had 
begun ; and that the incomprehensible mystery which ex- 
cites our adoration eludes our inquiry. 54 

If the bishops of the council of Nice 55 had been Council of 
permitted to follow the unbiassed dictates of Nice. 
their conscience, Arius and his associates could A " D ' 325 ' 
scarcely have flattered themselves with the hopes of obtain- 
ing a majority of votes, in favor of an hypothesis so directly 
adverse to the two most popular opinions of the Catholic 

• r )4 If the Sabellians were startled at this conclusion, they were driven down 
another precipice into the confession, that the Father was born of a virgin, that 
he had suffered on the cross; and thus deserved the odious epithet of Patri- 
passians, with which they were branded by their adversaries. See the invectives 
of Tertullian against Praxeas, and the temperate reflections of Mosheim (pp. 423, 
681) ; and Beausobre, torn. i. 1. iii. c. 6, p. 533. 

ss The transactions of the council of Nice are related by the ancients, not only 
in a partial, but in a very imperfect manner. Such a picture as Fra Paolo would 
have drawn, can never be recovered ; but such rude sketches as have been 
traced by the pencil of bigotry, and that of reason, may be seen in Tillemont 
(Mem. Eccles. torn. v. pp. 669-759), and in Le Clerc (Bibliotheque Universelle, 
torn. x. pp. 435-454-*) 

* That the decisions of councils should be considered as so authoritative, must 
appear extraordinary to those who examine the truth of their history. The fol- 
lowing words of Neander on this subject, in his History of Christianity (vol. iii, 
p. 189, Bohn), may be of use to the thoughtful: "However emphatically the 
" emperors might declare, that the bishops alone were entitled to decide in 
" matters of doctrine, still human passions proved mightier than theoretical 
" forms. Although these councils were to serve as organs, to express the deci- 
" sion of the Divine Spirit, yet the Byzantine court had already prejudged the 
" question, as to which party ought to' be considered pious and which impious, 
" whenever if could be contrived to gain over the court, in favor of any particular 
" doctrinal interest. Before the assembling of the council of Nice, Constantine 
" had been persuaded that the Arian doctrine contained a blasphemy against the 
" divinity of Christ, and that the ouoovatov was absolutely required, in order to 

" maintain the dignity of Christ's person. When the court persecuted one of the 
" contending doctrinal parties, merely out of dislike to the man who stood at the 
" head of it, then the doctrinal question was turned into a means of gratifying 
" personal grudges. At the first council of Ephesus, the revenge of Pulcheria, 
" who governed the imperial court, turned the doctrinal controversy into the 
" means of removing the patriarch Nestorius from Constantinople. The em- 
" perors were under no necessity of employing force against the bishops ; by 
" indirect means they could influence the minds of all those, with whom worldly 
" interests stood for more than the cause of truth, or who were not yet superior 
" to the fear of man. It was nothing but the influence of the emperor Constantine 
" which induced the eastern bishops at the council of Nice, to suffer the imposition 
" of a doctrinal formula, which they detested, and from which indeed they sought 
" immediately to rid themselves." The secular interests, which thus prevailed 
under the guise of orthodoxy, were themselves secretly impelled by the intrigues 
and instructions of the ambitious spirituals who wanted to debase their rivals. 
Ecclesiastical history requires honest expositors and unprejudiced students.— E. C. 



366 HOMOOUSION,. 

world. The Arians soon perceived the danger of their 
situation, and prudently assumed those modest virtues, 
which, in the fury of civil and religious dissensions, are 
seldom practiced, or even praised, except by the weaker 
party. They recommended the exercise of Christian charity 
and moderation ; urged the incomprehensible nature of the 
controversy ; disclaimed the use of any terms or definitions 
which could not be found in the Scriptures ; and offered by 
very liberal concessions, to satisfy their adversaries, without 
renouncing the integrity of their own principles. The vic- 
torious faction received all their proposals with haughty 
suspicion, and anxiously sought for some irreconcilable 
mark of distinction, the rejection of which might involve the 
Arians in the guilt and consequences of heresy. A letter was 
publicly read, and ignominiously torn, in which their patron, 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, ingenuously confessed, that the ad- 
mission of the Homoousion, or Consubstantial, 
a word already familiar to the Platonists, was 
incompatible with the principles of their theological system. 
The fortunate opportunity was eagerly embraced by the 
bishops, who governed the resolutions of the synod; and, 
according to the lively expression of Ambrose, 66 they used 
the sword, which heresy itself had drawn from the scabbard, 
to cut off the head of the hated monster. The consubstanti- 
ality of the Father and the Son was established by the 
council of Nice, and has been unanimously received as a 
fundamendal article of the Christian faith, by the consent 
of the Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant 
churches. Butjf the same word had not served to stigma- 
tize the heretics and to unite the Catholics, it would have 
been inadequate to the purpose of the majority, by whom 
it was introduced into the orthodox creed. This majority 
was divided into two parties, distinguished by a contrary 
tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists and of the 
Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes seemed to 
overthrow the foundations either of natural or revealed 
religion, they mutually agreed to qualify the rigor of their 
principles ; and to disavow the just, but invidious, conse- 
quences which might be urged by their antagonists. The 
interest of the common cause inclined them to join their 

56 We are indebted to Ambrose (Be Fide, 1. iii. cap. ult.) for tbe knowledge of 
this curious anecdote. Hoc verbum posuerunt Patres. quod viderunt adversariis 
esse formidini ; at tanquam evaginato ab ipsis gladio, ipsum nefandae caput 
herceseos amputarent. 



BOUNDARIES OF ORTHODOXY. 367 

numbers, and to conceal their differences ; their animosity 
was softened by the healing counsels of toleration, and their 
disputes were suspended by the use of the mysterious 
Homoousion, which either party was free to interpret ac- 
cording to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian sense, which, 
about fifty years before, had obliged the council of Antioch 57 
to prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it to those 
theologians who entertained a secret but partial affection 
for a nominal Trinity. But the more fashionable saints of the 
Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius, the learned Gregory 
Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church, who sup- 
ported with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, ap- 
peared to consider the expression of Substaiice as if it had 
been synonymous with that of nature ; and they ventured 
to illustrate their meaning, by affirming that three men, as 
they belong to the same common species, are consubstantial, 
or homoousion, to each other. 5S This pure and distinct 
equality was tempered, on the one hand, by the internal 
connection, and spiritual penetration, which indissolubly 
unites the divine persons, 59 and, on the other, by the pre- 
eminence of the Father, which was acknowledged as far as 
it is compatible with the independence of the Son. 60 Within 
these limits the almost invisible and tremulous ball of or- 
thodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side, 
beyond this consecrated ground, the heretics and the 
demons lurked in ambush to surprise and devour the un- 
happy wanderer. But as the degrees of theological hatred 
depend on the spirit of the war, rather than on the im- 
portance of the controversy, the heretics who degraded, 
were treated with more severity than those who annihilated, 
the person of the Son. The life of Athanasius was con- 
sumed in irreconcilable opposition to the impious madness 
of the Arians ; 61 but he defended above twenty years the 

57 See Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect. ii. c. i. p. 25-36. He thinks it his duty to 
reconcile two orthodox synods. 

58 According to Aristotle, the stars were homoousian to each other. " That 
" Homoousius means of one substance in kind, hath been shown by Petavius, 
" Curcellaeus, Cudworth, Le Clerc, &c, and to prove it would be actum agere." 
This is the just remark of Dr. Jortin (vol. ii. p. 212), who examines the Arian 
controversy with learning, candor, and ingenuity. 

59 See Petavius (Dogm. Theolog. torn. ii. 1. iv. c. 16, p. 453, &c), Cudworth 
(P- 559)) Bull (sect. iv. pp. 285-290, edit. Grab). The KEoiyuprioiq, or tirciunin- 
cessio, is perhaps the deepest and darkest corner of the whole theological abyss. 

60 The third section of Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith, which some of' his 
antagonists have called nonsense, and others heresy, is consecrated to the su- 
premacy of the Father. 

6i The ordinary appellation with which Athanasius and his followers chose to 
compliment the Arians, was that of Ariomanites. 



368 SCHISM OF THE SECTARIES. 

Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra ; and when at last he 
was compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he 
continued to mention with an ambiguous smile, the venial 
errors of his respectable friend. 62 

The authority of a general council, to which 
Anan creeds. the Arians themselves had been compelled to 
submit, inscribed on the banners of the orthodox party the 
mysterious characters of the word Homoousion, which 
essentially contributed, notwithstanding some obscure dis- 
putes, some nocturnal combats, to maintain and perpetuate 
the uniformity of faith, or at least of language. The Con- 
substantialists, who by their success have deserved and 
obtained the title of Catholics, gloried in the simplicity and 
steadiness of their own creed, and insulted the repeated 
variations of their adversaries, who were destitute of any 
certain rule of faith. The sincerity or the cunning of the 
Arian chiefs, the fear of the laws or of the people, their 
reverence for Christ, their hatred of Athanasius, all the 
causes, human and divine, that influence and disturb the 
counsels of a theological faction, introduced among the 
sectaries a spirit of discord and inconstancy, which, in the 
course of a few years, erected eighteen different models of 
religion, 63 and avenged the violated dignity of the church. 
The zealous Hilary, 64 who, from the peculiar hardships of 
his situation, was inclined to extenuate rather than to 
aggravate the errors of the oriental clergy, declares, that 
in the wide extent of the ten provinces of Asia, to which he 
had been banished, there could be found very few prelates 
who had preserved the knowledge of the true God. 05 The 
oppression which he had felt, the disorders of which he was 
the spectator and the victim, appeased, during a short in- 
terval, the angry passions of his soul ; and in the following 

62 Epifihanhis, torn. i. Hceres. lxxii 4, p. 837. See the adventures of Marcellus, 
in Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. pp. 880-899"). His works, in one book, of the 
unity of God, was answered in the three books, which are still extant, of Eusebius. 
After a long and careful examination, Petavius (torn. ii. 1. i., c. 14, p. 78) has reluct- 
antly pronounced the condemnation of Marcellus. 

63 Athanasius, in his epistle concerning the Synods of Seleucia and Rimini 
(torn. i. pp. 886-905), has given an ample list of Arian creeds, which has been 
enlarged and improved by the labors of the indefatigable Tillemont {Mem. 
Eccles. torn. vi. p. 477). 

64 Erasmus, with admirable sense and freedom, has delineated the just char- 
acter of Hilary. To revise his text, to compose the annals of his life, and to 
justify his sentiments and conduct, is the province of the Benedictine editors. 

63 Absque episcopo Eleusio et paucis cum eo, ex rnajore parte Asianae decern 
provinciit, inter quas consisto, vere Deum nesciunt. Atque utinam penitus 
ncscirent ! cum procliviore enim venia ignorarent quam obtrectarent. Hilar, 
de Synodis, sive de Fide Orientalium, c. 63, p. 1186, edit. Benedict. In the cele- 
brated parallel between atheism and superstition, the bishop of Poitiers would 
have been surprised in the philosophic society of Bayle and Plutarch. 



THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. 369 

passage, of which I shall transcribe a few lines, the bishop 
of Poitiers unwarily deviates into the style of a Christian 
philosopher. "It is a thing," says Hilary, " equally de- 
" plorable and dangerous, that there are as many creeds as 
" opinions among men, as many doctrines as inclinations, 
" and as many sources of blasphemy as there are faults 
" among us ; because we make creeds arbitrarily, and ex- 
" plain them as arbitrarily. The Homoousion is rejected, 
" and received, and explained away by successive synods. 
" The partial or total resemblance of the Father and of the 
" Son, is a subject of dispute, for these unhappy times. 
" Every year, nay every moon, we make new creeds, to de- 
" scribe invisible mysteries. We repent of what we have 
" done, we defend those who repent, we anathematize those 
" whom we defended. We condemn either the doctrine of 
" others in ourselves, or our own in that of others ; and 
" reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been 
" the cause of each other's ruin." 66 * 

It will not be expected, it would not perhaps . . 

• .A.ri3.n sects* 

be endured, that I should swell this theological 
digression, by a minute examination of the eighteen creeds, 
the authors of which, for the most part, disclaimed the 
odious name of their parent Arius. It is amusing enough 
to delineate the form, and to trace the vegetation, of a 
singular plant; but the tedious detail of leaves without 
flowers, and of branches without fruit, would soon exhaust 
the patience, and disappoint the curiosity, of the laborious 
student. One question which gradually arose from the 
Arian controversy may, however, be noticed, as it served 
to produce and discriminate the three secl;s, who were united 
only by their common aversion to the Homoousion of the 
Nicene synod. 1. If they were asked, whether the Son was 
like unto the Father, the question was resolutely answered 
in the negative by the heretics who adhered to the principles 
of Arius, or indeed to those of philosophy ; which seem to 
establish an infinite difference between the Creator and the 
most excellent of his creatures. This obvious consequence 

66 Hilarius ad Const ant hint, 1. i. c. 4. 5, pp. 1227, 1228. This remarkable passage 
deserved the attention of Mr. Locke, who has transcribed it (vol. iii. p. 470) into 
the model of his new commonplace book. 

*" Every sect, of whatever opinion it maybe," says Voltaire, "is a rallying 
" point for doubt and error. There is no sect of geometricians, algebraists, of 
" arithmeticians ; because all the propositions of geometry, algebra, and arith- 
" metic are true. When truth is evident, it is impossible to divide people into 
,f parlies and factions. Nobody disputes that it is broad day at noon."— E. 



370 jEtius and eunomius. 

was maintained by ^Etius, 67 on whom the zeal of his adver- 
saries bestowed the surname of the Atheist. His restless 
and aspiring spirit urged him to try almost every profession 
of human life. He was successively a slave, or at least a 
husbandman, a traveling tinker, a goldsmith, a physician, 
a schoolmaster, a theologian, and at last the apostle of a new 
church, which was propagated by the abilities of his disciple 
Eunomius. 68 Armed with texts of Scripture, and with 
captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle 
^tius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, 
whom it was impossible either to silence or to convince. 
Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian bishops, 
till they were forced to renounce, and even to persecute, a 
dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his reasoning, had 
prejudiced their cause in the popular opinion, and offended 
the piety of their most devoted followers. 2. The omnipo- 
tence of the Creator suggested a specious and respectful 
solution of the likeness of the Father and the Son ; and 
faith might humbly receive what reason could not presume 
to deny, that the supreme God might communicate his 
infinite perfections, and create a being similar only to him- 
self. 69 These Arians were powerfully supported by the 
weight and abilities of their leaders, who had succeeded to 
the management of the Eusebian interest, and who occupied 
the principal thrones of the East. They detested, perhaps 
with some affectation, the impiety of ^Etius ; they professed 
to believe, either without reserve, or according to the 
Scriptures, that the Son was different from all other 
creatures, and similar only to the Father. But they denied 
that he was either of the same, or of a similar substance ; 
sometimes boldly justifying their dissent, and sometimes 
objecting to the use of the word substance, which seems to 
imply an adequate, or at least a distinct notion of the nature 
of the Deity. 3. The sect which asserted the doctrine of a 

<" In Philostorgius (1. iii. c. 15) the character and adventures of yEtius appear 
singular enough, though they are carefully softened bv the hand of a friend. The 
editor, Godefroy (p. 153), who was more attached to his principles than to his 
author, has collected the odious circumstances which his various adversaries 
have preserved or invented. 

6s According to the judgment of a man who respected both these sectaries, 
JrAms had been endowed with a stronger understanding, and Eunomius had 
acquired more art and learning. {Philostorgius, 1. viii. c. 18.) The confession 
and apology of Eunomius (Fabricius, Bibliot. Grczc. torn. viii. pp. 2^8-305) is one 
of the few heretical pieces which have escaped. 

6 j> Y et, , according to the opinion of Estius and Bull (p. 297), there is one power 
—that of creation— which God cannot communicate to a creature. Estius, who 
so accurately defined the limits of Omnipotence, was a Dutchman bv birth, and 
by trade a scholastic divine. Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. torn. xvii. p. 45.' 



THE SEMI-ARIANS. 37 1 

similar substance was the most numerous, at least in the 
provinces of Asia ; and when the leaders of both parties were 
assembled in the council of Seleucia, 70 their opinion would 
have prevailed by a majority of one hundred and five to 
forty-three bishops. The Greek word, which was chosen to 
express this mysterious resemblance, bears so close an 
affinity to the orthodox symbol, that the profane of every 
age have derided the furious contests which the difference 
of a single diphthong excited between the Homoousians 
and the Homoiousians.* As it frequently happens, that the 
sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each 
other accidently represent the most opposite ideas, the 
observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to 
mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine 
of the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and 
that of the Catholics themselves. The bishop of Poitiers, 
who, in his Phrygian exile, very wisely aimed at a coalition 
of parties, endeavors to prove that, by a pious and faithful 
interpretation, 71 the Homoiousion may be reduced to a con- 
substantial sense. Yet he confesses that the word has a 
dark and suspicious aspect; and, as if darkness were con- 
genial to theological disputes, the Semi-Arians, who ad- 
vanced to the doors of the church, assailed them with the 
most unrelenting fury. 

The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which culti- Faith of the 
vated the language and manners of the Greeks, Western or 
had deeply imbided the venom of the Arian Latin church * 

"io Sabinus ap. Socrat. (1. ii. c. 39) had copied the acts : Athanasius and Hilary 
have explained the divisions of this Arian synod ; the other circumstances which 
are relative to it are carefully collected bv Baronius and Tillemont. 

7i Fideli et pia intelligentia. * * * De Synod, c. 77, p. 1193. In his short 
apologetical notes (first published by the Benedictines from a MS. of Chartres) 
he observes, that he used this cautious expression, qui-intelligerem et impiam, 
p. 1206. See p. 1146. Philostorgius, who saw those objects through a different 
medium, is inclined to forget the difference of the important dipthong. See in 
particular, viii. 17, and Godefroy, p. 352. 



*"The fierce contention concerning the Homousios and Homoiousios" says 
Feuerbach, in Essence of Christianity , p. 73, " was not an empty one, although 
" it turned upon a letter. The point in question was the co-equality and divine 
" dignity of the second Person, and therefore the honor of the Christian religion 
"itself; for its essential, characteristic object is the second Person; and that 
" which is essentially the object of a religion is truly, essentially its God. The 
" real God of any religion is the so-called Mediator, because he alone is the 
" immediate object of religion. He who, instead of applying to God, applies to a 
n saint, does so only on the assumption that the saint has all power with God, 
" that what he prays for, i. e., wishes and wills, God readily performs ; that thus 
" God is entirely in the hands of the saint. Supplication is the means, under the 
" guise of humility and submission, of exercising one's power and superiority 
" over another being. That to which my mind first turns, is also in truth the 
" first being to me. I turn to the saint, not because the saint is dependent on 
" God. but because God is dependent on the saint, because God is determined 
" and ruled by the prayers, i. e., by the wish or heart of the saint."— E. 



372 FAITH OF THE LATIN CHURCH. 

controversy. The familiar study of the Platonic system, 
a vain and argumentative disposition, a copious and flexible 
idiom, supplied the clergy and people of the East with 
an inexhaustible flow of words and distinctions ; and, 
in the midst of their fierce contentions, they easily forgot 
the doubt which is recommended by philosophy, and the 
submission which is enjoined by religion. The inhabitants 
of the West were of a less inquisitive spirit ; their passions 
were not so forcibly moved by invisible objects, their minds 
were less frequently exercised by the habits of dispute ; and 
such was the happy ignorance of the Gallican church, that 
Hilary himself, above thirty years after the first general 
council, was still a stranger to the Nicene creed. 72 The 
Latins had received the rays of divine knowledge through 
the dark and doubtful medium of a translation. The 
poverty and stubbornness of their native tongue was not 
always capable of affording just equivalents for the Greek 
terms, for the technical words of the Platonic philosophy, 73 
which had been consecrated, by the gospel or by the church, 
to express the mysteries of the Christian faith ; and a verbal 
defect might introduce into the Latin theology a long train 
of error or perplexity. 74 But as the western provincials had 
the good fortune of deriving their religion from an orthodox 
source they preserved with steadiness the doctrine which 
they had accepted with docility ; and when the Arian 
pestilence approached their frontiers, they were supplied 
with the seasonable preservative of the Homoousion, by 
the paternal care of the Roman pontiff. Their sentiments 

and their temper were displayed in the memor- 
Coundi of able synod of Rimini, which surpassed in num- 
a. S!sSa. bers the council of Nice, since it was composed 

of above four hundred bishops of Italy, Africa, 
Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum. From the first debates 
it appeared, that only fourscore prelates adhered to the 
party, though they affected to anathematize the name and 
memory of Arius. But this inferiority was compensated by 

"2 Testor Deum coeli atque terrae me cum neutrum audissem, semper tamen 
utrumque sensisse. * * * Regeneratus pridem et in episcopatu aliquantisper 
manens fidem Nicenam nunquam nisi exsulaturua audivi. Hilars, de Synodis, 
c. xci. p. 1205. The Benedictines are persuaded that he governed the diocese of 
Poitiers several years before his exile. 

W Seneca {Epist. lviii.) complains that even the TO ov of the Platonists, (the 
ens of the bolder schoolmen) could not be expressed bv a Latin noun. 

M The preference which the fourth council of the Lateran at length gave to 
a numerical rather than a generical unity (see Petav. torn. ii. 1. iv. c. 13, p. 424) 
was favored by the Latin language ; rpiar seems to excite the idea of substnnce, 
trinilas of qualities. 



THE COUNCIL OF RIMINI. 373 

the advantages of skill, of experience, and of discipline ; 
and the minority was conducted by Valens and Ursacius, 
two bishops of Illyricum, who had spent their lives in the 
intrigues of courts and councils, and who had been trained 
under the Eusebian banner, in the religious wars of the 
East. By their arguments and negotiations, they em- 
barrassed, they confounded, they at last deceived, the 
honest simplicity of the Latin bishops, who suffered the 
palladium of the faith to be extorted from their hands by 
fraud and importunity, rather than by open violence.* The 
council of Rimini was not allowed to separate, till the 
members had imprudently subscribed a captious creed, in 
which some expressions, susceptible of an heretical sense, 
were inserted in the room of the Homoousion. It was on 
this occasion, that, according to Jerome, the world was sur- 
prised to find itself Arian. 75 But the bishops of the Latin 
provinces had no sooner reached their respective dioceses, 
than they discovered their mistake, and repented of their 
weakness. The ignominious capitulation was rejected with 
disdain and abhorrence ; and the Homoousian standard, 
which had been shaken, but not overthrown, was more 
firmly replanted in all the churches of the West." 16 

Such was the rise and progress, and such were Conduct of 
the natural revolutions of those theological dis- the emperors 
putes, which disturbed the peace of Christianity controversy. 
under the reigns of Constantine and of his sons. 
But as those princes presumed to extend their despotism 

"5 Ingemuit totus orbis et Arianum se esse miratus est. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer, 
torn. i. p. 145. 

is The story of the council of Rimini is very elegantly told by Sulpicius Severus 
(Hist. Sacra. 1. ii. pp. 419-430, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1647), and by Jerom, in his dia- 
logue against the Luciferians. The design of the latter is to apologize for the 
conduct of the Latin bishops, who were deceived, and who repented. 

* All lovers of truth must regret, whatever belief they may entertain, that the 
fathers of the early Christian church should thus descend to disgraceful mis- 
representation and positive fraud. And this wicked conduct was not the excep- 
tion in this particular council at Rimini, but the established and universal custom. 
Creeds were invented and successfully established by means that would disgrace 
a modern political caucus. Scriptures were interpolated, authorities were forged, 
the venal were purchased, the ignorant were cajoled ; and this was done in the 
name and for the advancement of Christianity. " Ecclesiastical history." says the 
English Churchman (when speaking of the History of Christianity, on page 365), 
"requires honest expositors and unprejudiced students." 

"Ecclesiastical history," says Dean Milman, on page 292, "is a solemn and 
" melancholy lesson that the best, even the most sacred, cause will eventually 
" suffer by the least departure from truth." 

On page 369, the bishop of Poitiers, the celebrated Hilary, sadly remarks: 
" Every year, nay every moon, we make new creeds to describe invisible mys- 
" teries. We repent of what we have done, we defend those who repent, we 
" anathematize those whom we defended, and reciprocally tearing one another 
" to pieces, we have been the cause of each other's ruin." — E. 



374 INDIFFEREISTCE OF CONSTANTINE. 

over the faith, as well as over the lives and fortunes of their 
subjects, the weight of their suffrage sometimes inclined the 
ecclesiastical balance, and the prerogatives of the King of 
Heaven were settled, or changed, or modified, in the cabinet 
of an earthly monarch. 

The unhappy spirit of discord which pervaded 
1 of ren the provinces of the East interrupted the triumph 
C A nS D ant 2 ine * °f Constantine ; but the emperor continued for 
some time to view, with cool and careless indiffer- 
ence, the object of the dispute. As he was yet ignorant of 
the difficulty of appeasing the quarrels of theologians, he 
addressed to the contending parties, to Alexander and to 
Arius, a moderating epistle ; which may be ascribed, with 
far greater reason, to the untutored sense of a soldier and 
statesman, than to the dictates of any of his episcopal 
counsellors. He attributes the origin of the whole con- 
troversy to a trifling and subtile question, concerning an 
incomprehensible point of the law, which was foolishly 
asked by the bishop, and imprudently resolved by the 
presbyter. He laments that the Christian people, who had 
the same God, the same religion, and the same worship, 
should be divided by such inconsiderable distinctions ; and 
he seriously recommends to the clergy of Alexandria the 
example of the Greek philosophers ; who could maintain 
their arguments without losing their temper, and assert their 
freedom without violating their friendship. t The indifference 

" Eusebius, in Vit. Constant. 1. ii. c. 64-72. The principles of toleration and 
religious indifference, contained in this epistle, have given great offence to 
Baronius, Tillemont, &c, who suppose that the emperor had some evil coun- 
sellor, either Satan or Eusebius, at his elbow.* See Jortin's Remarks, torn. ii. 
p. 183.T 

* " Without Eusebius," says the learned Tillemont. " we should scarcely have 
" any knowledge of the history of the first age of Christianity," and with him, it 
must be confessed, that we have very little that is reliable. " He had great zeal 
" for the Christian religion," says Dr. Lardner, and it seems erroneous for Chris- 
tian writers to associate the name of Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea, with 
Satan, the arch enemy of mankind. — E. 

t Heinichen [Excursus, xi. ) quotes with approbation the term " golden words," 
applied by Ziegler to this moderate and tolerant letter of Constantine. May an 
English clergyman venture to express his regret, that 'the fine gold so soon 
" became dim" in the Christian Church? — Mil.max. 

The worthy Dean deserves encouragement for his bashful and ingenuous 
apology. None can deny his modest request for permission to "express his 
"regret;" and all must admire his charming naivete, while striving to conceal 
his blushes. — E. 

X " Philosophers," says Voltaire, "will never form a religious sect ; and why? 
" because they are without enthusiasm. Divide mankind into twenty parts ; and 
" of these, nineteen consist of those who labor with their hands, and will never 
" know there has been such a person as Locke in the world. In the remaining 
" twentieth, how few will be found who read, and there are twenty who read 
" novels for one that studies philosophy. Those who think are excessively few, 
" and those few do not set themselves to disturb the world." — E. 



THE COUNCIL OF NICE. 375 

and contempt of the sovereign would have been, perhaps, 
the most effectual method of silencing the dispute, if the 
popular current had been less rapid and impetuous, and if 
Constantine himself, in the midst of faction and fanaticism, 
could have preserved the calm possession of his own mind. 
But his ecclesiastical ministers soon contrived to seduce the 
impartiality of the magistrate, and to awaken the zeal of the 
proselyte. He was provoked by the insults His zeal. 
which had been offered to his statues ; he was A - D - 3 2 5- 
alarmed by the real, as well as the imaginary, magnitude of 
the spreading mischief; and he extinguished the hope of 
peace and toleration, from the moment that he assembled 
three hundred bishops within the walls of the same palace. 
The presence of the monarch swelled the importance of the 
debate ; his attention multiplied the arguments ; and he ex- 
posed his person with a patient intrepidity, which animated 
the valor of the combatants. Notwithstanding the applause 
which has been bestowed on the eloquence and sagacity of 
Constantine," a Roman general, whose religion might be 
still a subject of doubt, and whose mind had not been en- 
lightened either by study or by inspiration, was indifferently 
qualified to discuss, in the Greek language, a metaphysical 
question, or an article of faith. But the credit of his favorite 
Osius, who appears to have presided in the council of Nice, 
might dispose the emperor in favor of the orthodox party ; 
and a well-timed insinuation, that the same Eusebius of 
Nicomedia, who now protected the heretic, had lately 
assisted the tyrant, 79 might exasperate him against their 
adversaries. The Nicene creed was ratified by Constantine ; 
and his firm declaration, that those who resisted the divine 
judgment of the synod, must prepare themselves for an im- 
mediate exile,* annihilated the murmurs of a feeble opposi- 
tion, which, from seventeen, was almost instantly reduced 

'8 Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. 1. iii. c. 13. 

"9 Theodoret has preserved (1. i. c. 20) an epistle from Constantine to the people 
of Nicomedia, in which the monarch declares himself the public accuser of one 
his subjects ; he styles Eusebius 6 T7Jg TvpavvixVC OifJ-OTr/TOQ ov[ifivoT7]Q, and 
complains of his hostile behavior during the civil war. 

* Belief or banishment, was the convincing "argument" used by this cruel 
tyrant, who, in the very year he presided at the council of Nice, inhumanly 
beheaded his own son, Crispus, after drowning, in a bath of boiling water, his 
wife, Fausta, and murdering many of his immediate relatives. "The preroga- 
tives of the King of Heaven," says Gibbon, "were settled, or changed or 
" modified in the cabinet of an earthly monarch." And deluded enthusiasts 
have died a martyr's death for believing or disbelieving this Nicene creed, which 
was promulgated during the reign, and essentially moulded and formed by the 
influence of ihis zealous and depraved Christian emperor. — E. 



376 CONCLUSION OF THE COUNCIL. 

to two, protesting bishops.* Eusebius of Caesarea yielded a 

reluctant and ambiguous consent to the Homoousion/ and 

the wavering conduct of the Nicomedian Eusebius served 

only to delay, about three months, his disgrace 

He perse- an d exile. sl The impious Arius was banished 

cutes the . r . i • r th 

Arians. into one ol the remote provinces 01 iliyncum ; 
his person and disciples were branded, by law, 
with the odious name of Porphyrians ; his writings were 
condemned to the flames, and a capital punishment was 
denounced against those in whose possession they should 
be found. The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of 
controversy, and the angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was 
designed to inspire his subjects with the hatred which he 
had conceived against the enemies of Christ. 82 ]" 

so See in Socrates (1. i. c. 8), or rather in Theodoret (1. i. c. 12). an original letter 
of Eusebius of Caesarea, in which he attempts to justify his subscribing the 
Homoousion. The character of Eusebius has always been a problem ; but those 
who have read the second critical epistle of Le Clerc {Ars Critica, torn. iii. 
pp. 30-69), must entertain a very unfavorable opinion of the orthodoxy and sin- 
cerity of the bishop of Caesarea. 

si Athanasius, torn. i. p. 727. Philostorgius, 1. i. c. 10, and Godefroy's Com- 
mentary, p. 41. 

*- Socrates, I. i. c. 9. In his circular letters, which were addressed to the 
several cities, Constantine employed against the heretics the arms of ridicule 
and comic raillery. 

* " The great object of Constantine," says Voltaire, "was to be master in 
" everything. He was so in the church as well as in the state. We behold him 
" convoking and opening the Council of Nice ; advancing into the midst of the 
" assembled fathers, covered over with jewels, and with the diadem upon his 
" head, seating himself in the highest place, and banishing, unconcernedly, 
" sometimes Arius and sometimes Athanasius. He put himself at the head of 
" Christianity without being a Christian ; for at that time baptism was esseutial 
" to any person's becoming one. He was only a catechumen. 

" It is believed that he put to death his eldest son, Crispus, and his own wife, 
" Fausta, the same year that he convened the council of Nice. He performed no 
" penance for his parricide. It was at Rome that he exercised that cruelty, and 
" from that time residence at Rome became hateful to him. He quitted it forever, 
" and went to lay the foundations of Constantinople. How durst he say, in one 
" of his rescripts, that he transferred the seat of empire to Constantinople by the 
" command of God himself? Is it anything but an impudent mockery oi God 
" and man ? If God had given him any command, would it not have been, not to 
" assassinate his wife and son ? " — E. 

t " The quarrel about the Trinity," says Voltaire, "existed long before Arius 
" took part in it, in the disputatious town of Alexandria, where it had been 
" beyond the power of Euciid to make men think calmly and justly. 

" Is Jesus the Word ? If he be the Word, did he emanate from God in Time or 
" before Time? If he emanated from God, is he co-eternal and consubstantial 
" with him, or is he of a similar substance? Is he distinct from him, or is he 
" not ? Is he made or begotten ? Can he beget in his turn ? Has he paternity ? 
" or productive virtue without paternity ? Is the Holy Ghost made ! or begotten? 
" or produced ? or proceeding from the Father? or proceeding from the Son ? or 
"proceeding from both? Can he beget' Can he produce? Is his hvpostasis 
" consubstantial with the hypostasis of the Father and the Son? and how is it 
" that, having the same nature — the same essence as the Father and the Son, he 
" cannot do the same things done by those persons, who are himself? 
t " The Christians sophisticated, caviled, hated, and excommunicated one 
" another, for some of these dogmas, inaccessible to human intellect, before the 
" time of Arius and Athanasius. The Egyptian Greeks were remarkably clever ; 
" they could split a hair into four ; but on this occasion they split it only into three. 

"St. Augustin himself, after advancing on this subject a thousand reasonings, 



DEATH OF ARIUS. 377 

But, as if the conduct of the emperor had been 
e:uided by passion instead of principle, three , An ? the or - 

*^ r\ .\. '\ c at- 1 thodox partv. 

years from the council 01 JNice were scarcely a. d. 328-337. 
elapsed before he discovered some symptoms 
of mercy, and even of indulgence, towards the proscribed 
sect, which was secretly protected by his favorite sister. 
The exiles were recalled : and Eusebius, who gradually 
resumed his influence over the mind of Constantine, was 
restored to the episcopal throne, from which he had been 
ignominiously degraded. Arius himself was treated by the 
whole court with the respect which would have been due to 
an innocent and oppressed man. His faith was approved 
by the synod of Jerusalem ; and the emperor seemed impa- 
tient to repair his injustice, by issuing an absolute command, 
that he should be solemnly admitted to the communion in 
the cathedral of Constantinople. On the same day which 
had been fixed for the triumph of Arius, he expired; — 
and the strange and horrid circumstances of his death might 
excite a suspicion, that the orthodox saints had contributed 
more efficaciously than by their prayers, to deliver the 
church from the most formidable of her enemies. 83 The 
three principal leaders of the Catholics, Athanasius of 
Alexandria, Eustathius of Antioch, and Paul of Constanti- 

83 We derive the original story from Athanasius (torn. i. p. 670), who expresses 
some reluctance to stigmatize the memory of the dead. He might exaggerate ; 
but the perpetual commerce of Alexandria and Constantinople would have ren- 
dered it dangerous to invent. Those who press the literal narrative of the death 
of Arius (his bowels suddenly burst out in a privy) must make their option 
between poison and miracle. 

" was forced to confess that nothing intelligible could be said about the matter. 
" ' When it is asked,' said he, ' what are the. three, the language of man fails, and 
" ' terms are wanting to express them.' ' Three perso7ts, has, however, been said 
" ' — not for the purpose of expressing anything, but in order to say something, 
" 'and not remain mute.' ' Dictum est, tres persona;, non ut aliquid disceretur, 
" ' sed ne taceretur.' (De Trinit. 1. v., cap. 9.) 

"Whether Jesus was created or uncreated, in no way concerned morality, 
" which is the only thing essential. Whether Jesus was in time or before time, 
" it is not the less our duty to be honest. After much altercation, it was at last 
" decided that the Son was as old as the Father, and consubstantial with the 
" Father. This decision is not very easy of comprehension, which makes it but 
" the more sublime. 

" After the first council of Nice, another was held at Rimini. These bishops, 
" after months of contention, took from Jesus his co7isubsta?itiality. It has since 
" been restored to him, except by the Socinians. so nothing is amiss. 

" Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, a great persecutor of heretics, was him- 
" self condemned as a heretic, for having maintained that, although Jesus was 
" really God, yet his mother was not absolutely mother of God, but mother of 
" Jesus. St. Cyril procured the condemnation of Nestorius ; but the partisans of 
" Nestorius also procured the deposition of St. Cyril, in the same council; which 
" put the Holy Ghost in considerable perplexity. 

" Here, gentle reader, oberve, that the gospel says not one syllable of the con- 
" substantiality of the Word, nor of Mary's having had the honor of being the 
" mother of God, no more than of the other disputed points which brought 
" together so many infallible councils."— E. 



37-5 THE SONS OF CONSTANTINE. 

nople, were deposed on various accusations, by the sentence 
of numerous councils, and were afterwards banished into 
distant provinces by the first of the Christian emperors, who, 
in the last moments of his life, received the rites of baptism 
from the Arian bishop of Nicomedia. The ecclesiastical 
government of Constantine cannot be justified from the 
reproach of levity and weakness.* But the credulous 
monarch, unskilled in the stratagems of theological warfare, 
might be deceived by the modest and specious professions 
of the heretics whose sentiments he never perfectly under- 
stood; and while he protected Arius, and persecuted 
Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as the 
bulwark of the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his 
own reign. 84 

Constantius ^ e sons °f Constantine must have been ad- 
favors the mitted from their childhood into the rank of 
A. vTnisSu catechumens, but they imitated, in the delay of 
their baptism, the example of their father. Like 
him, they presumed to pronounce their judgment on mys- 
teries into which they had never been regularly initiated ; 85 
and the fate of the Trinitarian controversy depended, in a 
great measure, on the sentiments of Constantius, who in- 
herited the provinces of the East, and acquired the posses- 
sion of the whole empire. The Arian presbyter or bishop, 
who had secreted for his own use the testament of the 
deceased emperor, improved the fortunate occasion which 
had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince whose 
public councils were always swayed by his domestic favor- 
er The change in the sentiments, or at least in the conduct, of Constantine, may 
be traced in Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. 1. iii c. 23, 1. iv. c. 41), Socrates (1. i. c. 23-39), 
Sozomen (1. ii. c. 16-34), Theodoret (1. i. c. 14-34), and Philostorgius 1. ii. c. 1-17). 
But the first of these writers was too near the scene of action, and the others were 
too remote from it. It is singular enough, that the important task of continuing 
the history of the church should have been left for two laymen and a heretic. 

So Quia etiam turn catechumenus sacramentum fidei merito videretur potuisse 
nescire. Sulp. Sev. Hist. Sacra. 1. ii. p. 410. 

*" Constantine," says Voltaire, "triumphed overall, changed the religion of the 
" empire, and was not merely the author of that great revolution, but of all those 
" which have since occurred in the west. What was his character? Ask it of 
" Julian, of Zosimus, of Sozomen, and of Victor ; they will tell you that he acted 
" at first like a great prince, afterwards as a public robber, and that the last stage 
" of his life was that cf a sensualist, a trifler, and a prodigal. They will describe 
" him as ever ambitious, cruel, and sanguinary. Ask his character of Eusebius, 
" of Gregory Nazianze.i, and Lactantius ; they will inform you that he was a 
" perfect man. Between these two extremes, authentic facts alone can enable us 
" to obtain the truth. He had a father-in-law, whom he impelled to hang him- 
" self; he had a brother-in-law, whom he ordered to be strangled ; he had a 
" nephew, twelve or thirteen years of age, whose throat he ordered to be cut ; he 
" had an eldest son, whom he beheaded ; he had a wife, whom he ordered to be 
" suffocated in a bath. An old Gallic author said, that ' he loved to make a clear 
N 'house.' "— E. 



ARTIFICE OF VALENS. 379 

ites. The eunuchs and slaves diffused the spiritual poison 
through the palace, and the dangerous infection was com- 
municated by the female attendants to the guards, and by 
the empress to her unsuspicious husband/ 6 The partiality 
which Constantius always expressed towards the Eusebian 
faction, was insensibly fortified by the dexterous manage- 
ment of their leaders ; and his victory over the tyrant 
Magnentius increased his inclination, as well as ability, 
to employ the arms of power in the cause of Arianism. 
While the two armies were engaged in the plains of Mursa, 
and the fate of the two rivals depended on the chance of 
war, the son of Constantine passed the anxious moments in 
a church of the martyrs, under the walls of the city. His 
spiritual comforter, Valens, the Arian bishop of the diocese, 
employed the most artful precautions to obtain such early 
intelligence as might secure either his favor or his escape. 
A secret chain of swift and trusty messengers informed him 
of the vicissitudes of the battle ; and while the courtiers 
stood trembling round their affrighted master, Valens as- 
sured him that the Gallic legions gave way ; and insinuated 
with some presence of mind, that the glorious event had 
been revealed to him by an angel. The grateful emperor 
ascribed his success to the merits and intercession of the 
bishop of Mursa, whose faith had deserved the public and 
miraculous approbation of heaven. 87 The Arians, who con- 
sidered as their own the victory of Constantius, preferred 
his glory to that of his father. 58 Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem, 
immediately composed the description of a celestial cross, 
encircled with a splendid rainbow ; which during the festival 
of Pentecost, about the third hour of the day, had appeared 

86 Socrates, 1. i. c. 2. Sozomen, 1. iii. c. 18. Athanas. torn. i. pp/813, 834. He 
observes that the eunuchs are the natural enemies of the Son. Compare Dr. 
Jortin's Remarks oji Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 3, with a certain genealogy 
in Candide (ch. iv.), which ends with one of the first companions of Christopher 
Columbus.* 

*~ Sulpicius Severus in Hist. Sacra, 1. ii. pp. 405, 406. 

ss Cyril (apud Baron. A. D. 353, No. 26) expressly observes that in the reign of 
Constantine, the cross had been found in the bowels of the earth ; but that it had 
appeared, in the reign of Constantius, in the midst of the heavens. This oppo- 
sition evidently proves, that Cyril was ignorant of the stupendous miracle to 
which the conversion of Constantine is attributed ; and this ignorance is the 
more surprising, since it was no more than twelve years after his death that 
Cyril was consecrated bishop of Jerusalem, by the immediate successor of 
Eusebius of Caesarea. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. viii. p. 715. 

* Without endorsing the genealogy of the witty Frenchman, we may credit his 
remark that, "persons of this unfortunate description are meddling, malignant, 
|| and plotting. Ignatius and Photius, who disputed the chair of Constantinople 
|| [were both patriarchs and] were both emasculated. This mutilation, depriving 
' them of the power of becoming natural fathers, they could become fathers only 
u of the church, and they kept the whole Greek court in a state of turbulence."— E. 



380 CONSTANTIUS. 

over the Mount of Olives, to the edification of the devout 
pilgrims, and the people of the holy city. 89 The size of the 
meteor was gradually magnified ; and the Arian historian 
has ventured to affirm that it was conspicuous to the two 
armies in the plains of Pannonia ; and that the tyrant, who 
is purposely represented as an idolater, fled before the 
auspicious sign of orthodox Christianity. 90 

Arian The sen timents of a judicious stranger, who 

councils. . has impartially considered the progress of civil 
a. d. 360. or ecc i es i as ri ca i discord, are always entitled to 
our notice ; and a short passage of Ammianus, who served 
in the armies, and studied the character of Constantius, is 
perhaps of more value than many pages of theological 
invectives. " The Christian religion, which, in itself," says 
that moderate historian, " is plain and simple, he confounded 
" by the dotage of superstition. Instead of reconciling the 
" parties by the weight of his authority, he cherished and 
" propagated, by verbal disputes, the differences which his 
" vain curiosity had excited. The highways were covered 
" with troops of bishops galloping from every side to the 
" assemblies, which they call synods ; and while they 
" labored to reduce the whole sect to their own peculiar 
" opinions, the public establishment of the posts was almost 
" ruined by their hasty and repeated journeys." 91 Our 
more intimate knowledge of the ecclesiastical transactions 
of the reign of Constantius would furnish an ample com- 
mentary on this remarkable passage ; which justifies the 
rational apprehensions of Athanasius, that the restless ac- 
tivity of the clergy, who wandered round the empire in 
search of the true faith, would excite the contempt and 
laughter of the unbelieving world. 92 As soon as the em- 
peror was relieved from the terrors of the civil war, he 

89 It is not easy to determine how far the ingenuity of Cyril might be assisted 
by some natural appearances of a solar halo. 

so Philostorgius, 1. iii. c. 26. He is followed by the author of the Alexandrian 
Chronicle, by Cedrenus, and by Nicephorus. (See Gothofred. Dissert, p. i£8). 
They could not refuse a miracle, even from the hand of an enemy. 

91 So curious a passage well deserves to be transcribed. Christianam religio- 
nem absolutam et simplicem, anih superstitione confundens ; in qua scrutanda 
perplexius, quam componenda gravius excitaret discidia plurima; quae progressa 
fusius aluit concertatione verborum, ut calervis antistium jumentis publicis ultro 
citroque discurrentibus, per synodos (quas appellant) dum ritum omnem ad suum 
trahere conantur ( Valesius reads conatur) rei vehiculariae consideret nervos. 
Ammianus, xxxi. 16.* 

92 Athanas. torn. i. p. 870. 

* The drain upon the treasury thus caused (fere aerarium deficeret) is assigned 
among the circumstances that assisted in alienating the mind of Julian from 
Christianity. Eckhel. De Num. Vet. vol. viii, p. 130.— Eng. Ch. 



VACILLATION OF CONSTANTIUS. 38 1 

devoted the leisure of his winter quarters at Aries, Milan, 
Sirmium, and Constantinople, to the amusement or toils of 
controversy ; the sword of the magistrate, and even of the 
tyrant, was unsheathed, to enforce the reasons of the theo- 
logian ; and as he opposed the orthodox faith of Nice, it is 
readily confessed that his incapacity and ignorance were 
equal to his presumption. 93 The eunuchs, the women, and 
the bishops, who governed the vain and feeble mind of the 
emperor, had inspired him with an insuperable dislike to the 
Homoousion ; but his timid conscience was alarmed by the 
impiety of ^Etius. The guilt of that Atheist was aggravated 
by the suspicious favor of the unfortunate Gallus ; and even 
the deaths of the imperial ministers, who had been massa- 
cred at Antioch, were imputed to the suggestions of that 
dangerous sophist. The mind of Constantius which could 
neither be moderated by reason, nor fixed by faith, was 
blindly impelled to either side of the dark and empty abyss, 
by his horror of the opposite extreme ; he alternately em- 
braced and condemned the sentiments, he successively 
banished and recalled the leaders, of the Arian and Semi- 
Arian factions. 94 During the season of public business or 
festivity, he employed whole days, and even nights, in 
selecting the words, and weighing the syllables, which com- 
posed his fluctuating creeds. The subject of his meditations 
still pursued and occupied his slumbers : the incoherent 
dreams of the emperor were received as celestial visions, 
and he accepted with complacency the lofty title of bishop 
of bishops, from those ecclesiastics who forgot the interest 
of their order for the gratification of their passions.* The 
design of establishing a uniformity of doctrine, which had 
engaged him to convene so many synods in Gaul, Italy, 
Illyricum, and Asia, was repeatedly baffled by his own 

93 Socrates, 1. ii. c. 35-47= Sozomen, 1. iv. c. 12-30. Theodoret, 1. ii. c. 18-32. 
Philostorg. 1. iv. c. 4-12, 1. v. c. 1-4, 1. vi. c. 1-5. 

s» Sozomen, 1. iv. c. 23. Athanas. torn. i. p. 831. Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn, 
vii. p. 947) has collected several instances of the haughty fanaticism of Constantius 
from the detached treatises of Lucifer of Cagliari. The very titles of these trea- 
tises inspire zeal and terror; " Moriendum pro Dei Filio." " De Regibus Apos- 
" taticis." " De non conveniendo cum Haeretico." " De non parcendo in Deum 
" deliquentibus." 



* Gibbon here treats too lightly and ironically the growing evil, from which the 
darkness and misery of future ages were even then looming. The aspiring hier- 
archy never saw anything in " the interest of their order," but " the gratification 
"of their passions." For the former they demanded power only as a means of 
grasping wealth to satisfy the latter. This object was ever before them, amid the 
pretences of sanctity and the strife of disputation. Whether they intimidated 
and crushed the general intellect, or intrigued in the palace and flattered the 
sovereign, they sought alike only the security or augmentation of their revenues. 
— Eng. Ch. 



382 COUNCILS OF SELEUCIA AND RIMINI. 

levity, by the divisions of the Arians, and by the resistance 
of the Catholics ; and he resolved, as the last and decisive 
effort, imperiously to dictate the decrees of a general council. 
The destructive earthquake of Nicomedia, the difficulty of 
finding a convenient place, and perhaps some secret motives 
of policy, produced an alteration in the summons. The 
bishops of the East were directed to meet at Seleucia, in 
Isaueia ; while those of the west held their deliberations at 
Rimini, on the coast of the Adriatic ; and, instead of two 
or three deputies from each province, the whole episcopal 
body was ordered to march. The Eastern council, after 
consuming four days in fierce and unavailing debate, sepa- 
rated without any definitive conclusion. The council of the 
West was protracted till the seventh month. Taurus, the 
Praetorian praefect, was instructed not to dismiss the prelates 
till they should all be united in the same opinion ; and his 
efforts were supported by a power of banishing fifteen of 
the most refractory, and a promise of the consulship if he 
A achieved so difficult an adventure. His prayers 

and threats, the authority of the sovereign, 
the sophistry of Valens and Ursacius, the distress of cold 
and hunger, and the tedious melancholy of a hopeless 
exile, at length extorted the reluctant consent of the 
bishops of Rimini. The deputies of the East and of the 
West attended the emperor in the palace of Constantinople, 
and he enjoyed the satisfaction of imposing on the world a 
profession of faith which established the likeness, without 
expressing the consubstantiality ', of the Son of God. 95 But 
the triumph of Arianism had been preceded by the re- 
moval of the orthodox clergy, whom it was impossible 
either to intimidate or to corrupt ; and the reign of 
Constantius was disgraced by the unjust and ineffectual 
persecution of the great Athanasius. 
Character ^ e nave seldom an opportunity of observing, 

andadven- either in active or speculative life, what effect 
Athanasius. ma y ^ e produced, or what obstacles may be 
surmounted, by the force of a single mind, when 
it is inflexibly applied to the pursuit of a single object, The 
immortal name of Athanasius 96 will never be separated from 

95 Sulp. Sev. Hist. Sacra. 1. ii. pp. 418-430. The Greek historians were very 
ignorant of the affairs of the West. 

96 We may regret that Gregory Nazianzen composed a panegyric instead of a 
life of Athanasius ; but we should enjoy and improve the advantage of drawing 
our most authentic materials from the rich fund of his own epistles and apologies 
(torn. i. pp. 670-951). I shall not imitate the example of Socrates (1. ii. c. 1), who 
published the first edition of his history without giving himself the trouble to 



ATHANASIUS. 383 

the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, to whose defence he 
consecrated every moment and every faculty of his being. 
Educated in the family of Alexander, he had vigorously 
opposed the early progress of the Arian heresy : he exer- 
cised the important functions of secretary under the aged 
prelate ; and the fathers of the Nicene council beheld with 
surprise and respect the rising virtues of the young deacon. 
In a time of public danger, the dull claims of age and of 
rank are sometimes superseded ; and within five months 
after his return from Nice, the deacon Athanasius was 
seated on the archiepiscopal throne of Egypt. He filled 
that eminent station above forty-six years, and 
his long administration was spent in a perpetual ' 32 

combat against the powers of Arianism. Five times was 
Athanasius expelled from his throne ; twenty years he 
passed as an exile or a fugitive ; and almost every province 
of the Roman empire was successively witness to his merit, 
and his sufferings in the cause of the Homoousion, which 
he considered as the sole pleasure and business, as the 
duty, and as the glory of his life. Amidst the storms of 
persecution, the archbishop of Alexandria was patient of 
labor, jealous of fame, careless of safety ; and although his 
mind was tainted by the contagion of fanaticism, Athanasius 
displayed a superiority of character and abilities, which 
would have qualified him, far better than the degenerate 
sons of Constantine, for the government of a great mon- 
archy. His learning was much less profound and extensive 
than that of Eusebius of Caesarea, and his rude eloquence 
could not be compared with the polished oratory of Gregory 
of Basil ; but whenever the primate of Egypt was called 
upon to justify his sentiments, or his conduct, his unpre- 
meditated style, either of speaking or writing, was clear, 
forcible, and persuasive. He has always been revered, in 
the orthodox school, as one of the most accurate masters 
of the Christian theology ; and he was supposed to possess 
two profane sciences, less adapted to the episcopal character, 
the knowledge of jurisprudence, 97 and that of divination. 98 

consult tfte writings of Athanasius. Yet even Socrates, the more curious Sozo- 
men, and the learned Theodoret, connect the life of Athanasius with the series 
of ecclesiastical history. The diligence of Tillemont (torn, viii.), and of the Bene- 
dictine editors, has collected every fact and examined every difficulty. 

9" Sulpicius Severus (Hist. Sacra, 1. ii. p. 396) calls him a lawyer, a jurisconsult. 
This character cannot now be discovered either in the life or writings of Athanasius. 

98 Dicebatur enim fatidicarum sortium fidem, quasve augurales portenderen alites 
scientissime callens aliquoties praedixisse futura. Ammianus, xv. 7. A prophecy, 
or rather a joke, is related by Sozomen (1. iv. c. 10), which evidently proves (if the 
crows speak Latin) that Athanasius understood the language of the crows. 



384 ATHANASIUS AS BISHOP. 

Some fortunate conjectures of future events, which impartial 
reasoners might ascribe to the experience and judgment of 
Athanasius, were attributed by his friends to heavenly in- 
spiration, and imputed by his enemies to infernal magic. 

But as Athanasius was continually engaged with the pre- 
judices and passions of every order of men, from the monk 
to the emperor, the knowledge of human nature was his first 
and most important science. He preserved a distinct and 
unbroken view of a scene which was incessantly shifting ; 
and never failed to improve those decisive moments which 
are irrecoverably past before they are perceived by a common 
eye. The archbishop of Alexandria was capable of distin- 
guishing how far he might boldly command, and where he 
must dexterously insinuate ; how long he might contend 
with power, and when he must withdraw from persecution ; 
and while he directed the thunders of the church against 
heresy and rebellion, he could assume, in the bosom of his 
own party, the flexible and indulgent temper of a prudent 
leader. The election of Athanasius has not escaped the 
reproach of irregularity and precipitation ; " but the pro- 
priety of his behavior conciliated the affections both of the 
clergy and of the people. The Alexandrians were impa- 
tient to rise in arms for the defence of an eloquent and 
liberal pastor. In his distress he always derived support, 
or at least consolation, from the faithful attachment of his 
parochial clergy ; and the hundred bishops of Egypt 
adhered, with unshaken zeal, to the cause of Athanasius. 
In the modest equipage which pride and policy would 
affect, he frequently performed the episcopal visitation of 
his provinces, from the mouth of the Nile to the confines 
of /Ethiopia ; familiarly conversing with the meanest of the 
populace, and humbly saluting the saints and hermits of 
the desert. 100 Nor was it only in ecclesiastical assemblies, 
among men whose education and manners were similar to 
his own, that Athanasius displayed the ascendancy of his 
genius. He appeared with easy and respectful firmness in 
the courts of princes ; and in the various turns of his pros- 

99 The irregular ordination of Athanasius was slightly mentioned in the councils 
which were held against him. See Philostorg. 1. ii. c. 11, and Godefroy, p. 71; 
but it can scarcely be supposed that the assembly of the bishops of Egypt would 
solemnly attest a 'public falsehood. Athanas. torn. i. p. 726. 

100 See the histories of the Fathers of the Desert, published by Rosweide ; and 
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn, vii., in the lives of Antony, Pachomius, &c. 
Athanasius himself, who did not disdain to compose the life of his friend 
Antonv, has carefully observed how often the holy monk deplored and pro- 
phesied the mischiefs of the Arian heresy. Atnanas, torn. ii. pp. 492, 498, &c. 



PERSECUTION AGAINST ATHA.NASIUS. 385 

perous and adverse fortune, he never lost the confidence 
of his friends, or the esteem of his enemies. 

In his youth, the primate of Egypt resisted 
the great Constantine, who had repeatedly sig- e agaJnst° n 
nified his will, that Arius should be restored to Athanasius. 
the Catholic communion. 101 * The emperor re- 
spected, and might forgive, this inflexible resolution, and 
the faction who considered Athanasius as their most for- 
midable enemy, were constrained to dissemble their hatred, 
and silently to prepare an indirect and distant assault. 
They scattered rumors and suspicions, represented the 
archbishop as a proud and oppressive tyrant, and boldly 
accused him of violating the treaty which had been ratified 
in the Nicene council, with the schismatic followers of 
Meletius. 102 j Athanasius had openly disapproved that igno- 
minious peace, and the emperor was disposed to believe 
that he had abused his ecclesiastical and civil power, to 
persecute those odious sectaries ; that he had sacrilegiously 
broken a chalice in one of their churches of Mareotis ; that 
he had whipped or imprisoned six of their bishops ; and 
that Arsenius, a seventh bishop of the same party, had 

101 At first Constantine threatened in speaking, but requested in writing, Ka 1 
dXpdtpDQ filv ?)7rei2.ei,ypd<pcov <5S, jjfyov. His letters gradually assumed a menacing 
tone; but while he required that the entrance of the church should be open to all, 
he avoided the odius name of Arius. Athanasius, like a skillful politician, has 
accurately marked these distinctions, (torn. i. p. 788), which allowed him some 
scope for excuse and delay. 

102 The Meletians in Egypt, like the Donatists in Africa, were produced by an 
episcopal quarrel which arose from the persecution. I have not leisure to pursue 
the obscure controversy, which seems to have been misrepresented by the par- 
tiality of Athanasius and the ignorance of Epiphanius. See Mosheim's General 
History of the Church, vol. i. p. 201 .f 



t * "St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria," says Voltaire, "would not admit 
t ' Arius, whom the emperor Constantine had sent thither, into the town, saying 
i( ' that 'Arius was excommunicated; that an excommunicated man ought no 

' ' longer to have either home or country ; that he could neither eat nor sleep 
' anywhere ; and that it was better to obey God than man.' "— E. 
f Melitus was bishop of Lycopolis, in the Thebaid, at the commencement of 
the fourth century. Not even the rigors of Diocletian's persecution could repress 
his polemical tendencies ; for, while in confinement, he had angry disputations 
with his fellow-prisoners. Having regained his liberty, he mixed up these senti- 
ments with his claim to exercise the authority of Peter, archbishop of Alexandria, 
who had fled from danger and sought safety in concealment. His evident object 
was, to displace and succeed the fugitive primate of Egvpt. Each had numerous 
adherents, and their fierce contests produced a schism, which for more than a 
century added to the other distractions of the church. Neander (vol. iii., sec. 2, 
edit. Bohn), has given an account of this heresy, correcting Epiphanius by docu- 
ments, which Maffei published from a MS. in the chapter of the cathedral at 
Verona.— Eng. Ch. 

f J"The two factions," says Voltaire, "alike employed artifice, fraud and 
h calumny according to the old and eternal usage. Constantine left them to 
tt dispute and cabal, for he had other occupations. It was at that time that this 
"good prince assassinated his son, his wife, and his nephew, the young Licinius, 

' the hope of the empire, who was not yet twelve years old."— E. 



386 THE SYNOD OF CAESAREA. 

been murdered, or at least, mutilated, by the cruel hand of 
the primate. 103 These charges, which affected his honor 
and his life, were referred by Constantine to his brother 
Dalmatius the censor, who resided at Antioch ; the synods 
of Caesarea and Tyre were successively convened ; and the 
bishops of the East were instructed to judge the cause of 
Athanasius before they proceeded to consecrate the new 
church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem. The primate 
might be conscious of his innocence ; but he was sensible 
that the same implacable spirit which had dictated the 
accusation, would direct the proceeding, and pronounce 
the sentence. He prudently declined the tribunal of his 
enemies ; despised the summons of the synod of Caesarea ; 
and, after a long and artful delay, submitted to the peremp- 
tory commands of the emperor, who threatened to punish 
his criminal disobedience if he refused to appear in the 
A D council of Tyre. 101 Before Athanasius, at the 

' 335 ' head of fifty Egyptian prelates, sailed from 
Alexandria, he had wisely secured the alliance of the 
Meletians ; and Arsenius himself, his imaginary victim, 
and his secret friend, was privately concealed in his train. 
The synod of Tyre was conducted by Eusebius of Caesarea, 
with more passion, and with less art, than his learning and 
experience might promise ; his numerous faction repeated 
the names of homicide and tyrant ; and their clamors were 
encouraged by the seeming patience of Athanasius, who 
expected the decisive moment to produce Arsenius alive 
and unhurt in the midst of the assembly. The nature of the 
other charges did not admit of such clear and satisfactory 
replies ; yet the archbishop was able to prove, that in the 
village, where he was accused of breaking a consecrated 
chalice, neither church, nor altar, nor chalice could really 
exist. The Arians, who had secretly determined the guilt 
and condemnation of their enemy, attempted, however, 

Ms The treatment of the six bishops is specified by Sozomen (1. ii. c. 25) ; but 
Athanasius himself, so copious on the subject of Arsenius and the chalice, leaves 
this grave accusation without a reply.* 

104 Athanas. torn. i. p. 788. Socrates, 1. i. c. 28. Sozomen, 1. ii. c. 25. The 
emperor, in his Epistle of Convocation (Euseb. in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 42), seems 
to prejudge some members of the clergy, and it was more than probable that the 
synod would apply those reproaches to Athanasius. 

* This grave charge, if made (and it rests entirely on the authority of Sozomen), 
seems to have been silently dropped by the parties themselves ; it is never alluded 
to in the subsequent investigations. From Sozomen himself, who gives the un- 
favorable report of the commission of inquiry sent to Egypt concerning the cup, 
it does not appear that they noticed this accusation of personal violence. — M. 



ATHANASIUS AND CONST ANTINE. 387 

to disguise their injustice by the imitation of judicial forms : 
the synod appointed an episcopal commission of six dele- 
gates to collect evidence on the spot ; and this measure, 
which was vigorously opposed by the Egyptian bishops, 
opened new scenes of violence and perjury. 105 After the 
return of the deputies from Alexandria, the majority of the 
council pronounced the final sentence of degradation and 
exile against the primate of Egypt. The decree, expressed 
in the fiercest language of malice and revenge, was com- 
municated to the emperor and the Catholic church ; and 
the bishops immediately resumed a mild and devout aspect, 
such as became their holy pilgrimage to the sepulchre of 
Christ. 106 

But the injustice of these ecclesiastical judges 
had not been countenanced by the submission, a. d. 336. ' 
or even by the presence, of Athanasius. He 
resolved to make a bold and dangerous experiment, whether 
the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth ; and before 
the final sentence could be pronounced at Tyre, the intrepid 
primate threw himself into a bark which was ready to hoist 
sail for the imperial city. The request of a formal audience 
might have been opposed or eluded ; but Athanasius con- 
cealed his arrival, watched the moment of Constantine's 
return from an adjacent villa, and boldly encountered his 
angry sovereign as he passed on horseback through the 
principal street of Constantinople. So strange an appari- 
tion excited his surprise and indignation ; and the guards 
were ordered to remove the importunate suitor ; but his 
resentment was subdued by involuntary respect ; and the 
haughty spirit of the emperor was awed by the courage 
and eloquence of a bishop, who implored his justice and 
awakened his conscience. 107 Constantine listened to the 
complaints of Athanasius with impartial and even gracious 
attention ; the members of the synod of Tyre were sum- 
moned to justify their proceedings ; and the arts of the 
Eusebian faction would have been confounded, if they had 
not aggravated the guilt of the primate, by the dexterous 
supposition of an unpardonable offence ; a criminal design 

105 See, in particular, the second Apology of Athanasius (torn. i. pp. 763-S08), 
and his Epistles to the Monks 'pp. 808-S66). They are justified by original and 
authentic documents ; but they would inspire more confidence if he appeared less 
innocent, and his enemies less absurd. 

106 Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. 1. iv. c. 41-47. 

107 Athanas. torn. i. p. S04. In a church dedicated to St. Athanasius, this 
situation would afford a better subject for a picture than most of the stories of 
miracles and martyrdoms. 



3 88 



ATHANASIUS RESTORED. 



to intercept and detain the corn-fleet of Alexandria, which 
supplied the subsistence of the new capital. 108 The emperor 
was satisfied that the peace of Egypt would be secured by 
the absence of a popular leader ; but he refused to fill the 
vacancy of the archiepiscopal throne ; and the sentence, 
which, after a long hesitation, he pronounced, was that of a 
jealous ostracism, rather than of an ignominious exile. In 
the remote province of Gaul, but in the hospitable court of 
Treves, Athanasius passed about twenty-eight months. 
The death of the emperor changed the face of public 
affairs ; and, amidst the general indulgence of a young 
Restoration, reign, the primate was restored to his country 
a. d. 338. by an honorable edict of the younger Constan- 
ts Athanas. torn. i. p. 729. Eunapius has related fin Vit. Sophist, pp. 36, 37, 
edit. Commelin,) a strange example of the cruelty and credulity of Constantine 
on a similar occasion. The eloquent Sopater, a Syrian philosopher, enjoyed his 
friendship, and provoked the resentment of Ablavius, his Praetorian prsefect. 
The corn-fleet was detained for want of a south wind ; the people of Constantinople 
were discontented; and Sopater was beheaded on a charge that he had bound 
the winds by the power of magic* Suidas adds, that Constantine wished to 
prove, by this execution, that he had absolutely renounced the superstition of the 
Gentiles. 

* In a note on page 295, it is stated, on the authority of Taylor, that Sopater 
was beheaded " for refusing the consolations of heathenism to'the conscience of 
" the royal murderer." This refusal would undoubtedly have excited the tyrant's 
anger ; but this Christian emperor was always ready, with or without a reason, 
to demonstrate his Christianity by the exercise of his brutality. 

Whether Constantine really believed in the Christian religion, as he professed, 
or whether he simply used the credulity of the masses to enhance his power, 
seems difficult to determine ; but it is not difficult to perceive that a more selfish, 
cruel, and wicked tyrant never disgraced the human race ; although we must 
admit that Christianity owes its establishment to his influence, and it cannot be 
denied that he has the honor of being the first Christian emperor. 

At forty years of age, as may be seen by reference to page 279, this discreet and 
Politic Christian, restored and enriched the temples of the gods. The council of 
Olympus was increased by the apotheosis of his father Constantius. Helios, or 

the Sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman 
mythology, was celebrated as the guide and 
patron of this Christian emperor. And the 
credulous were taught to believe that this 
glorious divinity held frequent converse with 
Constantine, and honored him with a hea- 
venly vision, announcing a long and victor- 
ious reign. He next perceived the figure of a 
cross in the heavens, — at least he so asserted, 
— and this emblem of peace on earth and good 
will to man, was promptly adopted by this 
Christian warrior, as the emblem of victory 
and conquest. Had his army contained Egyp- 
tian or Assyrian or Chaldean soldiers, whose 
religious zeal could have been inflamed by an 
appeal to their fanaticism, Constantine would 
doubtless have proved equal to the occasion, 
and espied, in the shifting clouds of the firma- 
ment, the horns of the sacred bull Apis, or the 
winged figures of Assyria, or the sacred onion 
represented by the lotus flower ; or, indeed, 
any other symbol that priestcraft has invented and superstition consecrated, to 
govern and control the credulous multitude. — E. 




Helios, or the Sun 
of Egypt, or the mysterious triad 



THE COUNCIL OF ANTIOCH. 389 

tine, who expressed a deep sense of the innocence and 
merit of his venerable guest 109 

The death of that prince exposed Athanasius 
to a second persecution ; and the feeble Con- Hi J, s f£ ond 
stantius, the sovereign of the East, soon became A. i). 341. 
the secret accomplice of the Eusebians. Ninety 
bishops of that seel or faction assembled at Antioch, under 
the specious pretence of dedicating the cathedral. They 
composed an ambiguous creed, which is faintly tinged with 
the colors of Semi-Arianism, and twenty-five canons, which 
still regulate the discipline of the orthodox Greeks. 110 It was 
decided, with some appearance of equity, that a bishop, de- 
prived by a synod, should not resume his episcopal functions, 
till he had been absolved by the judgment of an equal synod : 
the law was immediately applied to the case of Athanasius ; 
the council of Antioch pronounced, or rather confirmed, his 
degradation : a stranger, named Gregory, was seated on his 
throne, and Philagrius, 111 the prefect of Egypt, was instructed 
to support the new primate with the civil and military 
powers of the province. Oppressed by the conspiracy of 
the Asiatic prelates, Athanasius withdrew from Alexandria, 
and passed three na years as an exile and a suppliant on the 
holy threshold of the Vatican. 113 By the assiduous study of 

109 In his return he saw Constantius twice at Viminiacum, and at Cassarea in 
Cappadocia {Athanas. torn. i. p. 676). Tillemont supposes that Constantine in- 
troduced him to the meeting of the three royal brothers in Pannonia {Memoires 
Eccles. torn. viii. p. 69). 

no See Beveridge, Pandect, torn. i. pp. 429-552, and torn. ii. Annotation, p. 1S2. 
Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn, vi.' pp. 310-324. St. Hilary of Poitiers has mentioned 
this synod of Antioch with too much favor and respect'. He reckons ninety-seven 
bishops. 

111 This magistrate, so odious to Athanasius, is praised by Gregory Nazianzen, 
torn. i. Or at. xxi. pp. 390, 391. 

Saepe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem. 
For the credit of human nature, I am always pleased to discover some good 
qualities in those men whom party has represented as tyrants and monsters. 

112 The chronological difficulties which perplex the residence of Athanasius at 
Rome are strenuously agitated by Valesius {Obeservat. ad Calcem. torn. ii. Hist. 
Eccles. 1. i. c. 1-5), and Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn. viii. p. 674, &c). I have 
followed the simple hypothesis of Valesius, who allows only one journey, after 
the intrusion of Gregory.* 

H3l cannot forbear transcribing a judicious observation of Wetste'm,{-Proleg-omen. 
JV. T. p. 19) : Si tamen Historiam Ecclesiasticam velimus cousulere, patebit jam 
inde a seculo quarto, cum, ortis controversiis, ecclesiae Graeciae doctores in duas 
partes scinderentur, ingenio, eloquentia, numero, tantum non aequales, earn partem 
quae vincere cupiebat Romam confugisse, majestatemque pontificis comiter 
coluisse, eoque pacto oppressis per pontincem et episcopos Latinos adversariis 
praevaluisse, atque orthodoxiam in conciliis stabilivisse. Earn ob causam 
Athanasius, non sine, comitatu, Romam petiit, pluresque annos ibi haesit. 

* Clinton has removed all obscurity on this subject. Athanasius arrived at Rome 
in the beginning of May, 341. He remained there three years, and then went to 
Milan and Gaul. Thence he accompanied Osius, in 347, to the synod of Sardica, 
and returned to Alexandria in the middle of the year 349. {Fasti Rom. 1, 403, 411, 
415.)— Eng. Ch. 



\ 



390 THE COUNCIL OF SARDICA. 

the Latin language, he soon qualified himself to negotiate 
with the western clergy ; his decent flattery swayed and 
directed the haughty Julius : the Roman pontiff was per- 
suaded to consider his appeal as the peculiar interest of the 
apostolic see, and his innocence was unanimously declared 
in a council of fifty bishops of Italy. At the end of three 
years, the primate was summoned to the court of Milan by 
the emperor Constans, who, in the indulgence of unlawful 
pleasures, still professed a lively regard for the orthodox 
faith. The cause of truth and justice was promoted by the 
influence of gold, 114 and the ministers of Constans advised 
their sovereign to require the convocation of an ecclesiasti- 
cal assembly, which might act as the representatives of the 
A D „ 6 Catholic church. Ninety-four bishops of the 
West, seventy-six bishops of the East, en- 
countered each other at Sardica, on the verge of the two 
empires, but in the dominions of the protector of Athanasius. 
Their debates soon degenerated into hostile altercations ; 
the Asiatics, apprehensive for their personal safety, retired 
to Philippopolis in Thrace ; and the rival synods reciprocally 
hurled their spiritual thunders against their enemies, whom 
they piously condemned as the enemies of the true God.* 
Their decrees were published and ratified in their respective 
provinces : and Athanasius, who in the West was revered 
as a saint, was exposed as a criminal to the abhorrence of 

114 Philostorgius, 1. iii. c. 12. If any corruption was used to promote the interest 
of religion, an advocate of Athanasius might justify or excuse this questionable 
conduct, by the example of Cato and Sydney; the former of whom is said to have 
given, and the latter to have received, a bribe in the cause of liberty. 

* These Christians all professed to believe in the same bible, and all worshiped 
the same God. They were " wise as serpents," but not quite as " harmless as 
" doves." On the contrary, they were bigoted, cruel and sanguinary, and the 
weaker party of Christians wisely fled to escape the holy zeal and fury of the 
stronger Christian sect. Jesus said, " Love your enemies," and each sect piously 
afforded an opportunity for its opponents to exercise their love. But there is 
nothing in the example or teachings of Jesus to warrant this atrocious, sectarian 
warfare, which has so often deluged the earth with blood. Voltaire has truly 
shown that, "Jesus was born under the Mosaic law; he was circumcised 
" according to that law ; he fulfilled all its precepts ; he kept all its feasts ; he 
" did not reveal the mystery of his incarnation ; he never told the Jews he was 
" born of a virgin ; he received John's blessing in the waters of the Jordan, a 
" ceremony to which various of the Jews submitted ; but he never baptised any 
" one ; he never spoke of the seven sacraments ; he instituted no ecclesiastical 
" hierarchy during his life. He concealed from his contemporaries that he was 
" the Son of God, begotten from all eternity, consubstantial with his Father; that 
" the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son. He did not say that 
" his person was composed of two natures and two wills. He left these mysteries 
" to be announced to men in the course of time, by those who were to be enlight- 
" ened by the Holy Ghost. So long as he lived, he departed in nothing from the 
" law of his fathers. In the eyes of men, he was no more than a just man, pleasing 
" to God, persecuted by the envious, and condemned to death by prejudiced magis- 
" trates. He left his holy church, established by him, to do all the rest."— E. 



DISCORD IN THE CHURCH. 39I 

the East. 115 The council of Sardica reveals the first symptoms 
of discord and schism between the Greek and Latin churches 
which were separated by the accidental difference of faith, 
and the permanent distinction of language. 

During his second exile in the West, Athan- 
asius was frequently admitted to the Imperial rest o r n a ^ ion 
presence ; at Capua, Lodi, Milan, Verona, Padua, a. d. 349/ 
Aquileia, and Treves. The bishop of the diocese 
usually assisted at these interviews ; the master of the offices 
stood before the veil or curtain of the sacred apartment ; 
and the uniform moderation of the primate might be attested 
by these respectable witnesses, to whose evidence he 
solemnly appeals. 116 Prudence would undoubtedly suggest 
the mild and respectful tone that became a subject and a 
bishop. In these familiar conferences with the sovereign of 
the West, Athanasius might lament the error of Constantius, 
but he boldly arraigned the guilt of his eunuchs and his 
Arian prelates ; deplored the distress and danger of the 
Catholic church ; and excited Constans to emulate the zeal 
and glory of his father. The emperor declared his resolu- 
tion of employing the troops and treasures of Europe in the 
orthodox cause ; and signified, by a concise and peremptory 
epistle to his brother Constantius, that unless he consented 
to the immediate restoration of Athanasius, he himself, with 
a fleet and army, would seat the archbishop on the throne 
of Alexandria. 117 But this religious war, so horrible to nature, 
w T as prevented by the timely compliance of Constantius ; and 
the emperor of the East condescended to solicit a reconcili- 
ation with a subject whom he had injured. Athanasius 
waited with decent pride, till he had received three succes- 
sive epistles full of the strongest assurances of the protection, 
the favor and the esteem of his sovereign ; who invited him 
to resume his episcopal seat, and who added the humiliating 
precaution of engaging his principal ministers to attest the 
sincerity of his intentions. They were manifested in a still 
more public manner, by the strict orders which were 

115 The canon which allows appeals to the Roman pontiffs has almost raised 
the council of Sardica to the dignity of a general council ; and its acts have been 
ignorantlyor artfully confounded with those of the Nicene synod. See Tillemont, 
torn. vii. p. 689, and Geddes' 'Tracts, vol. ii. pp. 419-460. 

us As Athanasius dispersed secret invectives against Constantius (see the 
Epistle to the Monks), at the same time that he assured him of his profound 
respect, we might distrust the professions of the archbishop. Tom. i. p. 677. 

11" Notwithstanding the discreet silence of Athanasius, and the manifest for- 
gery of a letter inserted by Socrates, these menaces are proved by the unques- 
tionable evidence of Lucifer of Cagliari, and even of Constantius himself. See 
Tillemont, torn. viii. p. 693. 



392 FIRMNESS OF ATHANASIUS. 

despatched into Egypt to recall the adherents of Athanas- 
ius, to restore their privileges, to proclaim their innocence, 
and to erase from the public registers the illegal proceedings 
which had been obtained during the prevalence of the 
Eusebian faction. After every satisfaction and security had 
been given, which justice or even delicacy could require, 
the primate proceeded, by slow journeys, through the prov- 
inces of Thrace, Asia, and Syria ; and his progress was 
marked by the abject homage of the Oriental bishops, who 
excited his contempt without deceiving his penetration. 118 
At Antioch he saw the emperor Constantius ; sustained, 
with modest firmness, the embraces and protestations of his 
master, and eluded the proposal of allowing the Arians a 
single church at Alexandria, by claiming, in the other cities 
of the empire, a similar toleration for his own party ; a reply 
which might have appeared just and moderate in the mouth 
of an independent prince. The entrance of the archbishop 
into his capital was a triumphal procession ; absence and 
persecution had endeared him to the Alexandrians; his 
authority, which he exercised with rigor, was more firmly 
established ; and his fame was diffused from Ethiopia to 
Britain, over the whole extent of the Christian world. 119 

But the subject who has reduced his prince to 
esentment ^ necess i tv f dissembling, can never expect a 
C A nS D U ' th i 1s ' smcere an d lasting forgiveness, and the tragic 
fate of Constans soon deprived Athanasius of a 
powerful and generous protector. The civil war between 
the assassin and the only surviving brother of Constans, 
which afflicted the empire above three years, secured an 
interval of repose to the Catholic church ; and the two con- 
tending parties were desirous to conciliate the friendship of 
a bishop, who, by the weight of his personal authority, might 
determine the fluctuating resolutions of an important prov- 

li» I have always entertained some doubts concerning the retraction of Ursacius 
and Valens {At/ianas. torn. i. p. 776). Their epistles to Julius, bishop of Rome, 
and to Athanasius himself, are of so different a cast from each other, that they 
cannot both be genuine. The one speaks the language of criminals who confess 
their guilt and infamy ; the other of enemies, who solicit on equal terms an 
honorable reconciliation.* 

no The circumstances of his second return maybe collected from Athanasius 
himself, torn. i. pp. 769, and 822, 843. Socrates, 1. ii. c. 18. Sozomen, 1. iii. c. 19. 
Theodoret, 1. ii. c. 11, 12. Philostorgius , 1. iii. c. 12. 



* I cannot quite comprehend the ground of Gibbon's doubts. Athanasius dis- 
tinctly asserts the fact of their retraction. (Athan. Op. i. p. 124, edit. Benedict.) 
The epistles are apparently translations from the Latin, of, in fact, more than the 
substance of the epistles. That to Athanasius is brief, almost abrupt. Their 
retraction is likewise mentioned in the address of the orthodox bishops of 
Rimini to Constantius. Athan. de Synodis. Op. t. p. 723.— Milman. 



ANGER OF CONSTANTIUS. 393 

ince. He gave audience to the ambassadors of the tyrant, 
with whom he was afterward accused of holding a secret 
correspondence ; 120 and the emperor Constantius repeatedly 
assured his dearest father, the most reverend Athanasius, 
that, notwithstanding the malicious rumors which were cir- 
culated by their common enemies, he had inherited the 
sentiments, as well as the throne of his deceased brother. 121 
Gratitude and humanity would have disposed the primate 
of Egypt to deplore the untimely fate of Constans, and to 
abhor the guilt of Magnentius ; but as he clearly understood 
that the apprehensions of Constantius were his only safe- 
guard, the fervor of his prayers for the success of the 
righteous cause might perhaps be somewhat abated. The 
ruin of Athanasius was no longer contrived by the obscure 
malice of a few bigoted or angry bishops, who abused the 
authority of a credulous monarch. »The monarch himself 
avowed the resolution, which he had so long suppressed, of 
avenging his private injuries ; 122 and the first winter after his 
victory, which he passed at Aries, was employed against an 
enemy more odious to him than the vanquished tyrant of 
Gaul. 

If the emperor had capriciously decreed the Counci]s of 
death of the most eminent and virtuous citizen Aries and 
of the republic, the cruel order would have been A# d! 353-355. 
executed without hesitation, by the ministers of 
open violence, or of specious injustice. The caution, the 
delay, the difficulty with which he proceeded in the con- 
demnation and punishment of a popular bishop, discovered 
to the world that the privileges of the church had already 
revived a sense of order and freedom in the Roman govern- 
ment. The sentence which was pronounced in the synod 
of Tyre, and subscribed by a large majority of the eastern 
bishops, had never been expressly repealed ; and as Athan- 
asius had been once degraded from his episcopal dignity by 
the judgment of his brethren, every subsequent act might be 
considered as irregular, and even criminal. But the memory 
of the firm and effectual support which the primate of Egypt 

120 Athanasius (torn. i. pp. 677, 678) defends his innocence by pathetic com- 
plaints, solemn assertions, and specious arguments. He admits that letters had 
been forged in his name, but he requests that his own secretaries and those of 
the tyrant may be examined, whether those letters had been written by the 
former, or received by the latter. 

121 Athanas. torn. i. pp. 825-844. 

122 Athanas. torn. i. p. 861. Theodoret, 1. ii. c. 16. The emperor declared, that he 
was more desirous to subdue Athanasius, than he had been to vanquish Magnen- 
tius or Svlvanus. 



394 BRIBERY AT ARLES AND MILAN. 

had derived from the attachment of the western church, en- 
gaged Constantius to suspend the execution of the sentence 
till he had obtained the concurrence of the Latin bishops. 
Two years were consumed in ecclesiastical negotiations ; 
and the important cause between the emperor and one of 
his subjects, was solemnly debated, first in the synod of 
Aries, and afterward in the great council of Milan, 123 which 
consisted of above three hundred bishops. Their integrity 
was gradually undermined by the arguments of the Arians, 
the dexterity of the eunuchs, and the pressing solicitations 
of a prince, who gratified his revenge at the expense of his 
dignity ; and exposed his own passions, whilst he influenced 
those of the clergy. Corruption, the most infallible symptom 
of constitutional liberty, was successfully practiced ; honors, 
gifts, and immunities, were offered and accepted as the price 
of an episcopal vote; 12 * and the condemnation of the Alex- 
andrian primate was artfully represented as the only measure 
which could restore the peace and union of the Catholic 
church. The friends of Athanasius were not, however, 
wanting to their leader, or to their cause. With a manly 
spirit, which the sanctity of their character rendered less 
dangerous, they maintained, in public debate, and in private 
conference with the emperor, the eternal obligation of re- 
ligion and justice. They declared, that neither the hope 
of his favor, nor the. fear of his displeasure, should prevail 
on them to join in the condemnation of an absent, an inno- 
cent, a respectable brother. 125 They affirmed, with apparent 
reason, that the illegal and obsolete decrees of the council 
of Tyre had long since been tacitly abolished by the imperial 
edicts, the honorable re-establishment of the archbishop of 
Alexandria, and the silence or recantation of his most 
clamorous adversaries. They alleged, that his innocence 
had been attested by the unanimous bishops of Egypt, and 

123 The affairs of the council of Milan are so imperfectly and erroneously related 
by the Greek writers, that we must rejoice in the supply of some letters of 
Eusebius, extracted by Baronius from the archives of the church of Varcellae, 
and of an old life of Dionysius of Milan, published by Bollandus. See Baronius, 
A. D. 355, and Tillemont, torn. vii. p. 1415. 

124 The honors, presents, feasts, which seduced so many bishops, are mentioned 
with indignation by those who were too pure or too proud to accept them. " We 
" combat" says Hilary of Poitiers "against Constantius the Antichrist; who 
" strokes the belly* instead of scourging the back ; " qui non dorsa caedit ; sed 
ventrem palpat. Hilarius contra Constant, c. 5, p. 1240. 

125 Something of this opposition is mentioned by Ammianus (xv. 7), who had a 
very dark and superficial knowledge of ecclesiastical history. Liberius * * * 
perseveranter renitebatur, nee visum hominem, nee auditum damnare, nefas 
ultimum saepe exclamans ; aperte scilicet recalcitrans Imperatoris arbitrio. Id 
enim ille Athanasio semper infestus, &c. 

*St. Paul { Titus i, 12) classes these "slow bellies" with " liars and evil beasts."— E. 



CONDEMNATION OF ATHANASIUS. 395 

had been acknowledged in the councils of Rome and 
Sardica, 126 by the impartial judgment of the Latin church. 
They deplored the hard condition of Athanasius, who, after 
enjoying so many years his seat, his reputation, and the 
seeming confidence of his sovereign, was again called upon 
to confute the most groundless and extravagant accusations. 
Their language was specious ; their conduct was honorable ; 
but in this long and obstinate contest, which fixed the eyes 
of the whole empire on a single bishop, the ecclesiastical 
factions were prepared to sacrifice truth and justice to the 
more interesting object of defending, or removing, the in- 
trepid champion of the Nicene faith. The Arians still 
thought it prudent to disguise in ambiguous language, 
their real sentiments and designs : but the orthodox bishops 
armed with the favor of the people, and the decrees of a 
general council, insisted on every occasion, and particularly 
at Milan, that their adversaries should purge themselves 
from the suspicion of heresy, before they presumed to 
arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius. 127 

But the voice of reason (if reason was indeed Condemna 
on the side of Athanasius) was silenced by the tion of 
clamors of a factious or venal majority ; and the ^o.^-rf' 
councils of Aries and Milan were not dissolved, 
till the archbishop of Alexandria had been solemnly con- 
demned and deposed by the judgment of the western, as 
well as of the eastern, church. The bishops who had op- 
posed, were required to subscribe, the sentence, and to 
unite in religious communion with the suspected leaders of 
the adverse party. A formulary of consent was transmitted 
by the messengers of state to the absent bishops ; and all 
those who refused to submit their private opinion to the 
public and inspired wisdom of the councils of Aries and 
Milan were immediately banished by the emperor, who 
affected to execute the decrees of the Catholic church. 
Among those prelates who led the honorable band of con- 
fessors and exiles, Liberius of Rome, Osius of Cordova, 
Paulinus of Treves, Dionysius of Milan, Eusebius of Ver- 
cellae, Lucifer of Cagliari, and Hilary of Poitiers, may 
deserve to be particularly distinguished. The eminent 

126 More properly by the orthodox part of the council of Sardica. If the bishops 
of both parties had fairly voted, the division would have been 94 to 76. M. de 
Tillemont (see torn. viii. pp. 1147-1158) is justly suprised that so small a majority 
should have proceeded so vigorously against their adversaries, the principal 
of whom they immediately deposed. 

127 Sulp. Severus in Hist. Sacra. 1. ii. p. 412. 



39^ EXILED PRELATES. 

station of Liberius, who governed the capital of the empire ; 
the personal merit and long experience of the venerable 
Osius, who was revered as the favorite of the great Con- 
stantine, and the father of the Nicene faith ; placed those 
prelates at the head of the Latin church : and their example, 
either of submission or resistance, would probably be imi- 
tated by the episcopal crowd. But the repeated attempts 
of the emperor, to seduce or to intimidate the bishops of 
Rome and Cordova, were for some time ineffectual. The 
Spaniard declared himself ready to suffer under Constantius, 
as he had suffered threescore years before under his grand- 
father Maximian. The Roman, in the presence of his 
sovereign, asserted the innocence of Athanasius, and his 
own freedom. When he was banished to Beraea in Thrace, 
he sent back a large sum which had been offered for the 
accommodation of his journey ; and insulted the court of 
Milan by the haughty remark, that the emperor and his 
eunuchs might want that gold to pay their soldiers and 
their bishops. 128 The resolution of Liberius and Osius was 
at length subdued by the hardships of exile and confine- 
ment. The Roman pontiff purchased his return by some 
criminal compliances ; and afterward expiated his guilt by 
a seasonable repentance. Persuasion and violence were 
employed to extort the reluctant signature of the decrepit 
bishop of Cordova, whose strength was broken, and whose 
faculties were perhaps impaired, by the weight of a hundred 
years ; and the insolent triumph of the Arians provoked 
some of the orthodox party to treat with inhuman severity 
the character, or rather the memory, of an unfortunate old 
man, to whose former services Christianity itself was so 
deeply indebted. 129 

The fall of Liberius and Osius reflected a 
brighter lustre on the firmness of those bishops 
who still adhered with unshaken fidelity to the cause of 
Athanasius and religious truth. The ingenious malice of 
their enemies had deprived them of the benefit of mutual 
comfort and advice, separated those illustrious exiles into dis- 
tant provinces, and carefully selected the most inhospitable 

1M The exile of Liberius is mentioned by Ammianus, xv. 7. See Theodoret, 1. ii. 
c. 16. Athanas. torn. i. pp. 834-837. Hilar. Fragment i. 

129 The life of Osius is collected by Tillemont (torn. vii. pp. 524-561), who in the 
most extravagant terms first admires, and then reprobates, the bishop of Cordova. 
In the midst of their lamentations on his fall, the prudence of Athanasius may be 
distinguished from the blind and intemperate zeal of Hilary. 



THIRD EXPULSION OF ATHANASIUS. 397 

spots of a great empire. 130 Yet they soon experienced that 
the deserts of Libya, and the most barbarous tracts of Cap- 
padocia were less inhospitable, than the residence of those 
cities in which an Arian bishop could satiate, without re- 
straint, the exquisite rancor of theological hatred. 131 * Their 
consolation was derived from the consciousness of rectitude 
and independence ; from the applause, the visits, the letters, 
and the liberal alms of their adherents ; 132 and from the 
satisfaction which they soon enjoyed of observing the intes- 
tine divisions of the adversaries of the Nicene faith. Such 
was the nice and capricious taste of the emperor Constan- 
tius ; and so easily was he offended by the slightest devia- 
tion from his imaginary standard of Christian truth, that he 
persecuted, with equal zeal, those who defended the con- 
substantiality, those who asserted the similar substance, and 
those who denied the likeness, of the Son of God. Three 
bishops, degraded and banished for those adverse opinions, 
might possibly meet in the same place of exile ; and ac- 
cording to the difference of their temper, might either pity 
or insult the blind enthusiasm of their antagonists, whose 
present sufferings would never be compensated by future 
happiness. 

The disgrace and exile of the orthodox Third 
bishops of the West were designed as so many expulsion of 
preparatory steps to the ruin of Athanasius him- Atl }ro m slus 
self. 133 Six-and-twenty months had elapsed, dur- Alexandria, 
ing which the imperial court secretly labored, by A * D ' 356 ' 
the most insidious arts, to remove him from Alexandria, and 
to withdraw the allowance which supplied his popular 
liberality. But when the primate of Egypt, deserted and 
proscribed by the Latin church, was left destitute of any 

iso The confessors of the West were successively banished to the deserts of 
Arabia or Thebais, the lonely places of Mount Taurus, the wildest parts of 
Phrygia, which were in the possession of the impious Montanists, &c. When the 
heretic ^Etius was too favorably entertained at Mopsuestia in Cilicia, the place 
of his exile was changed, by the advice of Acacius, to Amblada, a district inhab- 
ited by savages, and infested by war and pestilence. Philostorg. 1. v. c. 2. 

131 See the cruel treatment and strange obstinacy of Eusebius, in his own letters, 
published by Baronius, A. D. 356, No. 92-102. 

132 Casterum exules satis constat, totius orbis studiis celebratos, pecuniasque 
eis in sumptum affatim congestas, legationibus quoque eos plebis Catholicas ex 
omnibus fere provinces frequentatos. Sulp. Sev. Hist. Sacra, p. 414. Athanas. 
torn. i. pp. 836, 840. 

133 Ample materials for the history of this third persecution of Athanasius may 
be found in his own works. See particularly his very able Apology to Constantiu's 
(torn. i. p. 673), his first Apology for his flight (p. 701), his proli'x Epistle to the 
Solitaries (p. 808), and the original protest of the people of Alexandria against 
the violences committed by Syrianus (p. 866). Sozomen (1. iv. c. 9) has thrown 
into the narrative two or three luminous and important circumstances. 

* " These things I command you," said Jesus, " that ye love one another."— E. 



398 THE CHURCH OF ST. THEONAS ASSAULTED. 

foreign support, Constantius dispatched two of his secretaries 
with a verbal commission to announce and execute the order 
of his banishment. As the justice of the sentence was 
publicly avowed by the whole party, the only motive which 
could restrain Constantius from giving his messengers the 
sanction of a written mandate, must be imputed to his doubt 
of the event ; and to a sense of the danger to which he might 
expose the second city, and the most fertile province, of the 
empire, if the people should persist in the resolution of de- 
fending, by force of arms, the innocence of their spiritual 
father. Such extreme caution afforded Athanasius a spe- 
cious pretence respectfully to dispute the truth of an order, 
which he could not reconcile, either with the equity, or with 
the former declarations, of his gracious master. The civil 
powers of Egypt found themselves inadequate to the task 
of persuading or compelling the primate to abdicate his 
episcopal throne ; and they were obliged to conclude a 
treaty with the popular leaders of Alexandria, by which it 
was stipulated, that all proceedings and all hostilities should 
be suspended till the emperor's pleasure had been more 
distinctly ascertained. By this seeming moderation, the 
Catholics were deceived into a false and fatal security ; 
while the legions of the Upper Egypt, and of Libya, ad- 
vanced, by secret orders and hasty marches, to besiege, or 
rather to surprise, a capital habituated to sedition, and in- 
flamed by religious zeal. 134 The position of Alexandria, 
between the sea and the lake Mareotis, facilitated the ap- 
proach and landing of the troops ; who were introduced 
into the heart of the city, before any effectual measures 
could be taken either to shut the gates, or to occupy the 
important posts of defence. At the hour of midnight, 
twenty-three days after the signature of the treaty, Syrianus, 
duke of Egypt, at the head of five thousand soldiers, armed 
and prepared for an assault, unexpectedly invested the 
church of St. Theonas, where the archbishop, with a part of 
his clergy and people, performed their nocturnal devotions. 
The doors of the sacred edifice yielded to the impetuosity 
of the attack, which was accompanied with every horrid 
circumstance of tumult and bloodshed ; but, as the bodies 
of the slain, and the fragments of military weapons, remained 

134 Athanasius had lately sent for Antony, and some of his chosen monks. 
They descended from their mountain, announced to the Alexandrians the sanc- 
tity of Athanasius, and were honorably conducted by the archbishop as far as the 
gates of the city. Athanas. torn. ii. pp. 491, 492. See likewise Rufinus, iii. 164, 
in Vit. Pair. p. 254. 



TUMULT IN ALEXANDRIA. 399 

the next day an unexceptionable evidence in the possession 
of the Catholics, the enterprise of Syrianus may be con- 
sidered as a successful irruption, rather than as an absolute 
conquest. The other churches of the city were profaned by 
similar outrages ; and, during at least four months, Alex- 
andria was exposed to the insults of a licentious army, 
stimulated by the ecclesiastics of a hostile faction. Many 
of the faithful were killed, who may deserve the name of 
martyrs, if their deaths were neither provoked nor revenged ; 
bishops and presbyters were treated with cruel ignominy ; 
consecrated virgins were stripped naked, scourged, and 
violated ; the houses of wealthy citizens were plundered ; 
and, under the mask of religious zeal, lust, avarice, and 
private resentment, were gratified with impunity, and even 
with applause.* The Pagans of Alexandria, who still formed 
a numerous and discontented party, were easily persuaded 
to desert a bishop whom they feared and esteemed. The 
hopes of some peculiar favors, and the apprehension of 
being involved in the general penalties of rebellion, engaged 

* While admitting the truth and fidelity of this dark and dismal picture of early 
Christian brutality, Dean Milman, the eminent Christian apologist, in the preface 
to his edition oi'Gibboivs Rome, attempts to criticise the great historian, and 
complains that Gibbon, by commencing his history "below the apostolic times," 
and exposing the failings and follies of the succeeding ages, threw a shadow of 
doubt and suspicion upon the primitive period of Christianity. But in reality 
Gibbon has recorded, with unquestioned ability and singular impartiality, the 
true history of the establishment of Christianity. It is foreign to the subject to 
discuss the teachings of Jesus, and the results that should have followed from 
those teachings. It was the province of the historian to record facts in the order 
of their occurrence, and the accuracy with which Gibbon has performed this task, 
has made his history the acknowledged authority upon the subject. 

Jesus was a reformer. He devoted his life to doing good. He labored among 
the poor, the ignorant, and the debased. He strove to elevate the human race, 
and sacrificed his life in noble efforts to achieve that end. He lived with his 
disciples on terms of perfect equality. They had all things in common. Com- 
munism was the doctrine his example has illustrated ; and love and mercy and 
justice and human brotherhood, the principles he sought to inculcate. 

His doctrines, however, have no relation to the Church of Rome, which was 
established for other purposes than the welfare of mankind, and which, even 
in its infancy, strove to attain supreme power and absolute dominion. It is the 
history of this church which Gibbon has written, and if the picture be forbidding 
and repulsive, we must not blame the historian for recording the unwelcome truth. 

As a matter of fact, Christianity, from the period of its inception, has consisted, 
and still consists, in the observance of certain forms, and in the belief of certain 
dogmas. These forms and these dogmas have descended to us, not from Jesus 
of Nazareth, but from the bishops and early fathers of the church. 

In regard to the fundamental principles of morality, all sects of Christians, 
Pagans, and infidels, agree. The Christians differ from each other and from 
freethinkers, in their professed belief in certain creeds ; which creeds have no 
relation to morality, and have no affinity with human reason. 

These cherished but incomprehensible dogmas, which have survived the dark 
ages in which they originated, are composed of an incongruous conglomerate of 
ideas, of which the philosophy of Plato, the Pagan Mythology, and vague Jewish 
traditions, form the principal ingredients. It was from this "mass of allegory and 
fable — from the contentions of angry synods, and the wranglings and discussions 
of corrupt councils,— that creeds were born. It was here that Arianism, Tritheism, 



400 GEORGE OF CAPPADOCIA. 

them to promise their support to the destined successor of 
Athanasius, the famous George of Cappadocia. The usurper, 
after receiving the consecration of an Arian synod, was 
placed on the episcopal throne by the arms of Sebastian, 
who had been appointed count of Egypt for the execution 
of that important design. In the use, as well as in the 
acquisition of power, the tyrant George disregarded the 
laws of religion, of justice, and of humanity; and the same 
scenes of violence and scandal which had been exhibited in 
the capital, were repeated in more than ninety episcopal 
cities of Egypt. Encouraged by success, Constantius 
ventured to approve the conduct of his ministers. By a 
public and passionate epistle, the emperor congratulates 
the deliverance of Alexandria from a popular tyrant, who 
deluded his blind votaries by the magic of his eloquence ; 
expatiates on the virtues and piety of the most reverend 
George, the elected bishop ; and aspires, as the patron and 
benefactor of the city, to surpass the fame of Alexander him- 
self. But he solemnly declares his unalterable resolution, 
to pursue with fire and sword the seditious adherents of the 
wicked Athanasius, who, by flying from justice, has con- 
fessed his guilt, and escaped the ignominious death which 
he had so often deserved. 135 

135 Athanas. torn. i. p. 694. The emperor, or his Arian sectaries, while they 
express their resentment, betray their fears and esteem of Athanasius. 



fc~-- 



and Sabellianism originated ; and the seeds of faction and sectarianism were 
implanted, which have since germinated and blossomed into the numerous con- 
flicting sects which now perplex the earnest enquirer. 

When the Church of Rome became 
supreme, and the Nicene creed — the 
creed of Athanasius — ruled the Euro- 
pean world ; when humanity was en- 
chained by superstition and fanaticism, 
— those twin jailors of the mind, — free- 
dom was expelled, reason was dethroned, 
and the light of intellect was quenched 
in the Cimmerian gloom of faith. The 
dark centuries of Catholicism succeeded 
the learning and civilization developed 
under the freedom and toleration of 
ancient Paganism. Superstition gov- 
erned the human intellect. The Holy 
Inquisition was established. The stake 
claimed the noblest and bravest for its 
victims ; and the victory of the cross was 
illumined and celebrated by the light of 
burning fagots and the groans of dying 
heretics. It was then that Protestantism 
Knchained by Fanaticism and Supentition. ^ born and with | t re tumed freedom 

and knowledge to bless and elevate humanity. The art of printing was discov- 
ered, thought was stimulated, creeds were questioned, and reason again resumed 
her benignant sway. Philosophy and superstition once more joined issue and 
struggled for supremacy in modern Europe, as reason and faith— as Paganism 
and Christianity— had formerly contended for victory in ancient Rome.— E. 




RETIREMENT OF ATHANASIUS. 4OI 

Athanasius had indeed escaped from the most _.-■... . 

, 111 r i His behavior. 

imminent dangers ; and the adventures of that 
extraordinary man deserve and fix our attention. On the 
memorable night when the church of St. Theonas was in- 
vested by the troops of Syrianus, the archbishop, seated on 
his throne, expected, with calm and intrepid dignity, the 
approach of death. While the public devotion was inter- 
rupted by shouts of rage and cries of terror, he animated 
his trembling congregation to express their religious con- 
fidence, by chanting one of the psalms of David, which 
celebrates the triumph of the God of Israel over the haughty 
and imperious tyrant of Egypt. The doors were at length 
burst open ; a cloud of arrows was discharged among the 
people ; the soldiers, with drawn swords, rushed forward 
into the sanctuary ; and the dreadful gleam of their armor 
was reflected by the holy luminaries which burnt round the 
altar. 136 Athanasius still rejected the pious importunity of 
the monks and presbyters, who were attached to his person ; 
and nobly refused to desert his episcopal station, till he had 
dismissed in safety the last of the congregation. The dark- 
ness and tumult of the night favored the retreat of the arch- 
bishop ; and though he was oppressed by the waves of an 
agitated multitude, though he was thrown to the ground, 
and left without sense or motion, he still recovered his un- 
daunted courage, and eluded the eager search of the soldiers, 
who were instructed by their Arian guides, that the head of 
Athanasius would be the most acceptable present to the 
emperor. From that moment the primate of Egypt disap- 
peared from the eyes of his enemies, and remained above six 
years concealed in impenetrable obscurity. 137 

The despotic power of his implacable enemy 
filled the whole extent of the Roman world; ^D^IEfe 
and the exasperated monarch had endeavored, 
by a very pressing epistle to the Christian princes of Ethi- 
opia,* to exclude Athanasius from the most remote and 

136 These minute circumstances are curious, as they are literally transcribed 
from the protest, which was publicly presented three days afterwards by the 
Catholics of Alexandria. See Athanas. torn. 1, p. 867. 

13" The Jansenists have often compared Athanasius and Arnauld, and have 
expatiated with pleasure on the faith and zeal, the merit and exile, of those 
celebrated doctors. This concealed parallel is very dexterously managed by 
the Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de ?ovien. torn. i. p. 130. 

* The princes were called Aeizanas and Saiazanas. Athanasius calls them the 
kings of Axum (01 kv Aii^ov/nei Tvpavvot). In the superscription of his letter, 
Constantius gives c them no title, Ni/c^r^f Kovcruvrioc fieyioroc ae^aarog 
Ki^ava Kn\ Ha^ava. Mr. Salt, during his first journey in Ethiopia (in 1806), 



402 THE EGYPTIAN MONKS. 

sequestered regions of the earth. Counts, praefects, tribunes, 
whole armies, were successively employed to pursue a 
bishop and a fugitive ; the vigilance of the civil and mili- 
tary powers was excited by the imperial edicts ; liberal 
rewards were promised to the man who should produce 
Athanasius, either alive or dead ; and the most severe 
penalties were denounced against those who should dare 
to protect the public enemy. 138 But the deserts of Thebais 
were now peopled by a race of wild, yet submissive fanatics, 
who preferred the commands of their abbot to the laws of 
their sovereign. The numerous disciples of Antony and 
Pachomius received the fugitive primate as their father, 
admired the patience and humility with which he conformed 
to their strictest institutions, collected every word which 
dropped from his lips as the genuine effusions of inspired 
wisdom ; and persuaded themselves, that their prayers, 
their fasts, and their vigils, were less meritorious than the 
zeal which they expressed, and the dangers which they 
braved, in the defence of truth and innocence. 139 The mon- 
asteries of Egypt were seated in lonely and desolate places, 
on the summit of mountains, or in the islands of the Nile ; 
and the sacred horn or trumpet of Tabenne was the well- 
known signal which assembled several thousand robust and 
determined monks, who, for the most part, had been the 
peasants of the adjacent country. When their dark retreats 
were invaded by a military force, which it was impossible 
to resist, they silently stretched out their necks to the 
executioner ; and supported their national character, that 
tortures could never wrest from an Egyptian the confession 
of a secret which he was resolved not to disclose. 140 The 

IM Hinc jam toto orbe profugus Athanasius, nee ullus ei tutus ad latendum 
supererat locus. Tribuni, praefecti, comites, exercitus quoque, ad pervestigandum 
eum moventur edictis Imperialibus ; praemia delatoribus proponuntur, si quis 
turn vivum, si id minus, caput certe Athanasii detulisset. Rufin. 1. i. c. 16. 

i"9 Gregor. Nazianzen. torn. i. Orat. xxi. pp. 384, 3S5. See Tillemont, Mem. 
Eccles. torn. vii. pp 176-410. 820-SS0. 

no Et nulla tormentorem vis invenir adhuc potuit ; quae odurato illius tractus 
latroni invito elicere potuit, ut nomen proprium dicat. Amtnian. xxii. 16, and 
V'alesius ad locum. 



discovered, in the ruins of Axum, a long and very interesting inscription relating 
to these princes. It was erected to commemorate the victory of Aeizanas over 
the Bougaitae (St. Martin considers them the Blemmyes, whose true name is 
Bedjah or Bodjah). Aeizanas is styled king of the Axumites, the Homerites, of 
Raeidan. of the Ethiopians, of the Sabarites, of Silea, of Tiamo, of the Bougaites, 
and of Kaei. It appears that at this time the king of the Ethiopians ruled over 
the Homerites, the inhabitants of Yemen. He was not yet a Christian, as he 
calls himself son of the invincible Mars, v'ibq Oeov' uvlktjtov "Aoecj^. Another 
brother besides Saiazanas, named Adephas, is mentioned, thotigh Aeizanas seems 
to have been sole king. See St. Martin, note on Le Beau, ii. 151, Salt's Travels. 
Silv. de Sacy, note in Annates des Voyages, xi. p. 53.— Milman. 



SECRET RETREATS OF ATHANASIUS. 403 

archbishop of Alexandria, for whose safety they eagerly 
devoted their lives, was lost among a uniform and well- 
disciplined multitude ; and on the nearer approach of dan- 
ger, he was swiftly removed, by their officious hands, from 
one place of concealment to another, till he reached the 
formidable deserts, which the gloomy and credulous tem- 
per of superstition had peopled with demons and savage 
monsters. The retirement of Athanasius, which ended only 
with the life of Constantius, was spent, for the most part, 
in the society of the monks, who faithfully served him as 
guards, as secretaries, and as messengers ; but the impor- 
tance of maintaining a more intimate connexion with the 
catholic party tempted him, whenever the diligence of the 
pursuit was abated, to emerge from the desert, to introduce 
himself into Alexandria, and to trust his person to the dis- 
cretion of his friends and adherents. His various adventures 
might have furnished the subject of a very entertaining ro- 
mance. He was once secreted in a dry cistern, which he 
had scarcely left before he was betrayed by the treachery 
of a female slave ; 141 and he was once concealed in a still 
more extraordinary asylum, the house of a virgin, only 
twenty years of age, and who was celebrated in the whole 
city for her exquisite beauty. At the hour of midnight, as 
she related the story many years afterwards, she was sur- 
prised by the appearance of the archbishop in a loose 
undress, who, advancing with hasty steps, conjured her to 
afford him the protection which he had been directed by a 
celestial vision* to seek under her hospitable roof. The 
pious maid accepted and preserved the sacred pledge 
which was intrusted to her prudence and courage. Without 
imparting the secret to any one, she instantly conducted 
Athanasius into her most secret chamber, and watched over 
his safety with the tenderness of a friend and the assiduity 
of a servant. As long as the danger continued, she regu- 
larly supplied him with books and provisions, washed his 

141 Rufin. 1. i. c. 18. Sozomen, 1. iv. c. 10. This and the following story will be 
rendered impossible if we suppose that Athanasius always inhabited the asylum 
which he accidentally or occasionally had used. 

* Christians must admire the good taste of this vision celestial in recommending 
to the good Athanasius so charming a retreat — the veritable earthly Eden to 
which the saint aspired— and the higher orders of the clergy may envy the or- 
thodox bishop so fascinating a companion to solace his seclusion. But is it not 
sad to reflect that since the advent of the materialistic doctrine of " the survival 
" of the fittest," these good genii have deserted the earth, and no longer direct 
the affairs of pious Christian emperors like Constantine, or holy orthodox bishops 
like Athanasius ?— E. 



404 WRITINGS OF ATHANASIUS. 

feet, managed his correspondence, and dexterously con- 
cealed from the eye of suspicion, this familiar and solitary 
intercourse, between a saint whose character required the 
most unblemished chastity, and a female whose charms 
might excite the most dangerous emotions. 142 During the 
six years of persecution and exile, Athanasius repeated his 
visits to his fair and faithful companion ; and the formal 
declaration, that he saw the councils of Rimini and Selu- 
cia, 143 forces us to believe that he was secretly present at the 
time and place of their convocation. The advantage of 
personally negotiating with his friends, and of observing 
and improving the divisions of his enemies, might justify, 
in a prudent statesman, so bold and dangerous an enter- 
prise ; and Alexandria was connected by trade and naviga- 
tion with every sea-port of the Mediterranean. From the 
depth of his inaccessible retreat, the intrepid primate waged 
an incessant and offensive war against the protector of the 
Arians ; and his seasonable writings, which were diligently 
circulated, and eagerly perused, contributed to unite and 
animate the orthodox party. In his public apologies, which 
he addressed to the emperor himself, he sometimes affected 
the praise of moderation ; whilst at the same time, in secret 
and vehement invectives, he exposed Constantius as a weak 
and wicked prince, the executioner of his family, the tyrant of 
the republic, and the antichrist of the church. In the height 
of his prosperity, the victorious monarch, who had chastised 
the rashness of Gallus, and suppressed the revolt of Sylvanus, 
who had taken the diadem from the head of Vetranio, and 
vanquished in the field the legions of Magnentius, received 
from an invisible hand a wound, which he could neither heal 
nor revenge ; and the son of Constantine was the first of the 
Christian princes who experienced the strength of those 
principles, which, in the cause of religion, could resist the 
most violent exertions of the civil power. 144 

1^2 Palladius {Hist. Lausiac. c. 136, in Vit. Patrum, p. 776), the original author 
of this anecdote, had conversed with the damsel, who in her old age still remem- 
bered with pleasure so pious and honorable a connection. I cannot indulge the 
delicacy of Baronius, Valesius, Tillemont, &c, who almost reject a story so un- 
worthy, as they deem it, of the gravity of ecclesiastical history. 

148 Athanas. torn. i. p. 869. I agree with Tillemont (torn. viii. p. 1197), that his 
expressions imply a personal, though perhaps secret visit to the synods. 

144 The epistle of Athanasius to the monks is filled with reproaches, which the 
public must feel to be true (vol. i. pp. 834, 856) ; and, in compliment to his readers, 
lie has introduced the comparisons of Pharaoh, Ahab, Belshazzar, &c. The 
boldness of Hilary was attended with less danger, if he published his invective 
in Gaul, after the revolt of Julian ; but Lucifer sent his libels to Constantius, and 
almost challenged the reward of martyrdom. See Tillemont, torn. vii. p. 905. 



ORTHODOX DOXOLOGY. 405 

The persecution of Athanasius, and of so many- 
respectable bishops, who suffered for the truth bishops. 
of their opinions, or at least for the integrity of 
their conscience, was a just subject of indignation and dis- 
content to all Christians, except those who were blindly 
devoted to the Arian faction. The people regretted the loss 
of their faithful pastors, whose banishment was usually 
followed by the intrusion of a stranger, 145 into the episcopal 
chair ; and loudly complained that the right of election was 
violated, and that they were condemned to obey a mercenary 
usurper, whose person was unknown, and whose principles 
were suspected. The Catholics might prove to the world, 
that they were not involved in the guilt and heresy of their 
ecclesiastical Governor, by publicly testifying _. . . 

.... & , A *■ • 1 Divisions. 

their dissent, or by totally separating them- 
selves from his communion. The first of these methods 
was invented at Antioch, and practiced with such success, 
that it was soon diffused over the Christian world. The 
doxology, or sacred hymn, which celebrates the gloiy of the 
Trinity, is susceptible of very nice, but material, inflections ; 
and the substance of an orthodox, or an heretical, creed, 
may be expressed by the difference of a disjunctive, or a 
copulative particle. Alternate responses, and a more 
regular psalmody, 146 were introduced into the public service 
by Flavianus and Diodorus, two devout and active laymen, 
who were attached to the Nicene faith. Under their con- 
duct, a swarm of monks issued from the adjacent desert, 
bands of well-disciplined singers were stationed in the 
cathedral of Antioch, the glory to the Father, and the Son, 
and the Holy Ghost, 147 was triumphantly chanted by a full 
chorus of voices ; and the Catholics insulted, by the purity 

1*5 Athanasius (torn. i. p. 811) complains in general of this practice, which he 
afterwards exemplifies (p. 861) in the pretended election of Fselix. Three eunuchs 
represented the Roman people, and three prelates, who followed the court, 
assumed the functions of the bishops of the Suburbicarian provinces. 

ii6 Thomassin {Discipline de V Eglise, torn. i. 1. ii. c. 72, 73, pp. 966-984) has col- 
lected many curious facts concerning the origin and progress of church singing, 
both in the East and West.* 

147 Philostorgius, 1. iii. c. 13. Godefroy has examined this subject with singular 
accuracy (p. 147, &c). There were three heterodox forms " To the Father by 
" the Son, and in the Holy Ghost " ; " To the Father, and the Son in the Holy 
" Ghost" ; and "To the Father in the Son and the Holy Ghost." 

*Arius appears to have been the first to avail himself of this means of impress- 
ing his doctrines on the popular ear; he composed songs for sailors, millers, and 
travelers, and set them to common airs ; "beguiling the ignorant, by the sweet- 
" ness of his music, into the impiety of his doctrines." Philostorgius, ii. 2. Arian 
singers used to parade the streets of Constantinople by night, till Chrysostom 
arrayed against them a band of orthodox choristers. Sozomen, viii. — Milman. 



406 LIBERIUS DEPOSED. 

of their doctrine, the Arian prelate, who had usurped the 
throne of the venerable Eustathius. The same zeal which 
inspired their songs, prompted the more scrupulous 
members of the orthodox party to form separate assemblies, 
which were governed by the presbyters, till the death of 
their exiled bishop allowed the election and consecration of 
a new episcopal pastor. 148 The revolutions of the court 
multiplied the number of pretenders ; and the same city 
was often disputed, under the reign of Constantius, by two 
or three, or even four bishops, who exercised their spiritual 
jurisdiction over their respective followers, and alternately 
lost and regained the temporal possessions of the church. 
The abuse of Christianity introduced into the Roman 
government new causes of tyranny and sedition ; the bands 
of civil society were torn asunder by the fury of religious 
factions ; and the obscure citizen who might calmly have 
surveyed the elevation and fall of successive emperors, 
imagined and experienced, that his own life and fortune 
were connected with the interests of a popular ecclesiastic. 
The example of the two capitals, Rome and Constantinople, 
may serve to represent the state of the empire, and the 
temper of mankind, under the reign of the sons of Con- 
stantine. 

I. The Roman pontiff, as long as he main- 
tained his station and his principles, was guarded 
by the warm attachment of a great people ; and could re- 
ject with scorn the prayers, the menaces, and the oblations 
of an heretical prince. When the eunuchs had secretly 
pronounced the exile of Liberius, the well-grounded appre- 
hension of a tumult engaged them to use the utmost pre- 
cautions in the execution of the sentence. The capital was 
invested on every side, and the praefect was commanded to 
seize the person of the bishop, either by stratagem, or by 
open force. The order was obeyed, and Liberius, with the 
greatest difficulty, at the hour of midnight, was swiftly con- 
veyed beyond the reach of the Roman people, before their 
consternation was turned into rage. As soon as they were 
informed of his banishment into Thrace, a general assembly 
was convened, and the clergy of Rome bound themselves, 

n? After the exile of Eustathius, under the reign of Constantine, the rigid party 
of the orthodox formed a separation which afterwards degenerated into a schism, 
and lasted above fourscore years. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. pp. 35-S4, 
"37-i 158, torn. viii. pp. 537-632, 1314-1332. In many churches, the Arians and 
Hoinoousians, who had renounced each other's communion, continued for some 
time to join in prayer. Philostorgius, I. iii. c. 14. 



ZEAL OF THE ROMANS. 407 

by a public and solemn oath, never to desert their bishop, 
never to acknowledge the usurper Faelix ; who, by the in- 
fluence of the eunuchs, had been irregularly chosen and 
consecrated within the walls of a profane palace. At the 
end of two years, their pious obstinacy subsisted entire and 
unshaken ; and when Constantius visited Rome, he was 
assailed by the importunate solicitations of a people, who 
had preserved, as the last remnant of their ancient freedom, 
the right of treating their sovereign with familiar insolence. 
The wives of many of the senators and most honorable 
citizens, after pressing their husbands to intercede in favor 
of Liberius, were advised to undertake a commission, which 
in their hands would be less dangerous, and might prove 
more successful. The emperor received with politeness 
these female deputies, whose wealth and dignity were dis- 
played in the magnificence of their dress and ornaments : 
he admired their inflexible resolution of following their 
beloved pastor to the most distant regions of the earth ; 
and consented that the two bishops, Liberius and Faelix, 
should govern in peace their respective congregations. But 
the ideas of toleration were so repugnant to the practice, and 
even to the sentiments, of those times, that when the answer 
of Constantius was publicly read in the circus of Rome, so 
reasonable a project of accommodation was rejected with 
contempt and ridicule. The eager vehemence which ani- 
mated the spectators in the decisive moment of a horse- 
race, was now directed towards a different object ; and the 
circus resounded with the shout of thousands, who re- 
peatedly exclaimed, " One God, one Christ, one bishop ! " 
The zeal of the Roman people in the cause of Liberius was 
not confined to words alone ; and the dangerous and bloody 
sedition which they excited soon after the departure of Con- 
stantius determined that prince to accept the submission of 
the exiled prelate, and to restore him to the undivided 
dominion of the capital. After some ineffectual resistance, 
his rival was expelled from the city by the permission of the 
emperor and the power of the opposite faction ; the adher- 
ents of Felix were inhumanly murdered in the streets, in the 
public places, in the baths, and even in the churches ; * and 

* The assurance and impudence of these sectarians can never be excelled. They 
professed all the virtues and practiced all the vices — they preached the glad 
tidings of" Peace on earth and good will to man," and practiced the most relent- 
less cruelty. " Ye are like unto whited sepulchres," said Jesus, " which indeed 
" appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and of all 
" uncleanness." — E. 



408 PAUL AND MACEDONIUS. 

the face of Rome, upon the return of a Christian bishop, 
renewed the horrid image of the massacres of Marius, and 
the proscriptions of Sylla. 149 

II. Notwithstanding the rapid increase of 
^hwpfe!" Christians under the reign of the Flavian family, 
Rome, Alexandria, and the other great cities of 
the empire, still contained a strong and powerful faction of 
infidels, who envied the prosperity, and who ridiculed, even 
on their theatres, the theological disputes of the church. 
Constantinople alone enjoyed the advantage of being born 
and educated in the bosom of the faith. The capital of the 
East had never been polluted by the worship of idols ; and 
the whole body of the people had deeply imbibed the 
opinions, the virtues, and the passions, which distinguished 
the Christians of that age from the rest of mankind. After 
the death of Alexander, the episcopal throne was disputed 
by Paul and Macedonius.f By their zeal and abilities they 
both deserved the eminent station to which they aspired ; 
and if the moral character of Macedonius was less excep- 
tionable, his competitor had the advantage of a prior election 
and a more orthodox doctrine. His firm attachment to the 
Nicene creed, which has given Paul a place in the calendar 
among saints and martyrs, exposed him to the resentment 
of the Arians. In the space of fourteen years, he was five 

no See, on this ecclrstical revolution of Rome, Ammianus , xv. 7. Athanas. 
torn. i. pp. 834, 861. Suzomen, 1. iv. c. 15. Theodoret, 1. ii. c. 17. Sulp. Sever. 
Hist. Sacra, 1. ii. p. 413. Hieronym. Chron. Marcellin. et Faustin. Libell. pp. 3, 4. 
Tillemoot, Mem. Ecclcs. torn. vi. p. 336.* 

* Neander has given some farther particulars, omitted by Gibbon, but which 
illustrate strikingly the spirit of the age and the tendency of hierarchial action. 
To regain possession of his diocese, Liberius, in the year 358, subscribed a creed, 
drawn up by Arian prelates at Sirmium. But in the meantime, a presbyter, 
named Eusebius, had gathered a congregation at Rome, who assembled in a 
private house, and refused to hold communion with those who were favored by 
the court. On the return of Liberius, these Eusebians refused to recognize him 
as bishop, on account of his recantation, and continued their separate meetings, 
till they were suppressed by force, and their leader confined to a room in his own 
house. Then followed twenty years of strife and bloodshed, disgraced by the 
tragic scenes that will be found noticed in another chapter. To terminate these 
contests, Gratian was obliged to issue a particular decree, when the haughty and 
ostentatious Damasus was left in quiet possession of the rich prize, for which he 
had sacrificed his own character, the peace of Rome, and the lives of some 
hundred desperate fanatics. " In this schism," says Neander, "we observe the 
" corrupting influence of worldly prosperity and abundance on the church of 
" Rome, and how spiritual concerns were confounded with secular. We see 
" what a mighty interest of profane passions was already existing there." But 
neither the triumph of Damasus, nor the banishment of his competitor, nor the 
decree of Gratian, could at once restore tranquility; the division was still pro- 
longed, and other bishops joined in the agitation. Hist, of Christianity, vol. iii, 
P- 313— 3I5-— Eng. Ch. 

t Eusebius of Nicomedia succeeded Alexander; he died in 342, after which the 
contest arose between Paul and Macedonius. Paul was put to death in 352. Clin. 
F. R. i, 397, 407, 423.— Eng. Ch. 



ASSASSINATION OF PAUL, 409 

times driven from his throne; to which he was more fre- 
quently restored by the violence of the people, than by the 
permission of the prince ; and the power of Macedonius 
could be secured only by the death of his rival. The un- 
fortunate Paul was dragged in chains from the sandy deserts 
of Mesopotamia to the most desolate places of Mount 
Taurus, 150 confined in a dark and narrow dungeon, left six 
days without food, and at length strangled, by the order of 
Philio, one of the principal ministers of the emperor Con- 
stantms. 151 The first blood which stained the new capital 
was spilt in this ecclesiastical contest ; and many persons 
were slain on both sides, in the furious and obstinate sedi- 
tions of the people. The commission of enforcing a sentence 
of banishment against Paul, had been intrusted to Hermo- 
genes, the master-general of the cavalry ; but the execution 
of it was fatal to himself. The Catholics rose in the defence 
of their bishop ; the palace of Hermogenes was consumed; 
the first military officer of the empire was dragged by the 
heels through the streets of Constantinople, and, after he 
expired, his lifeless corpse was exposed to their wanton in- 
sults. 152 The fate of Hermogenes instructed Philip, the 
prsetorian praefect, to act with more precaution on a similar 
occasion. In the most gentle and honorable terms he 
required the attendance of Paul in the baths of Zeuxippus, 
which had a private communication with the palace and the 
sea. A vessel, which lay ready at the garden stairs, im- 
mediately hoisted sail ; and, while the people were still 
ignorant of the meditated sacrilege, their bishop was already 
embarked on his voyage to Thessalonica. They soon be- 

150 Cucusus was the last stage of his life and sufferings. The situation of that 
lonely town, on the confines of Cappadocia, Cilicia, and the Lesser Armenia, has 
occasioned some geographical perplexity; but we are directed to the true spot by 
the course of the Roman road from Caesarea to Anazarbus. See Cellarii Geograph, 
torn. ii. p. 213. Wesseling ad Itinerar. pp. 179, 703. 

151 Athanasius (torn. i. pp. 703, 813, 814) affirms, in the most positive terms, that 
Paul was murdered ; and appeals, not only to common fame, but even to the un- 
suspicious testimony of Philagrius, one of the Arian persecutors. Yet he ac- 
knowledges that the heretics attributed to disease the death of the bishop of Con- 
stantinople. Athanasius is servilely copied by Socrates (1. ii. c. 26) ; but Sozomen, 
who discovers a more liberal temper, presumes (1. iv. c. 2) to insinuate a prudent 
doubt. 

152 Ammianus (xiv. 10) refers to his own account of this tragic event, but we 
no longer possess that part of his history.* 

* The murder of Hermogenes took place at the first expulsion of Paul from the 
see of Constantinople. — Milman. 

The sedition, in which Hermogenes fell, is accurately fixed by Socrates 
(ii. 12, 13) to the year 342. From various authorities, Clinton has shown (F. R. 
1, 423), that the final exile and death of Paul, through the agency of Philippus, 
took place in 352. Between the two events related by Gibbon, ten years of strife 
intervened.— Eng. Ch. 



4IO RIGOR OF CONSTANTIUS. 

held, with surprise and indignation, the gates of the palace 
thrown open, and the usurper, Macedonius seated by the 
side of the praefect on a lofty chariot, which was surrounded 
by troops of guards with drawn swords. The military pro- 
cession advanced towards the cathedral ; the Arians and the 
Catholics eagerly rushed to occupy that important post ; 
and three thousand one hundred and fifty persons lost their 
lives in the confusion of the tumult. Macedonius, who was 
supported by a regular force, obtained a decisive victory ; 
but his reign was disturbed by clamor and sedition ; and the 
causes which appeared the least connected with the subject 
of dispute, were sufficient to nourish and to kindle the flame 
of civil discord. As the chapel in which the body of the 
great Constantine had been deposited was in a ruinous con- 
dition, the bishops transported those venerable remains into 
the church of St. Acacius. This prudent and even pious 
measure was represented as a wicked profanation, by the 
whole party which adhered to the Humoousian doctrine. 
The factions immediately flew to arms, the consecrated 
ground was used as their field of battle ; and one of the 
ecclesiastical historians has observed, as a real fact, not as a 
figure of rhetoric, that the well before the church overflowed 
with a stream of blood,* which filled the porticos and the 
adjacent courts. The writer who should impute these 
tumults solely to a religious principle, would betray a very 
imperfect knowledge of human nature ; yet it must be con- 
fessed, that the motives which misled the sincerity of zeal, 
and the pretence which disguised the licentiousness of 
passion, suppressed the remorse which, in another cause, 
would have succeeded to the rage of the Christians of Con- 
stantinople. 1 " 

153 See Socrates, 1. ii. c. 6, 7, 12, 13, 15, 16, 26, 27, 38, and Sozomen, 1. iii. 3, 4. 7, 9; 
1. iv. c. ii. 21. The acts of St. Paul of Constantinople, of which Photius has made 
an abstract {Phot. Bibliot. pp. 1419-1430), are an indifferent copy of these his- 
torians ; but a modern Greek, who could write the life of a saint without adding 
fables and miracles, is entitled to some commendation. f 



* Religion! " what unnumbered crimes have been committed in thy holy name !" 

M. Guizot, who waxed so eloquent in former chapters at even the suggestion 

of Pagan persecution, offers here no remonstrance to this accumulated evidence 

of Christian intolerance, but remains as silent as the grave — as unconcerned and 

unfeeling as the stone image of the Egyptian sphinx. — E. 

1 Religion is profaned by the mere idea, that it can contain principles or inspire 
feelings, that prompt to such atrocities. The guilt rests with those, who give the 
name of religion to that, which they use only as the instrument of their ambition. 
The transactions, which occupy the late pages of this history, never would have 
disgraced human nature, had there been no hierarchial prizes, to inflame the 
cupidity of rival claimants, and hire the services of venal factions. Again, let 
the reader mark the advance of that pernicious influence, and observe, how it 
produced the irritations of enfeebled mind and the exhausting paroxysms of 
passion, which were the immediate causes and heralds of social decay. — E. G 



BARBAROUS PERSECUTIONS. 41 1 

The cruel and arbitrary disposition of Constan- 
tius, which did not always require, the provoca- rU Arians. the 
tion of guilt and resistance, was justly exasperated 
by the tumults of his capital, and the criminal behavior of a 
faction, which opposed the authority and religion of their 
sovereign. The ordinary punishments of death, exile, and 
confiscation, were inflicted with partial rigor ; and the Greeks 
still revere the holy memory of two clerks, a reader and a 
sub-deacon, who were accused of the murder of Hermogenes, 
and beheaded at the gates of Constantinople. By an edict 
of Constantius against the Catholics, which has not been 
judged worthy of a place in the Theodosian Code, those who 
refused to communicate with the Arian bishops, and par- 
ticularly with Macedonius, were deprived of the immunities of 
ecclesiastics, and of the rights of Christians ; they were com- 
pelled to relinquish the possession of the churches ; and were 
strictly prohibited from holding their assemblies within the 
walls of the city. The execution of this unjust law, in the 
provinces of Thrace and Asia Minor, was committed to the 
zeal of Macedonius ; the civil and military powers were 
directed to obey his commands ; and the cruelties exercised 
by this Semi-Arian tyrant in the support of the Homoiousion, 
exceeded the commission, and disgraced the reign, of Con- 
stantius. The sacraments of the church were administered 
to the reluctant victims, who denied the vocation, and 
abhorred the principles, of Macedonius. The rites of bap- 
tism were conferred on women and children, who, for that 
purpose, had been torn from the arms of their friends and 
parents ; the mouths of the communicants were held open, 
by a wooden engine, while the consecrated bread was forced 
down their throats ; the breasts of tender virgins were either 
burnt with red-hot egg-shells,* or inhumanly compressed 
between sharp and heavy boards. 154 The Novatians of 
Constantinople and the adjacent country, by their firm 
attachment to the Homoousian standard, deserved to be 
confounded with the Catholics themselves. Macedonius 

154 Socrates, 1. ii. c. 27, 38. Sozomen, 1. iv. c. 21. The principal assistants of 
Macedonius, in the work of persecution, were the two bishops of Nicomedia and 
Cyzicus, who were esteemed for their virtues, and especially for their charity. I 
cannot forbear reminding the reader, that the difference between the Homoousion 
and Homoiousion, is almost invisible to the nicest theological eye. 



* The Indians of North America, who scalped their unresisting victims, and 
burned their living captives at the stake, could have taken lessons in brutality 
from these Christian fanatics, and learned from them methods of ingenious 
cruelty — exquisite refinements in torture — of which their savage natures had 
never conceived.— E. 



412 THE CIRCUMCELLIONS OR AGNOSTICI. 

was informed that a large district of Paphlagonia 156 was 
almost entirely inhabited by those sectaries. He resolved 
either to convert or to extirpate them : and as he distrusted, 
on this occasion, the efficacy of an ecclesiastical mission, he 
commanded a body of four thousand legionaries to march 
against the rebels, and to reduce the territory of Mantinium 
under his spiritual dominion. The Novatian peasants, 
animated by despair and religious fury, boldly encountered 
the invaders of their country ; and though many of the 
Paphlagonians were slain, the Roman legions were van- 
quished by an irregular multitude, armed only with scythes 
and axes ; and, except a few who escaped by an ignominious 
flight, four thousand soldiers were left dead on the field of 
battle. The successor of Constantius has expressed, in a 
concise but lively manner, some of the theological calamities 
which afflicted the empire, and more especially the East, in 
the reign of a prince who was the slave of his own passions, 
and of those of his eunuchs. " Many were imprisoned, and 
" persecuted, and driven into exile. Whole troops of those 
" who were styled heretics were massacred, particularly at 
" Cyzicus, and at Samosata. In Paphlagonia, Bithynia, 
" Galatia, and in many other provinces, towns and villages 
" were laid waste, and utterly destroyed." 156 
Therevoitand While the flames of the Arian Controversy 
fur? of the Do- consumed the vitals of the empire, the African 

na'ist Circum- . . r i i i • i- 

ceiiions. provinces were infested by their peculiar enemies 
a. u. 345, &c j-j^ sa vage fanatics, who, under the name of 
Circiunccllio7is, formed the strength and scandal of the 
Donatist party. 157 The severe execution of the laws of Con- 
stantine had excited a spirit of discontent and resistance ; 
the strenuous efforts of his son Constans, to restore the 
unity of the church, exasperated the sentiments of mutual 
hatred, which had first occasioned the separation ; and the 
methods of force and corruption employed by the two im- 

1M We are ignorant of the precise situation of Mantinium. In speaking of these 
four bands of legionaries, Socrates, Sozomen, and the author of the acts of 
St. Paul, use the indefinite terras of apifljioi, <}>d?.ayye?, Tay/nara, which Nice- 
phorus very properly translates thousands. Vales, ad So cr at. 1. ii. c, 38. 

i"'« Julian. Epistol. 1. ii. p. 436, edit. Spanheim. 

isi See Optatus Milevitanus (particularly iii . 4), with the Donatist history, by 
M. Dupin, and the original pieces at the end of his edition. The numerous cir- 
cumstances which Augustin has mentioned, of the fury of the Circumcellions 
against others, and against themselves, have been laboriously collected by Tille- 
mont, Mem. Eccles. torn. vi. pp. 147-165; and he has often, though without design, 
exposed the injuries which had provoked those fanatics. 

* According to Neander {Hist, of Christianity, vol. iii, p. 272), who appeals to 
Augustine Enarrat. in ty 132, s. 6), " it is clear that these people were called 



THE PEASANTS OF NUMIDIA AND MAURITANIA. 413 

perial commissioners, Paul and Macarius, furnished the 
schismatics with a specious contrast between the maxims 
of the apostles and the conduct of their pretended suc- 
cessors. 158 The peasants who inhabited the villages of Nu- 
midia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been 
imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws; 
who were imperfectly converted to the Christian faith ; but 
who were actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in 
the cause of their Donatist teachers. They indignantly 
supported the exile of their bishops, the demolition of their 
churches, and the interruption of their secret assemblies. 
The violence of the officers of justice, who were usually 
sustained by a military guard, was sometimes repelled with 
equal violence; and the blood of some popular ecclesiastics, 
which had been shed in the quarrel, inflamed their rude 
followers with an eager desire of revenging the death of 
these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and rashness, 
the ministers of persecution sometimes provoked their fate ; 
and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the crim- 
inals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their native 
villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable 
gangs on the edge of the Getulian desert, and readily ex- 
changed the habits of labor for a life of idleness and rapine, 

158 It is amusing enough to observe the language of opposite parties, when they 
speak of the same men and things. Gratus, bishop of Carthage, begins the 
acclamations of an orthodox synod, " Gratias Deo omnipotenti et Christu Jesu 
* * * qui imperavit religiosissimo Constanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret 
unitatis, et mitteret ministros sancti operis /amnios Dei Paulum et Macarium."* 
Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313. " Ecce subito," says the Donatist 
author of the Passion of Marculus, " de Constantis regis tyrannica domo * * * 
" pollutum Marcarianae persecutionis murmur increpuit, et duabus bestiis ad 
" Africam missis, eodem scilicet Macario et Paulo, execrandum prorsus ac 
" dirum ecclesise certamen indictum est ; ut populus Christianus ad unionem 
" cum traditoribus faciendam, nudatis militum gladiis et draconum praesentibus 
" signis, et tubarum vocibus^cogeretur." f Monument, p. 304. 



" circumcelliones by their opponents alone, while they gave to themselves the 
" name of agnosticV% These once so violent, long extinct, and now almost for- 
gotten, schismatics, are only worthy of notice, inasmuch as they hold up a mirror, 
wherein fanaticism of every kind may see its own image, and read the destiny of 
all the nonsense, for which its dupes so madly tear themselves and others to 
pieces. — Eng. Ch. 

* Thanks to Almighty God and Jesus Christ, who commanded the most religious 
Emperor Constans to issue an edict of uniformity, and send the servants of God, 
Paulus and Macarius, as ministers of the holy work.— Translation by Eng. Ch. 

t Then on a sudden was heard from the tyrannical palace of Constans, the cry 
of the Marcarian persecution, and the two beasts, Macarian and Paulus, were 
sent to Africa, to wage a dire and execrable war with the church, and force the 
people of Christ to unite with traitors, by the naked swords of soldiers, their 
frightful ensigns, and the clangor of their trumpets. — Translation by Eng. Ch. 

I It is curious to observe how the names of these old sects are frequently 
revived. The word Agnostic has again become popular as a designation for a 
numerous class of philosophers ; and a liberal paper, by that name, is now pub- 
lished at Dallas, Texas.— E. 



414 FURY OF THE DONATISTS. 

which was consecrated by the name of religion, and faintly 
condemned by the doctors of the sect. The leaders of the 
Circumcellions assumed the title of captains of the saints ; 
their principal weapon, as they were indifferently provided 
with swords and spears, was a huge and weighty club, which 
they termed an Israelite ; and the well-known sound of 
Praise be to God, which they used as their cry of war, 
diffused consternation over the unarmed provinces of Africa. 
At first their depredations were colored by the plea of 
necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of sub- 
sistence, indulged without control their intemperance and 
avarice, burnt the villages which they had pillaged, and 
reigned the licentious tyrants of the open country. The 
occupations of husbandry, and the administration of justice, 
were interrupted ; and as the Circumcellions pretended to 
restore the primitive equality of mankind, and to reform the 
abuses of civil society, they opened a secure asylum for the 
slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds to their holy 
standard. When they were not resisted, they usually con- 
tented themselves with plunder, but the slightest opposition 
provoked them to acts of violence and murder ; and some 
Catholic priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, 
were tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and 
wanton barbarity. The spirit of the Circumcellions was not 
always exerted against their defenceless enemies ; they en- 
gaged, and sometimes defeated, the troops of the province ; 
and in the bloody action of Bagai, they attacked in the open 
field, but with unsuccessful valor, an advanced guard of the 
imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were taken in arms, 
received, and they soon deserved, the same treatment which 
might have been shown to the wild beasts of the desert. 
The captives died, without a murmur either by the sword, 
the axe, or the fire ; and the measures of retaliation were 
multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the 
horrors of rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual for- 
giveness. In the beginning of the present century, the 
example of the Circumcellions has been renewed in the 
persecution, the boldness, the crimes, and the enthusiasm 
of the Camisards ; and if the fanatics of Languedoc sur- 
passed those of Numidia, by their military achievements, 
the Africans maintained their fierce independence with more 
resolution and preseverance. 159 

159 The Histoire des Camisards, in 3 vols. i2mo. Villefranche, 1760, may be 
recommended as accurate and impartial. It requires some attention to discover 
the religion of the author. 



FANATICISM OF THE DONATISTS. 415 

Such disorders are the natural effects of re- Their 
ligious tyranny ; but the rage of the Donatists religious 
was inflamed by a frenzy of a very extraordinary SU1C1 es ' 
kind ; and which, if it really prevailed among them in so 
extravagant a degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any 
country or in any age. Many of these fanatics were pos- 
sessed with the horror of life, and the desire of martyrdom ; 
and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or by 
what hands, they perished, if their conduct was sanctified 
by the intention of devoting themselves to the glory of the 
true faith, and the hope of eternal happiness. 160 Sometimes 
they rudely disturbed the festivals, and profaned the temples, 
of Paganism, with the design of exciting the most zealous 
of the idolaters to revenge the insulted honor of their gods. 
They sometimes forced their way into the courts of justice, 
and compelled the affrighted judge to give orders for their 
immediate execution. They frequently stopped travelers 
on the public highways, and obliged them to inflict the 
stroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if they 
consented, and by the threat of instant death, if they refused 
to grant so very singular a favor. When they were dis- 
appointed of every other resource, they announced the day 
on which, in the presence of their friends and brethren, they 
should cast themselves headlong from some lofty rock ; and 
many precipices were shown, which had acquired fame by 
the number of religious suicides.* In the actions of these 
desperate enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as 
the martyrs of God, and abhorred by the other as the vic- 
tims of Satan, an impartial philosopher may discover the 
influence and the last abuse of that inflexible spirit, which 
was originally derived from the character and principles of 
the Jewish nation. 

The simple narrative of the intestine divisions, 
which distracted the peace, and dishonored the ^ttl^f^hl' 
triumph, of the church, will confirm the remark christian 
of a Pagan historian, and justify the complaint A> d!*Ji2-36i. 
of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ant- 

160 The Donatist suicides alleged in their justification the example of Razias, 
which is related in the 14th chapter of the second book of the Maccabees. 

* Religious frenzy is a terrible infliction on the human race, and weak minds 
are often driven by it into insanity. We see, even in modern times, a fond father 
imitating the example of the patriarch Abraham, and sacrificing his beloved 
, child to appease the anger of an offended God. We see a wretched fanatic 
assassinating the president of the republic, and claiming that the deed was 
inspired by the God he worshiped.— E, 



416 CHRISTIAN DISCORD. 

mianus had convinced him, that the enmity of the Christians 
towards each other, surpassed the fury of savage beasts 
against man ; m and Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically 
laments, that the kingdom of heaven was converted, by 
discord, into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal tempest, 
and of hell itself. 162 * The fierce and partial writers of the 
times, ascribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all 
guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the 
angels and demons. Our calmer reason will reject such 
pure and perfect monsters of vice or sanctity, and will im- 
pute an equal, or at least an indiscriminate, measure of good 
and evil to the hostile sectaries, who assumed and bestowed 
the appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been 
educated in the same religion, and the same civil society. 
Their hopes and fears in the present, or in a future, life, were 
balanced in the same proportion. On either side, the error 
might be innocent, the faith sincere, the practice meritorious 
or corrupt. Their passions were excited by similar objects ; 
and they might alternately abuse the favor of the court, or of 
the people. The metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians 
and the Arians could not influence their moral character ; 
and they were alike actuated by the intolerant spirit, which 
has been extracted from the pure and simple maxims of the 
gospel.t 

Wl Nullas infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi ferales plerique Christiano- 
rum, expertus. Ammian. xxii. 5. 

16S Gregor. Nazianzen, Orat. i. p. $$. See Tillemont, torn. vi. p. 501, quarto edit. 



* One who believes, with these sectarians, in the miraculous conception of the 
Virgin Mary— who believes, with the ancient Pagans, in the amorous union of 
Deus and Homo,— may, by courtesy, be termed a Christian ; but cannot claim to be 
inspired with the principles of the Jewish reformer, who mistakingly believed 
himself God, and who lovingly sacrificed his life to benefit his fellow-men. How 
discordantly sounds the language of these Christians , compared with the simple 
teachings of Jesus : "I say unto you, Love your enemies, do good to them 
" which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despite- 
'' fully use you." (St. Ltike, vi: 27, 28.) — E. 

t Is it necessary to repeat here the protest already made against the idea of that 
" intolerant spirit " having been " extracted from the pure and simple maxims of 
"the gospel," which emanated wholly from the selfish avidities of the pseudo- 
teachers by whom those maxims were neglected, perverted, or corrupted? — E. C. 
The statement of Gibbon that " the metaphysical opinions of the Athanasians 
" and the Arians could not influence their moral character," is positively true. 
There is absolutely no connection whatever between morality and the professed 
belief in creeds. Morality consists in the observance of moral duties. Belief in 
creeds — creeds to which the credulous give credence — results from faith, (which 
is " the evidence of things not seen and the substance of things hoped for"), not 
from knowledge, not from experience, nor from the exercise of reason. Philoso- 
phers often disbelieve evidence which proves satisfactory to children and savages. 

The exercise of the moral virtues never insures salvation. You cannot enter 
heaven by simply doing good. " Repent and believe," is the orthodox formula 
for admittance to the gates of Paradise. This belief without evidence, is consid- 
ered as a merit in the Christian system of theology ; and disbelief, even with 
evidence, is imputed to the honest heretic as a crime. It was formerly held that 



PAGANISM TOLERATED BY CONSTANTINE. 417 

A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, 
has prefixed to his own history the honorable T paJjSsm° f 
epithets of political and philosophical, 163 accuses 
the timid prudence of Montesquieu, for neglecting to enu- 
merate, among the causes of the decline of the empire, a 
law of Constantine, by which the exercise of the Pagan 
worship was absolutely suppressed, and a considerable part 
of his subjects was left destitute of priests, of temples, and 
of any public religion. The zeal of the philosophical his- 
torian for the rights of mankind, has induced him to acquiesce 
in the ambiguous testimony of those ecclesiastics, who have 
too lightly ascribed to their favorite hero the merit of a 
general persecution. 164 Instead of alleging this imaginary 
law, which would have blazed in the front of the imperial 
codes, we may safely appeal to the original epistle, which 
Constantine addressed to the followers of the ancient re- 
ligion ; at a time when he no longer disguised his conversion, 
nor dreaded the rivals of his throne. He invites and exhorts, 
in the most pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman em- 
pire to imitate the example of their master ; but he declares ; 
that those who still refuse to open their eyes to 
the celestial light, may freely enjoy their temples, constantine. 
and their fancied gods. A report, that the cere- 

163 Hisioire Politique et Philosophique des Etablissemens des Etiropeens dans les 
deux hides, torn. i. p. 9. 

164 According to Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. l.ii. c. 45), the emperor prohibited, 
both in cities and in the country, T a fivaapa * * * rijg ElduAo/MTpviag ; 
the abominable acts or parts of idolatry. Socrates (1. i. c. 17) and Sozomen (1. ii. 
c. 4, 5) have represented the conduct of Constantine with a just regard to truth 
and history, which has been neglected by Theodoret (1. v. c. 21) and Orosius 
(vii. 28). Turn deinde (says the latter) primus Constantinus justo ordine et pio 
vicem vertit edicto ; siquidem statuit citra ullam hominum caedem, paganorum 
templa claudi. 

belief could be changed, without reason and without cause, by a simple effort of 
the will. Acting on this theory, the holy inquisition was inaugurated to coerce 
the perverse unbeliever, and to establish uniformity of belief by the convincing 
argument of the stake and the fagot. From this attempted coercion, religious 
warfare arose, and the battles of the saints have ever proved the most fierce, 
brutal and relentless in the history of crime. 

Pagans recognized the merit of morality,— and, like philosophers, considered 
belief the result of evidence. They, therefore, did not persecute those who differed 
from their religion. Christians recognize a merit in belief, not in morality, and, 
being aggressive and intolerant, they have deluged the earth in blood. The 
Greeks and Romans — the same people who gave us laws, developed the arts, 
taught us painting and sculpture,— who were tolerant and civilized under Pagan- 
ism, became monsters of persecution under Christianity. The English Church- 
man stands aghast at the crime, but he fails to recognize the criminal. He cannot 
believe with Gibbon that this "intolerant spirit has been extracted from the pure 
" and simple maxims of the gospel." " By their fruits ye shall know them," is a 
motto Christian historians cannot always endorse. Under Paganism, the Romans 
lived in religious amity and worshiped the gods in peace and harmony. Under 
Christianity, the demon of persecution was aroused, and the spirit of fanaticism 
still survives the lapse of eighteen centuries. — E. 



41 8 DEMOLITION OF PAGAN TEMPLES. 

monies of Paganism were suppressed, is formally contra- 
dicted by the emperor himself, who wisely assigns, as the 
principle of his moderation, the invincible force of habit, of 
prejudice, and of superstition. 165 Without violating the 
sanctity of his promise, without alarming the fears of the 
Pagans, the artful monarch advanced, by slow and cautious 
steps, to undermine the irregular and decayed fabric of 
polytheism. The partial acts of severity which he occa- 
sionally exercised, though they were secretly prompted by 
a Christian zeal, were colored by the fairest pretences of 
justice and the public good ; and while Constantine designed 
to ruin the foundations, he seemed to reform the abuses, of 
the ancient religion. After the example of the wisest of his 
predecessors, he condemned, under the most rigorous penal- 
ties, the occult and impious arts of divination ; which excited 
the vain hopes, and sometimes the criminal attempts, of those 
who were discontented with their present condition. An 
ignominious silence was imposed on the oracles, which had 
been publicly convicted of fraud and falsehood ; the effemi- 
nate priests of the Nile were abolished ; and Constantine 
discharged the duties of a Roman censor, when he gave 
orders for the demolition of several temples of Phoenicia ; 
in which every mode of prostitution was devoutly practiced 
in the face of day, and to the honor of Venus. 166 * The im- 

165 See Eusebius in Vit. Constantin. 1. ii. c. 56, 60. In the sermon to the as- 
sembly of saints, which the emperor pronounced when he was mature in years 
and piety, he declares to the idolaters (c. xii.) that they are permitted to offer 
sacrifices, and to exercise every part of their religious worship. 

166 See Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. 1. iii. c. 54-58, and 1. iv. c. 23, 25. These 
acts of authority may be compared with the suppression of the Bacchanals, and 
the demolition of the temple of Isis, by the magistrates of Pagan Rome. 

* " The reverence, as well as worship, paid to the phallus in the early ages had 
" nothing i" it which partook of indecency," says Hodder M. Westropp, in a 
paper on Phallic Worship, read before the Anthropological Society of London, 
1870. " All ideas connected with it were of a reverentiaf and religious kind. The 
" indecent ideas attached to the phallic symbol were the result of a more 
" advanced civilization, as we. have evidence at Rome and Pompeii." (See 
Col. Fanin's Secret Museum of Naples, 4to, London, 1871.) 

Constant remarks, in his work on Roman polytheism : " Indecent rites may be 
" practiced by a religious people with the greatest purity of heart, but when 
" incredulity has gained a footing among these peoples, these rites become then 
" the cause and pretext of the most revolting corruption." 

Speaking of the worship of Priapus, Voltaire says : " Our ideas of propriety 
" lead us to suppose that a ceremony which appears to us so infamous could 
" only be invented by licentiousness ; but it is impossible to believe that depravity 
" of manners would ever have led among any people to the establishment of 
" religious ceremonies. It is probable, on the contrary, that this custom was 
" first introduced in times of simplicity, that the first thought was to honor 
" the deity in the symbol of life which it has given us. Such a ceremony may 
" have excited licentiousness among youths, and have appeared ridiculous to men 
" of education in more refined, more corrupt, and more enlightened times." — E. 



EXERCISE OF PAGAN RITES. 419 

perial city of Constantinople was, in some measure, raised 
at the expence, and was adorned with the spoils, of the 
opulent temples of Greece and Asia ; the sacred property- 
was confiscated ; the statues of gods and heroes were trans- 
ported, with rude familiarity, among a people who con- 
sidered them as objects, not of adoration, but of curiosity : 
the gold and silver were restored to circulation ; and the 
magistrates, the bishops, and the eunuchs, improved the 
fortunate occasion of gratifying, at once, their zeal, their 
avarice, and their resentment. But these depredations were 
confined to a small part of the Roman world ; and the pro- 
vinces had been long since accustomed to endure the same 
sacrilegious rapine, from the tyranny of princes and pro- 
consuls, who could not be suspected of any design to subvert 
the established religion. 167 

The sons of Constantine trod in the footsteps 
of their father, with more zeal, and with less dis- And his sons, 
cretion. The pretences of rapine and oppression 
were insensibly multiplied ; 168 every indulgence was shown 
to the illegal behavior of the Christians; every doubt was 
explained to the disadvantage of Paganism ; and the 
demolition of the temples was celebrated as one of the 
auspicious events of the reign of Constans and Constan- 
tius. 169 The name of Constantius is prefixed to a concise 
law, which might have superceded the necessity of any 
future prohibitions. " It is our pleasure, that in all places, 
" and in all cities, the temples be immediately shut, and 
" carefully guarded, that none may have the power of 
" offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our subjects 
" should abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be guilty 
" of such an act, let him feel the sword of vengeance, and 
" after his execution, let his property be confiscated to the 
" public use. We denounce the same penalties against the 
" governors of the provinces, if they neglect to punish the 

167 Eusebius (in Pit. Constantin. 1. iii. c. 54) and Libanius {Orat. pro Templis, 
pp. 9, 10, edit. Gothofred) both mention the pious sacrilege of Constantine, 
which they viewed in very different lights. The latter expressly declares that 
" he made use of the sacred money, but made no alteration in the legal worship ; 
" the temples indeed were impoverished, but the sacred rites were performed 
" there." Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 140. 

168 Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs who were spoliis tem- 
ploruni pasti. Libanius says {Orat. pro Temp. 1. p. 23) that the emperor often 
gave away a temple, like a dog, or a horse, or a slave, or a gold cup ; but the 
devout philosopher takes care to observe, that these sacrilegious favorites very 
seldom prospered. 

169 See Gothofred. Cod. TJieodos. torn. vi. p. 262. Liban. Orat. Parental, c. x. 
in Fabric. Bibl. Grcec. torn. vii. p. 235. 



420 DEIFICATION OF THE EMPERORS. 

" criminals." 170 But there is the strongest reason to believe, 
that this formidable edict was either composed without 
being published, or was published without being executed. 
The evidence of facts, and the monuments which are still 
extant of brass and marble, continue to prove the public ex- 
ercise of the Pagan worship during the whole reign of the 
sons of Constantine. In the East, as well as in the West, 
in cities, as well as in the country, a great number of temples 
were respected, or at least were spared ; and the devout 
multitude still enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of festivals, 
and of processions, by the permission, or by the connivance, 
of the civil government. About four years after the sup- 
posed date of this bloody edict, Constantius visited the 
temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is 
recommended by a pagan orator as an example worthy of 
the imitation of succeeding princes. " That emperor," says 
Symmachus, " suffered the privileges of the vestal virgins to 
" remain inviolate ; he bestowed the sacerdotal dignities on 
" the nobles of Rome, granted the customary allowance to 
" defray the expenses of the public rites and sacrifices ; and, 
" though he had embraced a different religion, he never 
" attempted to deprive the empire of the sacred worship of 
" antiquity." m The senate still presumed to consecrate, by 
solemn decrees, the divine memory of their sovereigns ; and 
Constantine himself was associated, after his death, to those 
gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life. 
The title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pon- 
tiff, which had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by 
Augustus, were accepted, without hesitation, by seven 
Christian emperors ; who were invested with a more 
absolute authority over the religion which they had de- 
serted, than over that which they professed. 172 

170 Placuit omnibus locis atque urbibus universis claudi protinus templa, et 
accessu vetitis omnibus licentiam delinqendi perditis abnegari. Volumus etiam 
cunctos a sacrificiis abstinere. Quod siquis illiquid forte hujusmodi perpetraverit, 
gladio sternatur : facultates etiam perempti fisco decernimus vindicari : et similiter 
adfligi rectores provinciarum si facinora vindicare neglexerint. Cod. Theodos. 
1. xvi. tit. 10, leg. 4. Chronology has discovered some contradiction in the date 
of this extravagant law ; the only one, perhaps, by which the negligence of 
magistrates is punished by death and confiscation. M. de la Bastie {Mem. de 
V Academie, torn. xv. p. 98) conjectures, with a show of reason, that this was no 
more than the minutes of a law, the heads of an intended bill, which were found 
in Scriniis Memories, among the papers of Constantius, and afterwards inserted, 
as a worthy model, in the 'theodosian Code. 

i"i Symmach. Epistol. x. 54. 

1W The fourth Dissertation of M. de la Bastie, stir le Souverain Pontificat des 
Empereurs Romains (in the Mem. de V Acad. torn. xv. pp. 75-144), is a very learned 
and judicious performance, which explains the state, and proves the toleration, 
of Paganism from Constantine to Gratian. The assertion of Zosimus, that Gratian 
was the first who refused the pontifical robe, is confirmed beyond a doubt, and 
the murmurs of bigotry on that subject are almost silenced. 



SLOW EXTIRPATION OF PAGANISM. 42 1 

The divisions of Christianity suspended the ruin of 
Paganism ; 173 and the holy war against the infidels was less 
vigorously prosecuted by princes and bishops, who were 
more immediately alarmed by the guilt and danger of 
domestic rebellion. The extirpation of idolatry™ might 
have been justified by the established principles of intoler- 

173 As I have freely anticipated the use of pagans and paganism, I shall now 
trace the singular revolutions of those celebrated words. 1. Udyrj, in the Doric 
dialect, so familiar to the Italians, signifies a fountain ; and the rural neighbor- 
hood, which frequented the same fountain, derived the common appellation of 
pagus and pagans. (Eestus sub voce, and Servius ad Virgil. Georgic. ii. 382.) 2. 
By an easy extension of the word, pagan and rural became almost synonymous, 
i.Plin. Hist. Natur. xxviii. 5) ; and the meaner rustics acquired that name, which 
has been corrupted into peasants in the modern languages of Europe. 3. The 
amazing increase of the military order introduced the necessity of a correlative 
term (Hume's Essays, vol. i. p. 555) ; and all the people who were not enlisted in 
the service of the prince were branded with the contemptuous epithets of pagans. 
(Tacit. Hist. iii. 24, 43, 77. Juvenal. Satir. 16. Tertullian de Pallio, c. 4.) 4. The 
Christians were the soldiers of Christ ; their adversaries, who refused his sacra- 
ment, or military oath of baptism, might deserve the metaphorical name of 
pagans ; and this popular reproach was introduced as early as the reign of 
Valentinian (A. D. 365) into imperial laws {Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 18) 
and theological writings. 5. Christianity gradually filled the cities oi the empire ; 
the old religion, in the time of Prudentius (advers. Symmachum, 1. i. ad fin.) and 
Orosius (in Prcefat Hist.), retired and languished in obscure villages; and the 
word pagans, with its new signification, reverted to its primitive origin. 6. Since 
the worship of Jupiter and his family has expired, the vacant title of pagans has 
been successively applied to all the idolaters and polytheists of the old and new 
world. 7. The Latin Christians bestowed it, without scruple, on their mortal 
enemies, the Mahometans ; and the purest Unitarians were branded with the 
unjust reproach of idolatry and paganism. See Gerard Vossius, Etymologicon 
Ungues Latince, in his works, torn. i. p. 420 ; Godefroy's Commentary on the 
Theodosian Code, torn. vi. p. 250 ; and Ducange, Medicz et Infinite Latinitat. 
Glossar.* 

174 In the pure language of Ionia and Athens, E16cj2.ov and Aarpeia were ancient 
and familiar words. The former expressed a likeness, an apparition (Homer. 
Odys. xi. 601), a representation, an image, created either by fancy or art. The 
latter denoted any sort of service or slavery. The Jews of Egypt, who translated 
the Hebrew Scriptures, restrained the use of these words (Exod. xx. 4, 5) to the 
religious worship of an image. The peculiar idiom of the Hellenists, or Grecian 
Jews, has been adopted by the sacred and ecclesiastical writers ; and the reproach 
of idolatry (Eldu'AolaTpeia) has stigmatized that visible and abject mode of 
superstition, which some sects of Christianity should not hastily impute to the 
polytheists of Greece and Rome.f 

* In the very first stage of Roman polity, the country and city tribes were dis- 
tinguished as pagi and vici. (Niebuhr's Lectures, vol. i, p. 174.) Beside the 
word which Gibbon has brought before us, pagus has furnished the root of many 
others, which, through the corrupt Latinity of the middle ages and French polish, 
have come to us in significations very remote from their origin. Pagius, first a 
villager, then a rural laborer, then a servant of any kind, ended as an attendant 
page. Pagina, first the inclosed square of cultivated land, near the village, 
graduated into the page of a book. Pagare. from denoting the field service, that 
compensated the provider of food and raiment, was applied eventually to every 
form in which the changes of society required the benefited to pay for what they 
received. See Ducange ad Voc. 'Gibbon is right in making Etymology the 
handmaid of History.— Eng. Ch. 

t The Latin Imago', formed from or supplying the verb bnitari, is the root of our 
Imagination, the creator of mental images of all kinds, out of the stores of 
memory. Hitherto this has been the most active and potential of our faculties, 
making too little way for its superior — Reason. The prevailing worship of 
imaginary good, is no less Idolatry than was that of the ancients for their inani- 
mate statues ; and like that, it will in time be superseded by advancing Religion. 
—Eng. Ch. 



422 PAGAN REVERENCE FOR THE GODS. 

ance : but the hostile sects, which alternately reigned in the 
imperial court, were mutually apprehensive of alienating 
and perhaps exasperating, the minds of a powerful though 
declining faction. Every motive of authority and fashion, 
of interest and reason, now militated on the side of 
Christianity : but two or three generations elapsed before 
their victorious influence was universally felt. The religion 
which had so long and so lately been established in the 
Roman empire was still revered by a numerous people, less 
attached indeed to speculative opinion than to ancient 
custom. The honors of the state and army were indif- 
ferently bestowed on all the subjects of Constantine and 
Constantius ; and a considerable portion of knowledge and 
wealth and valor was still engaged in the service of poly- 
theism. The superstition of the senator and of the peasant, 
of the poet and the philosopher, was derived from very 
different causes, but they met with equal devotion in the 
temples of the gods. Their zeal was insensibly provoked 
by the insulting triumph of a proscribed sect ; and their 
hopes were revived by the well-grounded confidence, that 
the presumptive heir of the empire, a young and valiant 
hero, who had delivered Gaul from the arms of the barba- 
rians, had secretly erobxaced the religion of his ancestors. 





CYBELE. 



CYBELE. 

IN this foreign deity, (for she is of Phrygian origin,) says C. P. Moritz in his 
Mythological Works. " the fiction of Terra is renewed, who was the mother 
" of all creatures. The archetype of Cybele was likewise the great productive 
" power that gives rise to all formations on earth. She was conceived to be the 
' ruler of the elements, the beginning of all times, the highest goddess of the 
" heavens, as well as the queen of the lower world, and even the representative 
" of every deity: keeping the female character, because of her ever producing 
" power. Although this goddess is represented sitting in a chariot drawn bv 
" lions, and bearing a mural, or tower-crown on her head, to indicate her alf- 
" subduing power, together with her sovereignty of the earth overspread with 
" cities ; yet this representation is but an external cover for her incomprehensible 
" formless nature, which appeared to the ancients most venerable in this very 
" formless character. In the temple of the great mother of life, at Pessinus, in 
" Galatia, it was a small stone, of a blackish color, and a rough, pointed outside. 
" with which the idea of any regular form could be least connected, that was to 
" represent the alma mater. It was the idea of this mysterious being, too. which 
' was hidden in the person of the Egyptian Isis, whose temple bore the inscription : 

'I am all that is, that was, and that will be, and no mortal has lifted my veil.' " 

" Cybele is generally represented," says Lempriere. "as a robust woman far 
" advanced in pregnancy, to intimate the fecundity of the earth," for she was 
" the Great Mother " or " the Mother of the Gods." She held keys in her hand, 
and her head was crowned with rising turrets, and sometimes with leaves of 
the oak. The remarkable representation of the goddess given on the preceding 
i from Montfaucon, and symbolizes the fruitful earth. " Sometimes Cybeie 

is r -presented," continues Lempriere, " with a sceptre in her hand, with her 
" head covered with a tower. From Phrygia the worship passed into Greece, and 

w t^ solemnly established at Eleusis, under the name of the Eleusinian mys- 
' teries." The Rev. Robt. Taylor, in chapter xxxii. of The Diegesis, argues that 
" the Eleusinian Mysteries are entirely the same as the Christian sacrament of 
" the Lord's supper — Bacchus, as the Sun, being the common object of worship in 

both." Mosbeim, (Hist, of Christ, vol. i. chap. i. pp. 19-20,) admits that the 
Christians adopted many Pagan rites—" that the highest veneration was enter- 
" taine 1 by the people of every country for what were termed the mysteries ; and 
" the Christians, perceiving this, were induced to make their religion conform 
" in many respects to this part of the heathen model. * * » * The mode of 
" preparatory examination also bore a strong resemblance, in many respects, to 
" the course of initiatory forms observed by the heathen nations, in regard to 
" their mysteries. In a word, many forms and ceremonies, to pass over other 
" things of the Christian worship, were evidently copied from these secret rites 
" of Paganism." In Cent. ii. sec. xxxvi. this great scholar and candid Christi?" 
writer further admits that, as the heathen worshipers " had certain secret an*. 
" most sacred rites, to which they gave the name of 'mysteries,' 1 and at the 
" celebration of which none, except persons of the most approved faith and dis- 
" cretion, were permitted to be present, the Alexandrian Christians first, and 
" after them others, were beguiled into a notion that they could not do better 
" than make the Christian discipline accommodate itself to this model. * * * If 
" came to pass, that many terms and phrases made use of in the heather 
" mysteries were transferred and applied to different parts of the Christian wor 
" ship, particularly to the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper." 

Alexander Adams, LL.D in his Roman Antiquities, p. 288, says "the Galli, the 
" priests of Cybele. were so called from Gallus, a river in Phyrgia, which was 
" supposed to make those who drank of it mad, so that they made themselves 
" eunuchs as the priests of Cybele did. They used to carry round the image of 
" Cybele and with the gestures of mad people, rolling their heads, beating their 
" breasts tothe sound of the flute, makinga great noise with drumsand cymbals." 

" We find little certainty about the priests of Cybele," says Basil Kennett, of 
C. C. C. Oxen, in his Antiquities of Rome, " only that they were all eunuchs, and 
" by nation Phrygians ; and that in their solemn processions, they danced in armor, 
" making a confused noise with timbrels, pipes and cymbals, howling: all the 
" while as if they were mad, and cutting themselves as they went along." 
" And Cybele's priests, an eunuch at their head, 
" About the streets a mad procession led ; 
" His awkward clergymen about him prance, 
" And beat their timbrels to their mystic dance." 

— yuvenal Sat., Dry den's version. 

The priests of Cybele were always eunuchs, none other being admitted to offici- 
ate at her sacred rites, while many of the early Christians also belonged to the 
same unfortunate class. " For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from 
" their mother's womb : and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs 
•' of men : and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the 
" kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.'' 
St. Matthew, ch. xix. 12.) — E. 




ill: 

Jupiter Pluvius.* 

VI. 

THE RELIGION OF JULIAN. — UNIVERSAL TOLERATION. — HE 
ATTEMPTS TO RESTORE AND REFORM THE PAGAN WOR- 
SHIP. — TO REBUILD THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM — HIS 
ARTFUL PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS. — MUTUAL 
ZEAL AND INJUSTICE.f 

THE character of Apostate has injured the Reli<n « on of 
reputation of Julian ;t and the enthusiasm Julian. 
which clouded his virtues has exaggerated 
the real and apparent magnitude of his faults. Our partial 
ignorance may represent him as a philosophic monarch, 
who studied to protect, with an equal hand, the religious 
factions of the empire ; and to allay the theological fever 
which had inflamed the minds of the people, from the edicts 
of Diocletian to the exile of Athanasius. A more accurate 
view of the character and conduct of Julian will remove this 
favorable prepossession for a prince who did not escape the 
general contagion of the times. We enjoy the singular 
advantage of comparing the pictures which have been de- 

*The god Jupiter received various names and titles, derived from historical 
events, or from places dedicated to his worship. The above singular engraving, 
copied from a bas-relief found at Rome, represents the god as Jupiter Pluvialis, 
and was designed to commemorate his great mercy in sending a copious and 
refreshing rain in answer to prayers, sacrifices and oblations, during a period 
of extreme drouth : the ancient Pagans believing, like modern Christians, that 
by continued and persistent prayer, the supreme deity could be coerced or cajoled 
into acquiescence with their desires ; like a fond parent who often yields, in op- 
position to his better judgment, to the importunities of his beloved children. — E. 

t Chap. XXIII. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

1 Eckhel has a curious note on this obnoxious epithet. He maintains that 
apostasy denotes simply a change of opinion, and is not in itself a contumelious 
term, but becomes so when used by those whom the convert forsakes. He, 
though a Christian, avers that Constantine was an apostate as well as Julian. 
" Xon vererer Christianus ego, spqf tata ejus vocis natura, ipsum Constantinum 
" M. vocare apostatam, quippe qui, abjecto polytheismo, Christiana sacra 
" respexit." Num. Vet. voL viii. p. 130, note.— Eng. Ch. 

(423) 



424 THZ RELIGION OF JULIAN. 

lineated by his fondest admirers and his implacable enemies. 
The actions of Julian are faithfully related by a judicious 
and candid historian, the impartial spectator of his life and 
death. The unanimous evidence of his contemporaries is 
confirmed by the public and private declarations of the em- 
peror himself ; and his various writings express the uniform 
tenor of his religious sentiments, which policy would have 
prompted him to dissemble rather than to affect. A devout 
and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and Rome 
constituted the ruling passion of Julian j 1 the powers of an 
enlightened understanding were betrayed and corrupted by 
the influence of superstitious prejudice ; and the phantoms 
which existed only in the mind of the emperor, had a real 
and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The 
vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship 
and overturned the altars of those fabulous deities, engaged 
their votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a very 
numerous party of his subjects ; and he was sometimes 
tempted by the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, 
to violate the laws of prudence, and even of justice. The 
triumph of the party, which he deserted and opposed, has 
fixed a stain of infamy on the name of Julian ; and the 
unsuccessful apostate has been overwhelmed with a torrent 
of pious invectives, of which the signal was given by the 
sonorous trumpet 2 of Gregory Nazianzen. 3 The interesting 
nature of the events which were crowded into the short 
reign of this active emperor deserve a just and circum- 
stantial narrative. His motives, his councils, and his actions, 
as far as they are connected with the history of religion, 
will be the subject of the present chapter. 

1 1 shall transcribe some of his own expressions from a short religious discourse 
which the imperial pontiff composed to censure the bold impiety of a Cynic. 
'AAX'o/zwf (7VT<j drj tl rovg 6tov<; 7re<f>pina, nal <piAti, nal ctftu, nai u(o/j.ai, nal 
Trtlvd' uTryuc tu TuiauTaTrpbg avrovg 7tu«7^cj, baanep av tl^koL ola Trpbg dyadovc 
6eanoTaQ, irpbQ dcdaaKuhovc, npbq irarepac, irpog Krjdsfiovag. Orat. vii. p. 212. 
The variety and copiousness of the Greek tongue seem inadequate to the fervor 
of his devotion. 

2 The orator, with some eloquence, much enthusiasm, and more vanity, ad- 
dresses his discourse to heaven and earth, to men and angels, to the living and 
the dead ; and above all to the great Constantius (ei rig aladrjaig, an odd Pagan 
expression). He concludes with a bold assurance, that he has erected a monu- 
ment not less durable, and much more portable, than the columns of Hercules. 
See Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 50, iv. p. 134. 

3 See this long invective, which has been injudiciously divided into two orations 
in Gregory's Works, torn. i. pp. 49-134, Paris, 1630. It was published by Gregory 
and his friend Basil (iv. p. 133), about six months after the death of Julian, when 
his remains had been carried to Tarsus (iv. p. 120) ; but while Jovian was still on 
the throne (iii. p. 54, iv. p. 117). I have derived much assistance from a French 
version and remarks, printed at Lyons, 1735. 



EDUCATION OF JULIAN. 425 

The cause of his strange and fatal apostacy ~ , 

, , . r , & . . J~ . .. r J His education 

may be derived irom the early period 01 his hie, and apostacy. 
when he was left an orphan in the hands of the 
murderers of his family. The names of Christ and of Con- 
stantius, the ideas of slavery and of religion, were soon 
associated in a youthful imagination, which was susceptible 
of the most lively impressions. The care of his infancy was 
intrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, 4 who was related 

4 Nicomediae ab Eusebio educatus Episcopo, quera genere longius contingebat 
{Ammian. xxii. 9). Julian never expresses any gratitude towards that Arian 
prelate; but he celebrates his preceptor, the eunuch Mardonius, and describes 
his mode of education, which inspired his pupil with a passionate admiration for 
the genius, and perhaps the religion, of Homer. Misopogon. pp. 351, 352.* 

* Every incident in the education of so remarkable a man is interesting and 
important. Neander, both in his Julian and in his History of the Christian 
Religion, has devoted much attention to this subject ; and as all his information 
is drawn from the highest sources, a few portions of it may be usefully employed, 
in correcting some errors into which Gibbon was betrayed, and supplying some 
of his omissions. In No. 11, of the Appendix to his Julian, Neander questions 
the correctness of the statement made by Ammianus, that Julian was educated at 
Nicomedia, by Eusebius, the bishop of that place, since "'this prelate was ap- 
" pointed bishop of Coustantinople, before the synod of Antioch, A. D. 341, and 
" died soon after;" and Julian did not reside at Nicomedia till the j-ear 351. 
Still as a part of his childhood was passed at Constantinople, the bishop may 
have had, for a short time, some care of his education there. Neander, however, 
in his second section, says, that the emperor's young cousin was quite neglected 
by his relations, and intrusted to "an aged tutor, Mardonius, an hereditary 
" slave of his mother's family, whom her father had brought up and educated, in 
" order to instruct her in elegant literature." His mind thus received its first 
bent. But the boy was naturally endowed with a spirit that carried him to high 
thoughts. In after days, writing of himself, he said (Hymn, ad Solem. p. 130), 
" From my earliest age, a powerful attachment to the splendor of the god of 
" the sun (Helios) was implanted in me. The appearance of the heavenly light 
" used to carry me entirely out of myself, even in my childhood, so that I not only 
" strove to look upon it with a steady eye, but often went out into the open air, on 
" bright, cloudless nights, and careless of aught else, I gazed in admiration on the 
" beauty of the starry heavens, without thinking of myself, without hearing what 
" was said to me. I could say much more than this, if I attempted to relate, how at 
" such times I thought of the gods." Then trained for six years in the solitude 
of Macellum, he was there taught by Nicocles, a devoted admirer of the genius 
of ancient Greece, to study Homer, " through the medium of an allegorical 
" interpretation, as the guide to higher wisdom." At that period of life, 
when the feelings of youth are moulded into the principles of manhood, this 
ardent spirit was thus steeped in an enthusiasm, which effused a sublime, un- 
earthly radiance over all the forms it pervaded. From this retirement, Julian 
was removed to Constantinople, where he was not permitted to attend the lectures 
of the first rhetorician of the day, Libanius, an avowed Pagan; but his tutor was 
Ekebolius, a man of inferior talent and no principle, who, " under Constantius, 
" was a zealous Christian and a violent antagonist of Paganism ; then, under 
" Julian, became an equally zealous Pagan and antagonist of Christianity; and 
" after Julian's death, once more played the Christian and subjected himself to 
" the penances of the church, that he might be readmitted to its communion." 
When the emperor was called away to the West, he sent his cousin to Nicomedia. 
The young scholar, then twenty years of age, and so illustrious, as a member of 
the imperial family, was there courted by the philosophers, especially by the 
antichristian portion of the New Platonists, who had then many schools in Asia 
Minor. Their most celebrated teachers were ^Edesius, Chrysanthius. Eusebius, 
and Maximus. The latter was " an adroit juggler," and pretended to have power 
over supernatural agents. Hearing of the distinguished visitor at Nicomedia, 
he went there and established himself in such credit, that he induced the sus- 
ceptible prince to accompany him on his return to Ephesus, where the artifices 
and flatteries of the Ionian sophists, acting upon previous tendencies, effected 
Julian's secret conversion to Paganism. After the murder of his half-brother, 



426 GALLUS AND JULIAN. 

to him on the side of his mother ; and till Julian reached the 
twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian pre- 
ceptors the education not of a hero but of a saint. The 
emperor, less jealous of a heavenly, than of an early crown, 
contented himself with the imperfect character of a cate- 
chumen, while he bestowed the advantages of baptism 5 on 
the nephews of Constantine. 6 They were even admitted to 
the inferior offices of the ecclesiastical order ; and Julian 
publicly read the Holy Scriptures in the church of Nico- 
media. The study of religion, which they assiduously 
cultivated, appeared to produce the fairest fruits of faith and 
devotion. They prayed, they fasted, they distributed alms 

s Greg. Naz. iii. p. 70. He labored to effect that holy mark in the blood, per- 
haps, of a Taurobolium. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 361. No. 3, 4. 

• Julian himself (Epist. li. p. 454) assures the Alexandrians that he had been a 
Christian (he must mean a sincere one) till the twentieth year of his age. 

Callus, he was twice called to the court at Milan, and twice permitted to reside 
at Athens. The fame of this place, its monuments of ancient glory, the graceful 
and majestic symbols of heroism and divinity, that surrounded him, the visible 
representations of all that he mentally believed, the conversations and homage of 
learned men.justly proud of their glorious ancestry, and indignant at the idea of such 
renown being superseded by what they deemed an upstart system of yesterday, 
— all these completed and confirmed in Julian's mind a change, if a gradually 
developed sentiment can be called a change, which it would have been fatal to 
him to avow during the life of Constantius. This is the substance of Neander's 
account in his History 0/ the Christian Religion (vol. iii, sec. 1, p. 49-58) and in 
his Emperor Julian (sec. 2, p. 71-87). — Eng. Ch. 

" It is still a question among the learned," says Voltaire, " whether the Era- 
" peror Julian was really an apostate, and whether he was ever truly a Christian. 
He was not six years old when the Emperor Constantius, still more barbarous 
" than Constantine, had his father, his brother, and seven of his cousins mur- 
" dered. He and his brother Callus with difficulty escaped from this carnage; 
" but he was always very harshly treated by Constantius. His life was for a 
" long time threatened ; and he soon beheld his only remaining brother assas- 
" sinated by the tyrant's order. The most barbarous of the Turkish sultans have 
" never, I am sorry to say it, surpassed in cruelty nor in villainy the Constantine 
" family. From his tenderest years, study was Julian's only consolation. He 
*' communicated in secret with the most illustrious of the philosophers, who were 
" of the ancient religion of Rome. It is very probable that he professed that of 
" his uncle Constantius only to avoid assassination. Julian was obliged to con- 
" ceal his mental powers, as Brutus had done under Tarquin. He was the less 
" likely to be a Christian, as his uncle had forced him to be a monk, and to per- 
" form the office of reader in the church. A man is rarely of the religion of his 
" persecutor, especially when the latter wishes to be the ruler of his conscience. 

" Another circumstance which renders this probable is, that he does not say, in 
11 any of his works, that he had been a Christian. He never asks pardon for it of 
" the pontiffs of the ancient religion. He addresses them in his letters, as if he 
" had always been attached to the worship of the senate. It is not even proved 
" that he practiced the ceremonies of the Taurobolium, which might be regarded 
" as a sort of expiation, and that he desired to wash out with bull's blood that 
" which he so unfortunately called the stain of his baptism. However, this was 
" a pagan form of devotion, which is no more a proof than the assembling at the 
" mysteries of Ceres. In short, neither his friends nor his enemies relate any 
" fact, any words, which can prove that he ever believed in Christianity, and that 
" he passed from that sincere belief to the worship of the gods of the empire. 

" If such be the case, they who do not speak of him as an apostate, appear very 
" excusable. 

" Sound criticism being brought to perfection, all the world now acknowledges 
" that the Emperor Julian v?as a hero and a wise man — a stoic, equal to Marcus 
" Aurelius." — E. 



EARLY STUDIES OF JULIAN. 427 

to the poor, gifts to the clergy, and oblations to the tombs 
of the martyrs ; 7 and the splendid monument of St. Mamas, 
at Caesarea, was erected, or at least was undertaken, by the 
joint labor of Gallus and Julian. 8 They respectfully con- 
versed with the bishops, who were eminent for superior 
sanctity, and solicited the benediction of the monks and 
hermits, who had introduced into Cappadocia the voluntary 
hardships of the ascetic life. 9 As the two princes advanced 
towards the years of manhood, they discovered, in their 
religious sentiments the difference of their characters. The 
dull and obstinate understanding of Gallus, embraced, with 
implicit zeal, the doctrines of Christianity ; which never 
influenced his conduct, or moderated his passions. The 
mild disposition of the younger brother was less repugnant 
to the precepts of the gospel ; and his active curiosity might 
have been gratified by a theological system which explains 
the mysterious essence of the Deity, and opens the boundless 
prospect of invisible and future worlds. But the indepen- 
dent spirit of Julian refused to yield the passive and unre- 
sisting obedience which was required, in the name of 
religion, by the haughty ministers of the church. Their 
speculative opinions were imposed as positive laws, and 
guarded by the terrors of eternal punishments ; but while 
they prescribed the rigid formulary of the thoughts, the 
words, and the actions of the young prince ; whilst they 
silenced his objections, and severely checked the freedom of 
his inquiries, they secretly provoked his impatient genius to 
disclaim the authority of his ecclesiastical guides. He was 
educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst the scandals of the 
Arian controversy. 10 The fierce contests of the eastern 

t See his Christian, and even ecclesiastical education, in Gregory (iii. p. 58), 
Socrates (1. iii. c. 1), and Sozomen (1. v. c. 2). He escaped very narrowly from 
being a bishop, and perhaps a saint. 

s The share of the work which had been allotted to Gallus, was prosecuted 
with vigor and success ; but the earth obstinately rejected and subverted the 
structures which were imposed by the sacrilegious hand of Julian. Greg. iii. 
PP« 59» 6o, 61. Such a partial earthquake, attested by many living spectators, 
would form one of the clearest miracles in ecclesiastical story. 

9 The philosopher (Fragment, p. 288), ridicules the iron chains, &c, of these 
solitary fanatics (see Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. ix. pp. 661, 662), who had for- 
got that man is by nature a gentle and social animal, dvdptJTTOV (j>vaei tzo?utckov 
£(Jov Kal Tjuzpov. The Pagan supposes that, because they had renounced the 
gods, they were possessed and tormented by evil daemons. 

10 See Julian apud Cyril. 1. vi., p. 206; 1. viii., pp. 253, 262. "You persecute," 
says he, " those heretics who do not mourn the dead man precisely in the way 
" which you approve." He shows himself a tolerable theologian ; but he main- 
tains that the Christian Trinity is not derived from the doctrine of Paul, of Jesus, 
or of Moses.* 

* Julian's aversion to Christianity took a more decided form, when he saw the 
arrogance, ambition, and wealth-seeking cupidity of the hierarchy. A mind like 



428 EARLY DOUBTS. 

bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the 
profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, 
insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they 
neither understood nor believed the religion for which they 
so fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs 
of Christianity with that favorable attention which adds 
weight to the most respectable evidence, he heard with 
suspicion, and disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the 
doctrines for which he already entertained an invincible 
aversion. Whenever the young princes were directed to 
compose declamations on the subject of the prevailing con- 
troversies, Julian always declared himself the advocate of 
Paganism ; under the specious excuse that, in the defence 
of the weaker cause, his learning and ingenuity might be 
more advantageously exercised and displayed. 

As soon as Gallus was invested with the 
He embraces honors of the purple, Julian was permitted to 
'of Paganism? breathe the air of freedom, of literature, and of 
Paganism. 11 The crowd of sophists, who were 
attracted by the taste and liberality of their royal pupil, had 
formed a strict alliance between the learning and the re- 
ligion of Greece ; and the poems of Homer, instead of being 
admired as the original productions of human genius, were 

11 Libanius, Or/a. Parentalis, c. 9, 10, p. 232, &e. Greg. Nazianzen, Oral. iii. # 
p. 61. Eunap. I'it. Sophist, in Maximo, pp. 68, 69, 70, edit. Commelin. 

his. already prepossessed against the religion itself, was naturally disgusted by 
these characteristics of a body that had emanated from it, and towered by the 
very side of the throne, offensively obtruding rival pretensions and asserting a 
divine right to the allegiance of submissive believers. The dark coloring which 
this threw over his view of Christianity has not escaped the observation of some, 
who have studied his motives. Foremost among them, according to Eckhel 
(viii., 130), were his " ingestum odium episcoporum ejus aetatis," and " aliquorum 
" non ferenda ambitio." Neander, too {Hist, iii., 82), says, "Julian hated espe- 
cially the bishops;" and (Emp. ?ul. p. 132) marks the "especial distinction 
" between Julian's conduct to the Christians in general and his behavior to the 
" bishops," admitting also that the latter " forgot the duties which they owed to 
" the supreme magistrate." Even Warburton {Julian, p. 24) cannot deny, that 
" their turbulent and insolent manners deserved all the severity of his justice." 
Gibbon (c. 25) quotes from Ammianus (1. xxvii., c. 3) a description of their pomp 
and luxury, surpassing regal grandeur. To annihilate their power and humble 
their pride, was the chief object of Julian's proceedings. To weaken them, by 
affording more frequent opportunities for discord, he allowed those to return 
from banishment who had been expelled during the former predominance of an 
adverse sect; but he sent back into exile, Athanasius, who was ruling at Alex- 
andria, with a sway more absolute than his own. Nor was it inconsistent with 
this, that in his epistle to the high-priest of the Galatians, he should recommend 
him and his colleagues to " take a lesson from the Christian bishops and assert a 
" dignity superior to all earthly rank." He saw daily before him the power 
acquired by a regularly organized priesthood, and his project was, to establish a 
countervailing influence, of which he, as Pontifex Maximus, would be the recog- 
nized and directing head. This confirmed his preconceived dislike of a church 
that could produce such chiefs, and aggravated in his eyes the folly of their 
verbal distinctions, the fury of their disputatious strife, and the ferocity of their 
mutual persecutions. — Eng. Ch. 



JULIAN EMBRACES PAGANISM. 429 

seriously ascribed to the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and 
the muses. The deities of Olympus, as they are painted by 
the immortal bard, imprint themselves on the minds which 
are the least addicted to superstitious credulity. Our 
familiar knowledge of their names and characters, their 
forms and attributes, seems to bestow on those airy beings 
a real and substantial existence ; and the pleasing enchant- 
ment produces an imperfect and momentary assent of the 
imagination to those fables, which are the most repugnant 
to our reason and experience. In the age of Julian, every 
circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion ; 
the magnificent temples of Greece and Asia ; the works of 
those artists who had expressed, in painting or in sculpture, 
the divine conceptions of the poet ; the pomp of festivals 
and sacrifices ; the successful arts of divination ; the popular 
traditions of oracles and prodigies ; and the ancient practice 
of two thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, 
in some measure, excused by the moderation of its claims ; 
and the devotion of the Pagans was not incompatible with 
the most licentious skepticism. 12 Instead of an indivisible 
and regular system, which occupied the whole extent of the 
believing mind, the mythology of the Greeks was composed 
of a thousand loose and flexible parts, and the servant of the 
gods was at liberty to define the degree and measure of his 
religious faith. The creed which Julian adopted for his own 
use was of the largest dimensions ; and by a strange contra- 
diction, he disdained the salutary yoke of the gospel, whilst 
he made a voluntary offering of his reason on the altars of 
Jupiter and Apollo.* One of the orations of Julian is con- 

12 A modern philosopher has ingeniously compared the different operation of 
theism and polytheism, with regard to the doubt or conviction which they pro- 
duce in the human mind. See Hume's Essays, vol. ii. pp. 444-457, in 8vo, edit. 1777. 

* Voltaire suggests that the reason why the emperor Julian preferred Paganism 
to Christianity was, that "The Pagan priests had no dogmas: they did not 
" compel men to believe that which was incredible, they required nothing but 
" sacrifices, and even sacrifices were not enjoined under rigorous penalties ; they 
" did not set themselves up as the first order in the state, did not form a state 
" within a state, and did not mix in affairs of government. These might well be 
" considered motives to induce a man of Julian's character to declare himself on 
" their side ; and if he had piqued himself upon being nothing besides a stoic, he 
" would have had against him the priests of both religions, and all the fanatics 
" of each. The common people would not at that time have endured a prince 
" who was content simply with the pure worship of a pure divinity and the strict 
" observance of justice. It was necessarj' to side with one of the opposing 
" parties. We must therefore believe, that Julian submitted to the pagan cere- 
" monies, as the majority of princes and great men attend the forms of worship 
" in the public temples. They are led thither by the people themselves, and are 
" often obliged to appear what in fact they are not ; and to be in public the first 
" and greatest slaves of credulity. The Turkish sultan must bless the name of 
" Omar. The Persian sophi must bless the name of Ali. Marcus Aurelius him- 
" self was initiated in the mysteries of Eleusis." — E. 



430 PAGAN MIRACLES. 

secrated to the honor of Cybele, the mother of the gods, 
who required from her effeminate priests the bloody sacri- 
fice, so rashly performed by the madness of the Phrygian 
boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate, without a 
blush, and without a smile, the voyage of the goddess from 
the shores of Pergamus to the mouth of the Tyber ; and 
the stupendous miracle, which convinced the senate and 
people of Rome that the lump of clay, which their ambas- 
sadors had transported over the seas, was endowed with 
life, and sentiment, and divine power. 13 For the truth of 
this prodigy, he appeals to the public monuments of the 
city ; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly and 
affected taste of those men, who impertinently derided the 
sacred traditions of their ancestors. 14 

But the devout philosopher, who sincerely 
The allegories, embraced, and warmly encouraged, the super- 
stition of the people, reserved for himself the 
privilege of a liberal interpretation ; and silently withdrew 
from the foot of the altars into the sanctuary of the temple. 
The extravagance of the Grecian mythology proclaimed 
with a clear and audible voice, that the pious inquirer, in- 
stead of being scandalized or satisfied with the literal sense, 
should diligently explore the occult wisdom, which had 
been disguised, by the prudence of antiquity, under the 
mask of folly and fable. 15 The philosophers of the Platonic 
school, 16 Plotinus, Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, 
were admitted as the most skillful masters of this allegorical 
science, which labored to soften and harmonize the deformed 
features of Paganism. Julian himself, who was directed In 
the mysterious pursuit by yEdesius, the venerable successor 

is The Idaean mother landed in Italy about the end of the second Punic war. 
The miracle of Claudia, either virgin or matron, who cleared her fame by dis- 
gracing the graver modesty of the Roman ladies, is attested by a cloud of wit- 
nesses. Their evidence is collected by Drakenborch (ad Silium Itaiicum. xvii. 
33) ; but we may observe that Livy (xxix. 14, slides over the transaction with dis- 
creet ambiguity. 

1* I cannot refrain from transcribing the emphatical words of Julian : Ifiol tie 
ihicel rale koAeoi maTeveiv ftuKXov Til ToiavTa rj tovtoigi to'lc Knuipoic, wv to 
rpvxdptov dpifiv (ilv, vydc Si ovde iv faeiiEL. Orat. v. p. 161. Julian likewise 
declares his firm belief in the ancilia, the holy shields, which dropped from 
heaven on the Quirinal hill ; and pities the strange blindness of the Christians, 
who preferred the cross to these celestial trophies. Apud Cyril. I. vi. p. 194. 

is See the principles of allegory, in Julian iOrat. vii. pp. 216, 222). His reason- 
ing is less absurd than that of some modern theologians, who assert that an 
extravagant or contradictory doctrine must be divine; since no man alive could 
have thought of inventing it. 

is Eunapius has made these sophists the subject of a partial and fanatical 
history; and the learned Brucker (Hist. Philosoph. torn. ii. pp. "217-303) has 
employed much labor to illustrate their obscure lives and incomprehensible 
doctrine. 



PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 43 1 

of Iamblichus, aspired to the possession of a treasure, which 
he esteemed, if we may credit his solemn asseverations, far 
above the empire of the world. 17 It was indeed a- treasure, 
which derived its value only from opinion ; and every artist, 
who nattered himself that he had extracted the precious ore 
from the surrounding dross, claimed an equal right of 
stamping the name and figure the most agreeable to his 
peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had been 
already explained by Porphyry ; but his labors served only 
to animate the pious industry of Julian, who invented and 
published his own allegory of that ancient and mystic tale. 
This freedom of interpretation, which might gratify the pride 
of the Platonists, exposed the vanity of their art. Without 
a tedious detail, the modern reader could not form a just 
idea of the strange allusions, the forced etymologies, the 
solemn trifling, and the impenetrable obscurity of these 
sages, who professed to reveal the system of the universe. 
As the traditions of Pagan mythology were variously re- 
lated, the sacred interpreters were at liberty to select the 
most convenient circumstances ; and as they translated an 
arbitrary cypher, they could extract from any fable any 
sense which was adapted to their favorite system of religion 
and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus 
was tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or 
some physical truth ; and the castration of Atys explained 
the revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separa- 
tion of the human soul from vice and error. 18 

The theological system of Julian appears to Theological 
have contained the sublime and important prin- system of 
ciples of natural religion. But as the faith, which 
is not founded on revelation, must remain destitute of any 
firm assurance, the disciple of Plato imprudently relapsed 
into the habits of vulgar superstition ; and the popular and 
philosophic notion of the Deity seems to have been con- 
founded in the practice, the writings, and even in the mind 
of Julian. 19 The pious emperor acknowledged and adored 

i" Julian, Orat. vii. p. 222. He swears with the most fervent and enthusiastic 
devotion ; and trembles, lest he should betray too much of these holy mysteries, 
which the profane might deride with an impious Sardonic laugh. 

is See the fifth oration of Julian. But all the allegories which ever issued 
from the Platonic school are not worth the short poem of Catullus on the same 
extraordinary subject. The transition of Atys, from the wildest enthusiasm to 
sober, pathetic complaint, for his irretrievable loss, must inspire a man with 
pity, a eunuch with despair. 

19 The true religion of Julian may be deduced from the Ccesars, p. 30S, with 
Spanheim's notes and illustrations, from the fragments in Cyril, 1. ii.pp. 57, 58, 
and especially from the theological oration in Solem Reg-em. pp. 130-158, ad- 
dressed, in the confidence of friendship, to the praefect Sallust. 



432 THE CREED OF JULIAN. 

the eternal cause of the universe, to whom he ascribed all 
the perfections of an infinite nature, invisible to the eyes, 
and inaccessible to the understanding, of feeble mortals. 
The supreme God had created, or rather, in the Platonic 
Language, had generated, the gradual succession of depen- 
dent spirits, of gods, of demons, of heroes, and of men ; and 
every being which derived its existence immediately from 
the first cause, received the inherent gift of immortality. 
That so precious an advantage might not be lavished upon 
unworthy objects, the Creator had intrusted to the skill and 
power of the inferior gods the office of forming the human 
body, and of arranging the beautiful harmony of the animal, 
the vegetable, and the mineral kingdoms. To the conduct 
of these divine ministers he delegated the temporal govern- 
ment of this lower world ; but their imperfect administration 
is not exempt from discord or error. The earth and its in- 
habitants are divided among them, and the characters of 
Mars or Minerva, of Mercury or Venus, may be distinctly 
traced in the laws and manners of their peculiar votaries. 
As long as our immortal souls are confined in a mortal prison, 
it is our interest, as well as our duty, to solicit the favor, and 
to deprecate the wrath, of the powers of heaven; whose pride 
is gratified by the devotion of mankind ; and whose grosser 
parts may be supposed to derive some nourishment from 
the fumes of sacrifice. 20 The inferior gods might sometimes 
c< indescend to animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples, 
which were dedicated to their honor. They might occa- 
sionly visit the earth, but the heavens were the proper 
throne and symbol of their glory. The invariable order of 
the sun, moon, and stars, was hastily admitted by Julian, as 
a proof of their eternal duration ; and their eternity was a 
sufficient evidence that they were the workmanship, not of 
an inferior deity, but of the Omnipotent King. In the sys- 
tem of of the Platonists, the visible was a type of the invisible 
world. The celestial bodies, as they were informed by a 
divine spirit, might be considered as the objects the most 
worthy of religious worship. The Sun, whose genial in- 
fluence pervades and sustains the universe, justly claimed 
the adoration of mankind, as the bright representative of 

20 Julian adopts this gross conception by ascribing it to his favorite Marcus 
Antoninus (Ca-sares p. 333). _ The Stoics and Platonists hesitated between the 
analogy of bodies and the purity of spirits ; yet the gravest philosophers inclined 
to the whimsical fancy of Aristophanes and Lucian, that an unbelieving age 
might starve the immortal gods. See Observations de Spanheim, pp. 284, 444, &c. 



laticism 



MAGIC AND THEURGY. 433 

the Logos, the lively, the rational, the beneficent image 
of the intellectual Father. 21 

In every age, the absence of genuine in- Fam 
spiration is supplied by the strong illusions of of the 
enthusiasm and the mimic arts of imposture. p losop ers ' 
If, in the time of Julian, these arts had been practiced only 
by the Pagan priests, for the support of an expiring cause, 
some indulgence might perhaps be allowed to the interest 
and habits of the sacerdotal character. But it may appear 
a subject of surprise and scandal, that the philosophers 
themselves should have contributed to abuse the supersti- 
tious credulity of mankind, 22 and that the Grecian mysteries 

21 " H2.iov Myo), to %Qv uya?itia nal eppvxov, nai evvovv, Kal dyadoepybv 
rov vorjrov trarpog. Julian, Epist. 51. In another place (apud Cyril. 1. 2. p. 69,) 
he calls the sun God, and the throne of God. Julian believed the Platonician 
Trinity ; and only blames the Christians for preferring a mortal to an immortal 
Logos. * 

22 The Sophists of Eunapius perform as many miracles as the saints of the des- 
ert : and the only circumstance in their favor is, that they are of a less gloomy 
complexion. Instead of devils with horns and tails, Iamblichus evoked the genii 
of love, Eros and Anteros, from two adjacent fountains. Two beautiful boys 
issued from the water, fondly embraced him as their father, and retired at his 
command, pp. 26, 27. 

* The assistance given by philosophy to early Christianity, is not contradicted 
by its opposite influence in the case of Julian. Rightly apprehended, the two 
facts are perfectly consistent with each other. First, the essential character of 
Christianity itself was altogether changed. Instead of a religion, supplying the 
two great wants of the age, a spiritual worship and a settled conviction of the 
immortality of the soul, it had merged into a politico-hierarchical, temporal em- 
pire over the fears, the thoughts, the resources and the treasures of subjugated 
crowds. It had almost discarded the philosophy, which had been its ally, and 
used only its vaguest words as war-cries in the struggles of factions, contending 
for profitable power. This picture is copied from that drawn by Neander, in his 
Emp. Jul. p. 11.8 and 134, and in his Hist. p. 49 and 140. The following passage 
brings the whole into one point of view. " Worldly-minded bishops, who by their 
" proceedings caused the name of the Lord to be blasphemed among the Gentiles, 
" raged against Paganism and stood ready to reward, with everything which their 
"powerful influence at court enabled them to procure, especially the favor of the 
" prince and titles and stations of honor, the hypocrisy of those, who accounted 
" earthly things of more value than divine." Then the same writer describes the 
encouragement, which such corruptions gave, for an attempted reaction of 
Paganism to recover from its depression. The various habits and passions, that 
are averse to change, had kept many from deserting the religion of their fathers ; 
and these, seeing how philosophy had aided the introduction and progress of a 
rival faith, conceived, as has been before observed, the idea of employing the 
same means for the renovation of their own. The revived Platonism of Am- 
monius Saccas was not designed for this purpose ; but some of its tenets, carried 
out to an extravagant length, suited the attempt and were fanaticallv adapted or 
disnonestly perverted, to this end. " The religious svmbolism, derived from the 
u Neo-Platonic philosophv, was the most important means resorted to, for dress- 
tt ing out Paganism as a rival of Christianity, and for imparting an artificial life 
^ into that, which was already effete. Speculative ideas and mvstical intuitions 
u were to infuse into the old insipid institution a higher meaning. Theurgv and 
(1 the low traffic in boastful mysteries contributed greatly also to attract and en- 
tt chain, by their deceptive arts, many minds influenced more bv a vain curiositv, 
u which would penetrate into what lies bevond the province of' the human mind, 

than by any true religious need." (Neander Hist. vol. iii. p, 51.) There can be 
no stronger evidence of what had been the previous services of philosophv, than 
this desperate effort to misemploy them, for the support of a sinking and hopeless 
cause. Its total failure makes all comment unnecessary, except to point out its 



434 JULIAN S INITIATION. 

should have been supported by the magic or theurgy of 
the modern Platonists. They arrogantly pretended to con- 
trol the order of nature, to explore the secrets of futurity, to 
command the service of the inferior demons, to enjoy the 
view and conversation of the superior gods, and by dis- 
engaging the soul from her material bands, to reunite that 
immortal particle with the Infinite and Divine Spirit. 

The devout and fearless curiosity of Julian 
initiation and tempted the philosophers with the hopes of an 

fanaticism of *■ r . . f - . . . r r . 

Julian. easy conquest ; which, from the situation of their 
young proselyte, might be productive of the 
most important consequences. 23 Julian imbibed the first 
rudiments of the Platonic doctrines from the mouth of 
^Edesius, who had fixed at Pergamus his wandering and 
persecuted school. But as the declining strength of that 
venerable sage was unequal to the ardor, the diligence, the 
rapid conception of his pupil, two of his most learned dis- 
ciples, Chrysanthes and Eusebius, supplied at his own desire, 
the place of their aged master. These philosophers seem 
to have prepared and distributed their respective parts ; 
and they artfully contrived, by dark hints and affected dis- 
ss The dexterous management of these sophists, who played their credulous 
pupil into each other's hands, is fairly told by Eunapius (pp. 69 — 76) with unsus- 
pecting simplicity. The Abba de la Bleterie understands, and neatly describes, 
the whole comedy {Vie de Julien, pp. 61 — 67.) 

utter inefficacy, even in the hands of Julian, to reanimate so childish a super- 
stition. An excitable mind, motived and educated like his, would afford a natural 
facility for the admission of such impressions. Yet neither his undoubted talent, 
his fervent enthusiasm, his imperial power, nor the vantage-ground, which his 
adversaries gave him by their dereliction of principle, enabled him to resuscitate, 
what the spirit of the age had extinguished.— Eng. Ch. 

" If Julian had lived only ten years longer," says Voltaire, "there is great 
probability that he would have given a different form to Europe from that which 
it bears at present. The Christian religion depended upon his life : the efforts 
he made for its destruction rendered his name execrable to the nations who have 
embraced it. The Christian priests, who were his contemporaries, accused him 
of almost every crime, because he had committed what in their eyes was the 
greatest of all,— he had lowered and humiliated them." 

As an example of this abuse, Voltaire quotes an absurd and discredited story 
from a theological dictionary compiled in France by an ex-jesuit named Paulian, 
which states " that the emperor Julian, after being mortally wounded in a battle 
" with the Persians, threw some of his blood toward heaven, exclaiming, ' Gali- 
" ' lean, thou hast conquered ; '—a fable which destroys itself, as Julian was con- 
" queror in the battle, and Jesus Christ certainly was not the God of the Persians. 

" If we consider Julian in his military character, we see him ever victorious in 
" all his expeditions, even to the last moment of his life, and at length dying at 
" the glorious crisis when the Persians were routed. His death was that of a 
'" hero, and his last words were those of a philosopher: 'I submit,' says he, 'will- 
" ' ingly to the eternal decrees of heaven, convinced that he who is captivated 
" « with life, when his last hour has arrived, is more weak and pusillanimous than 
'• ' he who would rush to voluntary death when it is his duty to live.' He con- 
" verses to the last moment on the immortality of the soul ; manifests no regrets, 
" shows no weakness, and speaks only of his submission to the will of providence. 
" Let it be remembered that this is the death of an emperor at the age of thirty. 
" two, and let it then be decided whether his memory should be insulted."— E. 



FASTS AND VISIONS. 435 

putes, to excite the impatient hopes of the aspira?it, till they 
delivered him into the hands of their associate, Maximus, 
the boldest and most skillful master of the Theurgic science. 
By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at Ephesus, in 
the twentieth year of his age. His residence at Athens 
confirmed this unnatural alliance of philosophy and' super- 
stition. He obtained the privilege of a solemn initiation 
into the mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general 
decay of the Grecian worship, still retained some vestiges 
of their primaeval sanctity ; and such was the zeal of Julian, 
that he afterwards invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the court 
of Gaul, for the sole purpose of consummating, by mystic 
rites and sacrifices, the great work of his sanctification. As 
these ceremonies were performed in the depth of caverns, 
and in the silence of the night, and as the inviolable secret 
of the mysteries was preserved by the discretion of the ini- 
tiated, I shall not presume to describe the horrid sounds, 
and fiery apparitions, which were presented to the senses, or 
the imagination, of the credulous aspirant, 24 till the visions 
of comfort and knowledge broke upon him in a blaze of 
celestial light. 25 In the caverns of Ephesus and Eleusis, the 
mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere, deep and un- 
alterable enthusiasm ; though he might sometimes exhibit 
the vicissitudes of pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may 
be observed, or at least suspected, in the characters of the 
most conscientious fanatics. From that moment he conse- 
crated his life to the service of the gods ; and while the 
occupations of war, of government, and of study, seemed to 
claim the whole measure of his time, a stated portion of the 
hours of the night was invariably reserved for the exercise 
of private devotion. The temperance which adorned the 
severe manners of the soldier and the philosopher, was con- 
nected with some strict and frivolous rules of religious ab- 
stinence ; and it was in honor of Pan or Mercury, of Hecate 
or Isis, that Julian on particular days denied himself the use 
of some particular food, which might have been offensive 
to his tutelar deities. By these voluntary fasts, he prepared 

24 When Julian, in a momentary panic, made the sign of the cross, the daemons 
instantlv disappeared (Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 71). Gregory supposes that they 
were frightened, but the priests declared that they were indignant. The reader, 
according to the measure of his faith, will determine this profound question. 

25 A dark and distant view of the terrors and joys of initiation is shown by 
Dion, Chrvsostom, Themistius. Proclus, and Stobseus. The learned author of 
the Divine Legation has exhibited their words, (vol. i. pp. 239, 247, 248, 2S0, edit. 
1765), which he dexterously or forcibly applies to his own hypothesis. 



436 HOPES OF THE PAGANS. 

his senses and his understanding for the frequent and familiar 
visits with which he was honored by the celestial powers. 
Notwithstanding the modest silence of Julian himself, we 
may learn from his faithful friend, the orator Libanius, that 
he lived in a perpetual intercourse with the gods and 
godesses ; that they descended upon earth to enjoy the 
conversation of their favorite hero ; that they gently inter- 
rupted his slumbers by touching his hand or his hair ; that 
they warned him of every impending danger, and conducted 
him by their infallible wisdom, in every action of his life ; 
and that he had acquired such an intimate knowledge of 
his heavenly guests, as readily to distinguish the voice of 
Jupiter from that of Minerva, and the form of Apollo from 
the figure of Hercules. 26 '' These sleeping or waking visions, 
the ordinary effects of abstinence and fanaticism, would 
almost degrade the emperor to the level of an Egyptian 
monk. But the useless lives of Antony or Pachomius were 
consumed in these vain occupations. Julian could break 
from the dream of superstition to arm himself for battle ; 
and after vanquishing in the field the enemies of Rome, he 
calmly retired into his tent, to dictate the wise and salutary 
laws of an empire, or to indulge his genius in the elegant 
pursuits of literature and philosophy. 
„. ,. . The important secret of the apostasv of Julian 

His religious • - \ • .. .■, r ■% ,. r f . . / J 

dissimuittion. was intrusted to the fidelity of the initiated, with 
whom he was united by the sacred ties of friend- 
ship and religion. 27 The pleasing rumor was cautiously cir- 
culated among the adherents of the ancient worship ; and 
his future greatness became the object of the hopes, the 
prayers, and the predictions of the Pagans, in every province 
of the empire. From the zeal and virtues of their royal 
proselyte, they fondly expected the cure of every evil, and 
the restoration of every blessing ; and, instead of disap- 
proving of the ardor of their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously 
confessed that he was ambitious to attain a situation, in which 

2^ Julian's modesty confined him to obscure and occasional hints: but Libanius 
expatiates with pleasure on the fasts and visions of the religious hero. (Legal. 
a o-t "k aH -' P ' I5 "' anri ° rat Parental, c. ixxxiii. pp. 309, 310). 

27 Libanius, Orat. Parent, c. x. pp. 233. 234. Gallus had some reason to suspect 
the secret apostasy of his brother; and in a letter, which mav be received asgen- 
U1 u e V exhorts Julian to adhere to the religion of their ancestors; an argument 
which, as it should seem, was not yet perfectlv ripe. See Julian. Op. p. 454, and 
Hist, de yovien. torn. ii. p. i 4 i.f "™ 

* Modern spiritualists claim frequent intercourse with the illustrious sages of 
antiquity.— E. 
t Julian had confided his secret to Oribasius, the physician of Pergamus. Clin 

■r. R. 1, 431. — EnG. Ch. 



julian's forced dissimulation. 437 

he might be useful to his country and to his religion. But 
this religion was viewed with a hostile eye by the successor 
of Constantine, whose capricious passions alternately saved 
and threatened the life of Julian. The arts of magic and 
divination were strictly prohibited under a despotic govern- 
ment, which condescended to fear them ; and if the Pagans 
were reluctantly indulged in the exercise of their super- 
stition, the rank of Julian would have excepted him from 
the general toleration. The apostate soon became the pre- 
sumptive heir of the monarchy, and his death could alone 
have appeased the just apprehensions of the Christians. 28 
But the young prince, who aspired to the glory of a hero 
rather than of a martyr, consulted his safety by dissembling 
his religion ; and the easy temper of polytheism permitted 
him to join in the public worship of a sect which he inwardly 
despised. Libanius has considered the hypocrisy of his 
friend as a subject not of censure, but of praise. " As the 
" statues of the gods," says that orator, " which have been 
" defiled with filth, are again placed in a magnificent temple ; 
" so the beauty of truth was seated in the mind of Julian, 
" after it had been purified from the errors and follies of his 
" education. His sentiments were changed ; but as it would 
" have been dangerous to have avowed his sentiments, his 
" conduct still continued the same. Very different from the 
" ass in ^Esop, who disguised himself with a lion's hide, our 
" lion was obliged to conceal himself under the skin of an 
" ass ; and, while he embraced the dictates of reason, to 
" obey the laws of prudence and necessity.'^ 29 The dissimu- 
lation of Julian lasted above ten years, from his secret 
initiation at Ephesus to the beginning of the civil war ; when 
he declared himself at once the implacable enemy of Christ 
and of Constantius. This state of constraint might con- 
tribute to strengthen his devotion ; and as soon as he had 
satisfied the obligation of assisting, on solemn festivals, at 
the assemblies of the Christians, Julian returned, with the 
impatience of a lover, to burn his free and voluntary incense 

2? Gregory (iii. p. 50), with inhuman zeal, censures Constantius for sparing the 
infant apostate, (kukuc; acodevTa.) His French translator (p. 265) cautiously ob- 
serves, that such expressions must not be prises a la lettre.* 

29 Libanius, Orat. Parental, c. ix. p. 233. 

*The most literal version of Gregory's homicidal expression, cannot, however, 
be conscientiously disavowed by his most devoted apologist, nor can it be con- 
sistently condemned by a tolerator of that unscrupulous papal despotism which 
directed the swords of'Alva and Tilly, and sanctioned the truculent barbarities 
of St. Bartholomew's eve.— Eng, Ch. 



438 JULIANS WRITINGS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY. 

on the domestic chapels of Jupiter and Mercury. But as 
every act of dissimulation must be painful to an ingenuous 
spirit, the profession of Christianity increased the aversion 
of Julian for a religion which oppressed the freedom of his 
mind, and compelled him to hold a conduct repugnant to 
the noblest attributes of human nature, sincerity and courage. 
The inclination of Julian might prefer the 
H u2«? gods of Homer, and of the Scipios, to the new 
Christianity, faith, which his uncle had established in the 
Roman empire ; and in which he himself had 
been sanctified by the sacrament of baptism. But, as a 
philosopher, it was incumbent on him to justify his dissent 
from Christianity, which was supported by the number of its 
converts, by the chain of prophecy, the splendor of miracles, 
and the weight of evidence. The elaborate work, 30 which 
he composed amidst the preparations of the Persian war, 
contained the substance of those arguments which he had 
long revolved in his mind. Some fragments have been 
transcribed and preserved, by his adversary, the vehement 
Cyril of Alexandria; 31 and they exhibit a very singular 
mixture of wit and learning, of sophistry and fanaticism. 
The elegance of the style, and the rank of the author, re- 
commended his writings to the public attention ; 32 and in the 
impious list of the enemies of Christianity, the celebrated 
name of Porphyry was effaced by the superior merit or 
reputation of Julian. The minds of the faithful were either 
seduced, or scandalized, or alarmed ; and the Pagans, who 
sometimes presumed to engage in the unequal dispute, de- 
rived, from the* popular work of their imperial missionary, 
an inexhaustible supply of fallacious objections. But in the 
assiduous prosecution of these theological studies, the 
emperor of the Romans imbibed the illiberal prejudices and 
passions of a polemic divine. He contracted an irrevocable 
obligation to maintain and propagate his religious opinions; 
and whilst he secretly applauded the strength and dexterity 

so Fabricius (Biblioth. GrcEC. 1. v. c. viii. pp. 88—90) and Lardner 'Heathen 
Testimonies, vol. iv. pp. 44 — 47) have accurately compiled all that can now be dis- 
covered of Julian's work against the Christians. 

si About seventy years after the death of Julian, he executed a task which had 
been feebly attempted by Philip of Side, a prolix and contemptible writer. Even 
the work of Cyril has not entirely satisfied the most iavorable judges ; and the 
Abbe, de la Bleterie (Preface a T Hist, de yov'ten. pp. 30,32) wishes that some theo- 
logien philosophe (a strange centaur) would undertake the refutation of Julian. 

32 Libanius (Orat. Parental, c. lxxxvii p. 313), who has been suspected of as- 
sisting his friend, prefers this divine vindication {Orat. ix. in necem Julian p. 
255, edit. Morel.), to the writings of Porphyry. His judgment may be arraigned 
(Socrates, 1. iii. c. 23), but Libanius cannot be accused of flattery to a dead prince. 



julian's toleration. 439 

with which he wielded the weapons of controversy, he was 
tempted to distrust the sincerity, or to despise the under- 
standings, of his antagonists, who could obstinately resist 
the force of reason and eloquence. 

The Christians who beheld with horror and Universal 
indignation the apostasy of Julian, had much 
more to fear from his power than from his arguments. The 
Pagans, who were conscious of his fervent zeal, expected, 
perhaps with impatience, that the flames of persecution 
should be immediately kindled against the enemies of the 
gods ; and that the ingenious malice of Julian would invent 
some cruel refinements of death and torture, which had been 
unknown to the rude and inexperienced fury of his prede- 
cessors. But the hopes, as well as the fears of the religious 
factions were apparently disappointed, by the prudent 
humanity of a prince, 33 who was careful of his own fame, of 
the public peace, and of the rights of mankind. Instructed 
by history and reflection, Julian was persuaded, that if the 
diseases of the body may sometimes be cured by salutary 
violence, neither steel nor fire can eradicate the erroneous 
opinions of the mind. The reluctant victim may be dragged 
to the foot of the altar ; but the heart still abhors and dis- 
claims the sacrilegious act of the hand. Religious obstinacy 

S3 Libanius {Orat. Parent, c. lvii. pp. 2S3, 284) has eloquently explained the 
tolerating principles and conduct of his imperial friend. In a very remarkable 
epistle to the people of Bostra, Julian himself {Epist. lii.) professes his modera- 
tion, and betrays his zeal, which is acknowledged by Ammianus, and exposed by 
Gregory {Orat. iii. p. 72).* 

* This letter may have been covertly dictated by his zeal for Paganism ; but it 
is an open maifestation of the hostile feelings which he entertained towards the 
Christian priesthood. Bostra has already been noticed as the birth-place of the 
emperor Philip. It was a Colony, situated in Arabia, on the confines of Judaea. 
and not far from Pella, the early seat of Jewish Christianity. The inhabitants 
appear to have caught or inherited, the contentious spirit of their Hebrew neigh- 
bors. As they were almost equally divided between the gospel and heathenism, 
their discord led to scenes of violence, which attracted official notice. Julian 
remonstrated with the bishop, Titus, and held him responsible for the public 
tranquility. The prelate and his clergy replied by a memorial, asserting that 
the disorders of the people were restrained by their admonitions. On this the 
emperor addressed a letter to the citizens generally, of both parties, exhorting 
them to live in peace. But he adroitly took the opportunity of telling the Chris- 
tian laity, that their priesthood accused them of being disposed to turbulence. 
He, however, acquitted them, and imputed all disturbance to the arts of the 
clergy, whom he described as irritated by their loss of power and immunities, 
and as therefore instigating the people to despise the authority of the state. 
These agitators he recommended them to expel from their city, so that concord 
might prevail among them, and all quietly practice that form of worship which 
he left them at perfect liberty to choose for themselves. Neander {Hist. vol. iii., 
p. 83), censures Julian for his conduct to the bishop of Bostra. Yet we find it 
previously admitted by the same writer {Emp. Jul. p. 134), that the monarch 
thought he ought to be severe with the bishops, since " he" looked upon them as 
" disturbers of the public peace, who paid no regard to human authority ; and in 
" that spirit he wrote to the citizens of Bostra."— Eng. Ch. 



44-0 THE BANISHED CLERGY RETURN. 

is hardened and exasperated by oppression ; and as soon as 
the persecution subsides, those who have yielded are re- 
stored as penitents, and those who have resisted are honored 
as saints and martyrs. If Julian adopted the unsuccessful 
cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he was sensible 
that he should stain his memory with the name of a tyrant, 
and add new glories to the Catholic church, which had de- 
rived strength and increase from the severity of the Pagan 
magistrates. Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive 
of disturbing the repose of an unsettled reign, Julian sur- 
prised the world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a 
statesman or a philosopher. He extended to all the in- 
habitants of the Roman world, the benefits of a free and 
equal toleration ; and the only hardship which he inflicted 
on the Christians, was to deprive them of the power of tor- 
menting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatized with 
the odious titles of idolaters and heretics.* The Pagans 
received a gracious permission, or rather an express order, 
to open all their temples ; 34 and they were at once delivered 
from the oppressive laws and arbitrary vexations, which 
they had sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of 
his sons. At the same time, the bishops and clergy, who 
had been banished by the Arian monarch, were recalled 
from exile, and restored to their respective churches; the 
Donatists, the Novatians, the Macedonians, the Eunomians, 
and those who, with a more prosperous fortune, adhered to 
the doctrine of the Council of Nice. Julian, who understood 

3» In Greece, the temples of Minerva were opened by his express command, 
before the death of Cor.stantius (Liban. Orat. Parent, c. 55, p. 280); and Julian 
declares himself a Pagan in his public manifesto to the Athenians. This unques- 
tionable evidence may correct the hasty assertion of Ammianus, who seems to 
suppose Constantinople to be the place where he discovered his attachment to 
the gods.t 



* Another example of Pagan toleration! Had Christianity but possessed this 

' it, wir 

ppres: 
nobler lives, " doing unto others as they would that others should do unto them. 



t pc 

charitable spirit, which seems inherent in Paganism, mankind would have escaped 
centuries of oppression, and Christians might have learned to live happier and 



" Julian," says Voltaire, " never put any Christians to death : he granted them 
" no favors, but he never persecuted them. He permitted them, like a just 
" sovereign, to keep their own property; and he wrote in opposition to them 
" like a philosopher. He forbade their teaching in the schools the profane 
" authors, whom they endeavored to decry— this was not persecuting them ; and 
" he prevented them from tearing one another to pieces in their outrageous 
" hatred and quarrels — this was protecting them. They had in fact therefore 
" nothing with which they could reproach him, but with having abandoned them, 
*' and with not being of their opinion." — E. 

t This was not till after he had been proclaimed Augustus, and while he was 
on his march to attack Constantius ; it can have preceded only by a few days his 
entrance into the eastern metropolis. His opinions were never publicly avowed 
till he had lost all hope of maintaining amicable relations with his cousin. How 
carefully they were concealed, was proved by his conduct at the feast of the 
Epiphany that same year.— Eng. Ch. 



Julian's zealous piety. 441 

and derided their theological disputes, invited to the palace 
the leaders of the hostile seels, that he might enjoy the 
agreeable spectacle of their furious encounters. The clamor 
of controversy sometimes provoked the emperor to exclaim, 
" Hear me ! the Franks have heard me, and the Alemanni ;" 
but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with more 
obstinate and implacable enemies ; and though he exerted 
the powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, 
or at least in peace, he was pefectly satisfied, before he dis- 
missed them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread 
from the union of the Christians. The impartial Ammianus 
has ascribed this affected clemency to the desire of foment- 
ing the intestine divisions of the church ; and the insidious 
design of undermining the foundations of Christianity, was 
inseparably connected with the zeal which Julian professed, 
to restore the ancient religion of the empire. 35 

As soon as he ascended the throne, he as- 
sumed, according to the custom of his prede- d fvotion d of 
cessors, the character of supreme pontiff; not Julian in the 
only as the most honorable title of imperial re paglnism° 
greatness, but as a sacred and important office ; 
the duties of which he was resolved to execute with pious 
diligence. As the business of the state prevented the 
emperor from joining every day in the public devotion of 
his subjects, he dedicated a domestic chapel to his tutelar 
deity the Sun ; his gardens were filled with statues and 
altars of the gods ; and each apartment of the palace dis- 
played the appearance of a magnificent temple. Every 
morning he saluted the parent of light with a sacrifice ; the 
blood of another victim was shed at the moment when the 
sun sank below the horizon ; and the moon, the stars, and 
the genii of the night, received their respective and season- 
able honors from the indefatigable devotion of Julian. On 
solemn festivals, he regularly visited the temple of the god 
or goddess to whom the day was peculiarly consecrated, 
and endeavored to excite the religion of the magistrates and 
people by the example of his own zeal. Instead of main- 
taining the lofty state of a monarch, distinguished by the 
splendor of his purple, and encompassed by the golden 

35 Ammianus, xxii. 5. Sozomen, 1. v. c. 5. Bestia moritur, tranquilitas redit 
* * * omnes episcopi qui de propriis sedibus fuerant exterminate per indulgen- 
tiam novi principis ad ecclesias redeuQt. yerom. adversus Luciferianos , torn. ii. 
p. 143. Optatus accuses the Donatists for owing their safety to an apostate (,1. ii. 
c. 16, pp. 36, 37, edit. Dupin.). 



442 RENEWAL OF PAGAN WORSHIP. 

shields of his guards, Julian solicited, with respectful eager- 
ness, the meanest offices which contributed to the worship 
of the gods. Amidst the sacred but licentious crowd of 
priests, of inferior ministers, and of female dancers, who 
were dedicated to the service of the temple, it was the busi- 
ness of the emperor to bring the wood, to blow the fire, to 
handle the knife, to slaughter the victim, and, thrusting his 
bloody hands into the bowels of the expiring animal, to 
draw forth the heart or liver, and to read, with the consum- 
mate skill of an haruspex, the imaginary signs of future 
events. The wisest of the Pagans censured this extravagant 
superstition, which affected to despise the restraints of 
prudence and decency. Under the reign of a prince, who 
practiced the rigid maxims of economy, the expense of 
religious worship consumed a very large portion of the 
revenue ; a constant supply of the scarcest and most beauti- 
ful birds was transported from distant climates, to bleed on 
the altars of the gods ; an hundred oxen were frequently 
sacrificed by Julian on one and the same day ; and it soon 
became a popular jest, that if he should return with conquest 
from the Persian war, the breed of horned cattle must in- 
fallibly be extinguished. Yet this expense may appear in- 
considerable, when it is compared with the splendid presents 
which were offered, either by the hand, or by order, of the 
emperor, to all the celebrated places of devotion in the 
Roman world; and with the sums allotted to repair and 
decorate the ancient temples, which had suffered the silent 
decay of time, or the recent injuries of Christian rapine. 
Encouraged by the example, the exhortations, the liberality, 
of their pious sovereign, the cities and families resumed the 
practice of their neglected ceremonies. " Every part of the 
" world," exclaims Libanius, with devout transport, " dis- 
" played the triumph of religion ; and the grateful prospect 
" of liaming altars, bleeding victims, the smoke of incense, 
" and a solemn train of priests and prophets, without fear 
" and without danger. The sound of prayer and of music 
" was heard on the tops of the highest mountains ; and the 
11 same ox afforded a sacrifice for the gods, and a supper for 
"their joyous votaries." 36 

36 The restoration of the Pagan worship is described by Julian {Misopogon, 
p. 346), Libanius {Orat. Parent, c. 60, pp. 286, 287, and Orat. Consular, ad Julian. 
pp. 245, 246, edit. Morel.), Ammianus (xxii. 12), and Gregory Nazianzen {Orat. iv. 
p. 121). These writers agree in the essential, and even minute, facts; but the 
different lights in which they view the extreme devotion of Julian, are expressive 
of the gradations of self-applause, passionate admiration, mild reproof, and par- 
tial invective. 



JULIAN S PASTORAL LETTERS. 443 

But the genius and power of Julian were une- 
qual to the enterprise of restoring a religion, bnSSSisS 
which was destitute of theological principles, of 
moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical discipline ; which 
rapidly hastened to decay and dissolution, and was not 
susceptible of any solid or consistent reformation. The 
jurisdiction of the supreme pontiff, more especially after 
that office had been united with the imperial dignity, com- 
prehended the whole extent of the Roman empire. Julian 
named for his vicars in the several provinces, the priests 
and philosophers, whom he esteemed the best qualified to 
cooperate in the execution of his great design ; and his 
pastoral letters, 37 if we may use that name, still represent a 
very curious sketch of his wishes and intentions. He directs, 
that in every city the sacerdotal order should be composed, 
without any distinction of birth or fortune, of those persons 
who were the most conspicuous for the love of the gods 
and of men. " If they are guilty," continues he, "of any 
" scandalous offence, they should be censured or degraded 
" by the superior pontiff ; but, as long as they retain their 
" rank, they are entitied to the respect of the magistrates 
" and people. Their humility may be shown in the plainness 
" of their domestic garb ; their dignity, in the pomp of holy 
" vestments. When they are summoned in their turn to 
" officiate before the altar, they ought not, during the ap- 
" pointed number of days, to depart from the precincts of 
" the temple ; nor should a single day be suffered to elapse, 
" without the prayers and the sacrifice which they are obliged 
" to offer for the prosperity of the state and of individuals. 
" The exercise of their sacred functions requires an immacu- 
" late purity, both of mind and body ; and even when they are 
" dismissed from the temple to the occupations of common 
" life, it is incumbent on them to excel in decency and virtue 
" the rest of their fellow-citizens. The priest of the gods 
" should never be seen in theatres or taverns. His conversa- 
" tion should be chaste, his diet temperate, his friends of 
" honorable reputation ; and if he sometimes visits the forum 
" or the palace, he should appear only as the advocate of 
" those who have vainly solicited either justice or mercy. 
" His studies should be suited to the sanctity of his profes- 

37 See Julian. Epistol. xlix. lxii. Ixiii., and a long- and curious fragment, without 
beginning or end (pp. 2S8-305). The supreme pontiff derides the .Mosaic history 
and the Christian discipline, prefers the Greek poets to the Hebrew prophets, 
and palliates with the skill of a Jesuit ! the relative worship of images'. 



444 THE DUTY OF PAGAN PRIESTS. 

" sion. Licentious tales, or comedies, or satires, must be 
" banished from his library, which ought solely to consist of 
" historical and philosophical writings ; of history which is 
" founded in truth, and of philosophy which is connected with 
" religion. The impious opinions of the Epicureans and 
" Skeptics deserve his abhorrence and contempt; 38 but he 
" should diligently study the systems of Pythagoras, of 
" Plato, and of the Stoics, which unanimously teach that 
11 there are gods ; that the world is governed by their provi- 
" dence ; that their goodness is the source of every temporal 
" blessing ; and that they have prepared for the human soul a 
" future state of reward or punishment."* The imperial pon- 
tiff inculcates, in the most persuasive language, the duties of 
benevolence and hospitality ; exhorts his inferior clergy to 
recommend the universal practice of those virtues ; promises 
to assist their indigence from the public treasury ; and de- 
clares his resolution of establishing hospitals in every city, 
where the poor should be received without any invidious dis- 
tinction of country or of religion. Julian beheld with envy the 
wise and humane regulations of the church ; and he very 
frankly confesses his intention to deprive the Christians of 
the applause, as well as advantage, which they had acquired 
by the exclusive practice of charity and beneficence. 39 The 
same spirit of imitation might dispose the emperor to adopt 
several ecclesiastical institutions, the use and importance 
of which were approved by the success of his enemies. 40 But 
if these imaginary plans of reformation had been realized, 
the forced and imperfect copy would have been less bene- 

38 The exultation of Julian (p. 301) that these impious sects, and even their 
writings, are extinguished, may be consistent enough with the sacerdotal char- 
acter ; but it is unworthy of a philosopher to wish that any opinions and argu- 
ments the most repugnant to his own, should be concealed from the knowledge 
of mankind. 

39 Yet he insinuates, that the Christians, under the pretence of charity, inveigled 
children from their religion and parents, conveyed them on shipboard, and de- 
voted those victims to a life of poverty or servitude in a remote country (p. 305). 
Had the charge been proved, it was his duty, not to complain, but to punish. 

40 Gregory Nazianzen is facetious, ingenious, and argumentative (Orat. iii. 
pp. 101, 102, &c. ). He ridicules the folly of such vain imitation ; and amuses him- 
self with inquiring, what lessons, moral or theological, could be extracted from 
the Grecian fables. 

* In these letters, Julian gives the idea of a Paganism, very unlike the mytholo- 
gies of Hesiod, Homer, Numa, and Ovid. His instructions to his priests are an 
amplifying commentary on those of Paul to Titus, in his choice of bishops. The 
most remarkable feature in these extraordinary productions is, that while as 
Pontifes Maximus he affects to restore idolatry, as emperor and philosopher he 
endeavors to provide what he clearly perceives to be most required for the satis- 
faction of his age, by giving a more spiritual character to Pagan worship, and 
combining with it the belief of a future state. He even points out Platonism as 
the philosophy which had produced these impressions and created these wants. 
— Eng. Ch. 



julian's friendship for pagans. 445 

ficial to Paganism, than honorable to Christianity. The 
Gentiles, who peaceably followed the customs of their ances- 
tors, were rather surprised than pleased with the introduction 
of foreign manners ; and, in the short period^ of his reign, 
Julian had frequent occasions to complain of the want of 
fervor of his own party. 41 

The enthusiasm of Julian prompted him to Thg 

embrace the friends of Jupiter as his personal philosophers. 
friends and brethren ; and though he partially 
overlooked the merit of Christian constancy, he admired 
and rewarded the noble perseverance of those Gentiles who 
had preferred the favor of the gods to that of the emperor. 42 
If they cultivated the literature, as well as the religion, of 
the Greeks, they acquired an additional claim to the friend- 
ship of Julian, who ranked the muses in the number of his 
tutelar deities. In the religion which he had adopted, piety 
and learning were almost synonymous; 43 and a crowd of 
poets, of rhetoricians, and of philosophers, hastened to the 
imperial court, to occupy the vacant places of the bishops, 
who had seduced the credulity of Constantius. His suc- 
cessor esteemed the ties of common initiation as far more 
sacred than those of consanguinity ; he chose his favorites 
among the sages, who were deeply skilled in the occult 
sciences of magic and divination, and every impostor, who 
pretended to reveal the secrets of futurity, was assured of 
enjoying the present hour in honor and affluence. 44 Among 
the philosophers, Maximus obtained the most eminent rank 
in the friendship of his royal disciple, who communicated, 
with unreserved confidence, his actions, his sentiments, and 
his religious designs, during the anxious suspense of the 
civil war. 45 As soon as Julian had taken possession of the 
palace of Constantinople, he dispatched an honorable and 
pressing invitation to Maximus, who then resided at Sardis 

41 He accuses one of his pontiffs of a secret confederacy with the Christian 
bishops and presbyters (Epist. Ixii.). 'Opuv ovv iroXXqv /ubj oliyopiav ovaav 
7j[ilv ?rpof tovq -&ebvg, and again, ^juug <5£ ovru 'paOvucog, & c - Epist. lxiii. 

42 He praises the fidelity of Callixene, priestess of Ceres, who had been twice 
as constant as Penelope, and rewards her with the priesthood of the Phyrgian 
goddess at Pessinus (Julian. Epist. xxi.). He applauds the firmness of Sopater 
of Hierapolis, who had been repeatedly pressed by Constantius and Gallus to 
apostatize (Epist. xxvii. p. 401). 

43 r O ds vo/ui^uv ude~A<pa "koyovg re kcu &eu>v lepa. Orat. Parent, c. 77, p. 302. 
The same sentiment is frequently inculcated by Julian, Libanius, and the rest of 
their party. 

44 The curiosity and credulity of the emperor, who tried every mode of divina- 
tion, are fairly exposed by Ammianus, xxii. 12. 

4^ Julian. Epist. xxxviii. Three other epistles (xv. xvi. xxxix.), in the same 
style of friendship and confidence, are addressed to the philosopher Maximus. 



446 julian's respect for maximus. 

in Lydia, with Chrysanthius, the associate of his art and 
studies. The prudent and superstitious Chrysanthius re- 
fused to undertake a journey which showed itself, according 
to the rules of divination, with the most threatening and 
malignant aspect : but his companion, whose fanaticism was 
of a bolder cast, persisted in his interrogations, till he had ex- 
torted from the gods a seeming consent to his own wishes, 
and those of the emperor. The journey of Maximus through 
the cities of Asia displayed the triumph of philosophic 
vanity ; and the magistrates vied with each other in the 
honorable reception which they prepared for the friend of 
their sovereign. Julian was pronouncing an oration before 
the senate, when he was informed of the arrival of Maximus. 
The emperor immediately interrupted his discourse, ad- 
vanced to meet him, and after a tender embrace, conducted 
him by the hand into the midst of the assembly, where he 
publicly acknowledged the benefits which he had derived 
from the instructions of the philosopher. Maximus, 46 who 
soon acquired the confidence, and influenced the councils, 
of Julian, was insensibly corrupted by the temptations of a 
court. His dress became more splendid, his demeanor 
more lofty, and he was exposed, under a succeeding reign, 
to a disgraceful inquiry into the means by which the disciple 
of Plato had accumulated, in the short duration of his favor, 
a very scandalous proportion of wealth. Of the other 
philosophers and sophists, who were invited to the imperial 
residence by the choice of Julian, or by the success of 
Maximus, few were able to preserve their innocence, or their 
reputation. 47 The liberal gifts of money, lands, and houses, 
were insufficient to satiate their rapacious avarice ; and the 
indignation of the people was justly excited by the remem- 
brance of their abject poverty and disinterested professions. 
The penetration of Julian could not always be deceived; 

4G Eunapius * (in Maximo, pp. 77, 78, 79, and in Chrysanthio, pp. 147, 148) has 
minutely related these anecdotes, which he conceives to be the most important 
events of the age. Yet he fairly confesses the frailtv of Maximus. His reception 
at Constantinople is described by Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. 86, p. 301) and 
Ammianus (xxii. 7). 

47 Chrysanthius, who had refused to quit Lydia, was created high priest of the 
province. His cautious and temperate use of power secured him after the revo- 
lution ; and he lived in peace, while Maximus, Priscus, &c, were persecuted by 
the Christian ministers. See the adventures of those fanatic sophists, collected 
by Erucker, torn. ii. pp. 281-293.! 

* Eunapius wrote a continuation of the History of Dexippus. Some valuable 
fragments of this work have been recovered bv M. Mai, and reprinted in 
Niebuhr's edition of the Byzantine Historians.— Milman. 

t Chrysantius attained the age of eighty years, and Oribasius was still living, 
A. D. 395. (Clinton, F. JR. ii. 309, 311). — Eng Ch. 



julian's proselytism. 447 

but he was unwilling to despise the characters of those men 
whose talents deserved his esteem ; he desired to escape 
the double reproach of imprudence and inconstancy ; and 
he was apprehensive of degrading, in the eyes of the pro- 
fane, the honor of letters and of religion. 48 

The favor of Julian was almost equally divided Conversions 
between the Pagans, who had firmly adhered to 
the worship of their ancestors, and the Christians, who 
prudently embraced the religion of their sovereign. The 
acquisition of new proselytes 49 gratified the ruling passions 
of his soul, superstition and vanity ; and he was heard to 
declare, with the enthusiasm of a missionary, that if he could 
render each individual richer than Midas, and every city 
greater than Babylon, he should not esteem himself the 
benefactor of mankind, unless, at the same time, he could 
reclaim his subjects from their impious revolt against the 
immortal gods. 50 A prince who had studied human nature, 
and who possessed the treasures of the Roman empire, 
could adapt his arguments, his promises, and his rewards, 
to every order of Christians ; 51 and the merit of a seasonable 
conversion was allowed to supply the defects of a candidate, 
or even to expiate the guilt of a criminal. As the army is 
the most forcible engine of absolute power, Julian applied 
himself, with peculiar diligence, to corrupt the religion of 
his troops, without whose hearty concurrence every measure 
must be dangerous and unsuccessful ; and the natural 
temper of soldiers made this conquest as easy as it was im- 
portant. The legions of Gaul devoted themselves to the 
faith, as well as to the fortunes, of their victorious leader ; 

4? See Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. 101, 102, pp. 324, 325, 326) and Eunapius {Vit. 
Sophist, in Proczresio, p. 126). Some students, whose expectations perhaps were 
groundless, or extravagant, retired in disgust (Greg. Naz. Orat. iv. p. 120). It is 
strange that we should not be able to contradict the title of one of" Tillemont's 
chapters {Hist, des Empereurs, torn. iv. p. 960), " La Cour de Julien est pleine de 
" philosophes et de gens perdus." 

49 Under the reign of Louis XIV. his subjects of every rank aspired to the 
glorious title of Convertisseur, expressive of their zeal and success in making 
proselytes. The word and the idea are growing obsolete in France ; may they 
never be introduced into England.* 

so See the strong expressions of Libanius, which were probably those of Julian 
himself. {Orat. Parent, c. 59, p. 285. 

si When Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. x. p. 167) is desirous to magnify the Christian 
firmness of his brother Caesarius, physician to the imperial court, he owns that 
Caesarius disputed with a formidable adversary, tzoTivv kv birXolc;, nal fiejnv kv 
2.6yov SeivoTTjTi. In his invectives, he scarcely allows any share of wit or courage 
to the apostate. 

*M. Schreiter, in his translation, renders the last word in this note by " unserm 
" Vaterlande," so as to make the wish common to both England and Germany. 
— Eng. Ch. 

Let us add to M. Schreiter's patriotic term, " unserm Vaterlande '," (our Father- 
land,) the more comprehensive German words v die ganze Welt, (the whole 
world.)— E. . 



443 RECONVERSION OF THE LEGIONS. 

and even before the death of Constantius, he had the satis- 
faction of announcing to his friends, that they assisted with 
fervent devotion, and voracious appetite, at the sacrifices, 
which were repeatedly offered in his camp, of whole heca- 
tombs of fat oxen. 52 The armies of the east, which had been 
trained under the standard of the cross and of Constantius, 
required a more artful and expensive mode of persuasion. 
On the days of solemn and public festivals, the emperor 
received the homage, and rewarded the merit, of the troops. 
His throne of state was encircled with the military ensigns 
of Rome and the republic ; the holy name of Christ was 
erased from the Labarum ; and the symbols of war, of 
majesty, and of Pagan superstition, were so dexterously 
blended, that the faithful subject incurred the guilt of idol- 
atry, when he respectfully saluted the person or image of 
his sovereign. The soldiers passed successively in review ; 
and each of them, before he received from the hand of 
Julian a liberal donative, proportioned to his rank and ser- 
vices, was required to cast a few grains of incense into the 
flame which burnt upon the altar. Some Christian con- 
fessors might resist, and others might repent ; but the far 
greater number, allured by the prospect of gold, and awed 
by the presence of the emperor, contracted the criminal 
engagement ; and their future perseverence in the worship 
of the gods was enforced by every consideration of duty 
and of interest. By the frequent repetition of these arts, and 
at the expense of sums which would have purchased the 
service of half the nations of Scythia, Julian gradually ac- 
quired for his troops the imaginary protection of the gods, 
and for himself the firm and effectual support of the Roman 
legions. 53 It is indeed more than probable, that the resto- 
ration and encouragement of Paganism revealed a multitude 
of pretended Christians, who, from motives of temporal 
advantage, had acquiesced in the religion of the former 
reign ; and who afterwards returned, with the same flexi- 
bility of conscience, to the faith which was professed by the 
successors of Julian. 

62 Julian. Epist. xxxviii. Ammianus, xxii.'i2. Adeo ut in dies paene singulos 
milites carnis distentiore sagina victitantes incultius, potusque avidltate correpti, 
humeris impositi transeuntium per plateas, ex publicis sedibus * * * ad sua 
diversoria portarentur. The devout prince and the indignant historian describe 
the same scene; and in Illyricum or Antioch, similar causes must have produced 
similar effects. 

53 Gregory {Orat. iii. pp. 74, 75, 83-86) and Libanius {Orat. Parent, c. Ixxxi. lxxxii. 
PP- 3°7i 3° 8 ). rrepi tclvtjjv t/)v apovdrjv, ovk epvov/iai ttTiovtov avrjT^wadai neyav. 
The sophist owns and justifies the expense of these military conversions. 



REBUILDING THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM. 449 

While the devout monarch incessantly labored _, T 

. . ,. . r 1 • The Jews. 

to restore and propagate the religion 01 his an- 
cestors, he embraced the extraordinary design of rebuilding 
the temple of Jerusalem. In a public epistle 54 to the nation 
or community of the Jews, dispersed through the provinces, 
he pities their misfortunes, condemns their oppressors, 
praises their constancy, declares himself their gracious pro- 
tector, and expresses a pious hope, that, after his return 
from the Persian war, he may be permitted to pay his 
grateful vows to the Almighty in his holy city of Jerusalem. 
The blind superstition, and abject slavery, of those un- 
fortunate exiles, must excite the contempt of a philosophic 
emperor ; but they deserved the friendship of Julian, by 
their implacable hatred of the Christian name. The barren 
synagogue abhorred and envied the fecundity of the re- 
bellious church : the power of the Jews was not equal to 
their malice ; but their gravest rabbis approved the private 
murder of an apostate; 55 and their seditious clamors had 
often awakened the indolence of the Pagan magistrates. 
Under the reign of Constantine, the Jews became the sub- 
jects of their revolted children ; nor was it long before they 
experienced the bitterness of domestic tyranny. The civil 
immunities which had been granted, or confirmed, by Sev- 
erus, were gradually repealed by the Christian princes ; and 
a rash tumult, excited by the Jews of Palestine, 56 seemed to 
justify the lucrative modes of oppression which were invented 
by the bishops and eunuchs of the court of Constantius. 
The Jewish patriarch, who was still permitted to exercise a 
precarious jurisdiction, held his residence at Tiberias f and 
the neighboring cities of Palestine were filled with the 
remains of a people who fondly adhered to the promised 
land. But the edict of Hadrian was renewed and enforced, 

H Julian's epistle (xxv.) is addressed to the community of the Jews. Aldus 
{Venet. 1499) has branded it with an si yvrjGLOQ : but this stigma is justly removed 
by the subsequent editors. Petavius and Spanheim. This epistle is mentioned by 
Sozomen (1. v. c. 22), and the purport of it is confirmed by Gregory {Orat. iv. 
p. 111), and by Julian himself. {Fragment, p. 295). 

55 The Misnah denounced death against those who abandoned the foundation. 
The judgment of zeal is explained by Marsham {Canon. Chron. pp. 161, 162, edit, 
fol. London, 1672) and Basnage {Hist, des Juifs, torn. viii. p. 120). Constantine 
made a law to protect Christian converts from Judaism. Cod. Tlieod. 1. xvi. 
tit. viii. leg. 1. Godefroy, torn. vi. p. 215. 

56 Et interea (during the civil war of Magnentius) Judseorum seditio, qui Patri- 
cium, nefarie in regni speciem sustulerunt, oppressa. Aurelius Victor, in Con- 
stants, c. xlii. See Tillemont, Hist, des Empereurs, torn. iv. p. 379, in 410.* 

57 The city and synagogue of Tiberias are curiously described by Reland. 
Palestin. torn. ii. pp. 1036-1042. 

* Diocaesarea was the scene of this tumult, and its suppression was the only 
feat of arms performed by Julian's brother, Gallus, during his short reign as 
Cassar. Socrat H. E. 2. 33."— Eng. Ch. 



450 THE HOLY SEPULCHRE DISCOVERED. 

and they viewed from afar the walls of the holy city, which 
were profaned in their eyes by the triumph of the cross, 
and the devotion of the Christians. 58 

Jerusalem ^ n ^ e m ^ st °f a r °cky and barren country, 

the walls of Jerusalem 59 enclosed the two moun- 
tains of Sion and Acra, within an oval figure of about three 
English miles. 00 Towards the south, the upper town, and 
the fortress of David, were erected on the lofty ascent of 
mount Sion ; on the north side, the buildings of the lower 
town covered the spacious summit of mount Area ; and a 
part of the hill, distinguished by the name of Moriah, and 
leveled by human industry, was crowned with the stately 
temple of the Jewish nation. After the final destruction of 
the temple by the arms of Titus and Hadrian, a ploughshare 
was drawn over the consecrated ground, as a sign of perpetual 
interdiction. Sion was deserted ; and the vacant space of 
the lower city was filled with the public and private edifices 
of the yElian colony, which spread themselves over the ad- 
jacent hill of Calvary. The holy places were polluted with 
monuments of idolatry ; and either from design or accident, a 
chapel was dedicated to Venus, on the spot which had been 
sanctified by the death and resurrection of Christ. 61 * Almost 
three hundred years after those stupendous events, the pro- 
fane chapel of Venus was demolished by the order of Con- 
stantine ; and the removal of the earth and stones revealed 
the holy sepulchre to the eyes of mankind. A magnificent 
church was erected on that mystic ground, by the first 
Christian emperor : and the effects of his pious munificence 
were extended to every spot which had been consecrated by 
the footsteps of patriarchs, of prophets, and the Son of God. 62 

58 Basnage has fully illustrated the state of the Jews under Constantine and 
his successors (torn. viii. c. iv. pp. m-153.) 

59 Reland {Palestin. 1. i. pp. 309, 390, 1. iii. p. 838) describes, with learning and 
perspicuity, Jerusalem, and the face of the adjacent country. 

go I have consulted a rare and curious treatise of M. D'Anville (sur V Ancienne 
Jerusalem, Paris, 1747, p. 75). The circumference of the ancient city (Euseb. 
Preparat. Evangel. 1. ix. c. 36) was 27 stadia, or 2550 toises. A plan, taken on 
the spot, assigns no more than 1980 for the modern town. The circuit is defined 
by natural landmarks, which cannot be mistaken or removed. 

6i See two curious passages in Jerom (torn. i. p. 102, torn. vi. p. 315), and the 
ample details of Tillemont, {Hist, des Emp. torn. i. p. 569, t. ii. pp. 289, 294, 4to edit. 

68 Eusebius, in Vit. Constantin. 1. iii. c. 25-47, 51-53. The emperor likewise 
built churches at Bethlehem, the Mount of Olives, and the oak of Mambre. The 
holy sepulchre is described by Sandys {Travels, pp. 125-133), and curiously de- 
lineated by Le Bruyn, {Voyage au Levant, pp. 288-296. t 

* On the site of the Holy Sepulchre, compare the chapter in Professor Robin- 
son's Travels in Palestine, which has renewed the old controversy with great 
vigor. To me, this temple of Venus, said to have been erected by Hadrian to 
insult the Christians, is not the least suspicious part of the whole legend. — M. 1845. 

t Dr. Clarke and bis companion seem to be the only pilgrims who have beheld 
the true sepulchre. (See his Travels, vol. ii, p. 57. 59.) But prejudices, too in- 
verate and profitable, quashed the discovery. — Eng. Ch. 



PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM. 45 1 

The passionate desire of contemplating the pilgrimages> 
original monuments of their redemption, at- 
tracted to Jerusalem a successive crowd of pilgrims, from 
the shores of the Atlantic ocean, and the most distant 
countries of the east, 63 and their piety was authorized by the 
empress Helena, who appears to have united the credulity 
of age with the warm feelings of a recent conversion. 
Sages and heroes, who have visited the memorable scenes 
of ancient wisdom or glory, have confessed the inspiration 
of the genius of the place ; M and the Christian, who knelt 
before the holy sepulchre, ascribed his lively faith, and his 
fervent devotion, to the more immediate influence of the 
divine Spirit. The zeal, perhaps the avarice, of the clergy 
of Jerusalem, cherished and multiplied these beneficial 
visits. They fixed, by unquestionable tradition, the scene 
of each memorable event. They exhibited the instruments 
which had been used in the passion of Christ ; the nails and 
the lance that had pierced his hands, his feet, and his side ; 
the crown of thorns that was planted on his head ; the pillar 
at which he was scourged ; and, above all, they showed the 
cross on which he suffered, and which was dug out of the 
earth in the reign of those princes who inserted the symbol 
of Christianity in the banners of the Roman legions. 65 Such 
miracles, as seemed necessary to account for its extra- 
ordinary preservation, and seasonable discovery, were 
gradually propagated without opposition. The custody of 
the true cross, which on Easter Sunday was solemnly ex- 
posed to the people, was intrusted to the bishop of Jeru- 
salem : and he alone might gratify the curious devotion of 
the pilgrims, by the gift of small pieces, which they enchased 
in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph to their 
respective countries. But as this gainful branch of commerce 
must soon have been annihilated, it was found convenient to 

63 The Itinerary from Bordeaux to Jerusalem was composed in the year 333, fof 
the use of pilgrims ; among whom Jerome (torn. i. p. 126) mentions the Britons 
and the Indians. The causes of this superstitious fashion are discussed in the 
learned and judicious preface of Wesseling {Itinerar. pp. 537-545).* 

6-t Cicero (de Finibus, v. 1) has beautifully expressed the common sense 01 
mankind. 

£» Baronius (Annal. Eccles. A. D. 326, No. 42-50) and Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. 
torn. vii. pp. 8-16) are the historians and champions of the miraculous invention 
of the cross under the reign of Constantine. Their oldest witnesses are Paulinus, 
Sulpicius Severus, Rufinus, Ambrose, and perhaps Cyril of Jerusalem. The silence 
of Eusebius, and the Bordeaux pilgrim, which satisfies those who think, perplexes 
those who believe. See Jortin's sensible remarks, vol. ii. pp. 238-248. 

* Much curious information on this subject is collected in the first chapter of 
Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzuge. — Milman. 

Dr. Johnson, in his tour to the Hebrides, echoes the same sentiment amid the 
ruins of Iona.— Eng. Ch. 



452 LEGENDS AND RELICS. 

suppose that the marvellous wood possessed a secret power 
of vegetation; and that its substance, though continually di- 
minished, still remained entire and unimpaired. 66 It might 
perhaps have been expected that the influence of the place, 
and the belief of a perpetual miracle, should have produced 
some salutary effects on the morals, as well as on the faith, 
of the people. Yet the most respectable of the ecclesistical 
writers have been obliged to confess, not only that the 
streets of Jerusalem were filled with the incessant tumult 
of business and pleasure, 67 but that every species of vice — 
adultery, theft, idolatry, poisoning, murder — was familiar to 
the inhabitants of the holy city. 6 * The wealth and pre- 
eminence of the church of Jerusalem excited the ambition 
of Arian, as well as orthodox, candidates ; and the virtues 
of Cyril, who, since his death, has been honored with the 
title of saint, were displayed in the exercise, rather than in 
the acquisition, of his episcopal dignity. 69 

The vain and ambitious mind of Julian might 

Julian aspire to restore the ancient glory of the temple 
JebuTfilhe of Jerusalem. 70 As the Christians were firmly 

temple. persuaded that a sentence of everlasting destruc- 
tion had been pronounced against the whole 

66 This multiplication is asserted by Paulinus (Epist. xxxvi. See Dupin. Bibliot. 
Eccles. torn. iii. p. 149), who seems to have improved a rhetorical flourish of 
Cyril into a real fact. The same supernatural privilege must have been com- 
municated to the Virgin's milk {Erasmi Opera, torn. i. pp. 778, Lugd. Batav. 1703, 
in Colloq. de Peregrinat. Religionis ergo), saints' heads, &c, and other relics, 
which are repeated in so many different churches.* 

6" Jerom (torn. i. p. 103), who resided in the neighboring village of Bethlehem, 
describes the vices of Jerusalem from his personal experience. 

68 Gregor. Nyssen, apud IVesseling, p. 539. The whole epistle, which condemns 
either the use or the abuse of religious pilgrimage, is painful to the Catholic 
divines, while it is dear and familiar to our Protestant polemics. 

69 He renounced his orthodox ordination, officiated as a deacon, and was re- 
ordained by the hands of the Arians. But Cyril afterwards changed with the 
times, and prudently conformed to the Nicene faith. Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. 
torn, viii.), who treats his memory with tenderness and respect, has thrown his 
virtues into the text, and his faults into the notes, in decent obscurity, at the end 
of the volume. t 

"o Imperii sui memoriam magnitudine operum gestiens propagare. Amviian. 
xxiii. 1. The temple of Jerusalem had been famous even among the Gentiles. 
They had many temples in each city (at Sichem five, at Gaza eight, at Rome four 
hundred and twenty-four) ; but the wealth and religion of thejevvish nation were 
centred in one spot. 

* Lord Mahon, in a memoir read before the Society of Antiquaries, (Feb. 1831), 
has traced, in a brief but interesting manner, the singular adventures of the 
" true " cross. It is curious to inquire, what authoritv we have, except of late 
tradition, for the Hill of Calvary. ' There is none in the sacred writings ; the 
uniform use of the common word rbrror, instead of any word expressing ascent 
or acclivity, is against the notion.— Milman. 

t Cyril's changes are recorded by Jerome. {Chron. anno 2364). He was first 
elected A. D. 348 (then an Arian), 'under Constantius ; thrice deposed, and as 
often restored. The date of his last re-installation is 381, the third year of 
Theodosius, the orthodox ; from which time he retained his position till his 
death in 388. The last dates are Clinton's. (F. R. ii. 536.)— Eng. Ch. 



CHURCH OF JERUSALEM. 453 

fabric of the Mosaic law, the imperial sophist Would have 
converted the success of his undertaking into a specious 
argument against the faith of prophecy, and the truth of 
revelation. 71 He was displeased with the spiritual worship 
of the synagogue ; but he approved the institutions of Moses, 
who had not disdained to adopt many of the rites, and cere- 
monies of Egypt. 72 The local and national deity of the 
Jews was sincerely adored by a polytheist, who desired only 
to multiply the number of the gods ; 73 and such was the 
appetite of Julian for bloody sacrifice, that his emulation 
might be excited by the piety of Solomon, who had offered, 
at the feast of the dedication, twenty-two thousand oxen, 
and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. 74 These con- 
siderations might influence his designs ; but the prospect of 
an immediate and important advantage would not suffer 
the impatient monarch to expect the remote and uncertain 
event of the Persian war. He resolved to erect, without 
delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a stately 
temple, which might eclipse the splendor of the church 
of the resurrection on the adjacent hill of Calvary ; to es- 
tablish an order of priests, whose interested zeal would 
detect the arts, and resist the ambition, of their Christian 
rivals ; and to invite a numerous colony of Jews, whose 
stern fanaticism would be always prepared to second, and 
even to anticipate, the hostile measures of the Pagan gov- 
ernment. Among the friends of the emperor (if the names 
of emperor, and of friend, are not incompatible) the first 
place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the virtuous and 

71 The secret intentions of Julian are revealed by the late bishop of Gloucester, 
the learned and dogmatic Warburton ; who, with the authority of a theologian, 
prescribes the motives and conduct of the Supreme Being. The discourse entitled 
Julian (2d edition, London, 1751) is strongly marked with all the peculiarities 
which are imputed to the Warburtonian school. 

"2 I shelter myself behind Maimonides, Marsham, Spencer, Le Clerc, Warburton, 
&c, who have fairly derided the fears, the folly, and the falsehood of some super- 
stitious divines. See Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 25, &c. 

?3 Julian {Fragment, p. 295) respectfully styles him ueyag Seoc, ar >d mentions 
him elsewhere (Epist. lxiii) with still higher reverence. He doubly condemns 
the Christians, for believing, and for renouncing, the religion of the Jews. Their 
Deity was a true, but not the only, God. Apud Cyril. 1. ix. pp. 305, 306. 

74 1 Kings, viii. 63. 2 Chro?iicles, vii. 5. Josephl. Antiquitat. Jiidaic. 1. viii. c. 4, 
p. 431, edit. Havercamp. As the blood and smoke of so many hecatombs might 
be inconvenient, Lightfoot, the Christian Rabbi, removes them by a miracle. 
Le Clerc (ad loca) is bold enough to suspect the fidelity of the numbers.* 

* According to the historian Kotobeddym, quoted by Burckhardt {Travels in 
Arabia, p. 276), the Khalif Mokteder sacrificed, during his pilgrimage to Mecca, 
in the year of the Hejira 350, forty thousand camels and cows, and fifty thousand 
sheep. Barthema describes thirty thousand oxen slain, and their carcasses given 
to the poor. Quarterly Review, xiii. p. 39. — Milman. 

According to the historian Baron Munchausen, still greater wonders have 
occurred. — E. 



454 SUBTERRANEAN FIRES. 

learned Alypius. 75 The humanity of Alypius was tempered 
by severe justice and manly fortitude ; and while he exer- 
cised his abilities in the civil administration of Britain, he 
imitated, in his poetical compositions, the harmony and 
softness of the odes of Sappho. The minister, to whom 
Julian communicated, without reserve, his most careless 
levities, and his most serious counsels, received an extra- 
ordinary commission to restore, in its pristine beauty, the 
temple of Jerusalem ; and the diligence of Alypius required 
and obtained the strenuous support of the governor of 
Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the Jews, 
from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy 
mountain of their fathers ; and their insolent triumph 
alarmed and exasperated the Christian inhabitants of Jeru- 
salem. The desire of rebuilding the temple has in every 
age been the ruling passion of the children of Israel. In 
this propitious moment the men forgot their avarice, and 
the women their delicacy ; spades and pickaxes of silver 
were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish 
was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every 
purse was opened in liberal contributions, every hand 
claimed a share in the pious labor ; and the commands of a 
great monarch were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole 
people. 76 

Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power 
^defeauSf 6 an d enthusiasm were unsuccessful ; and the 
ground of the Jewish temple, which is now 
covered by a Mahometan mosque," still continued to exhibit 
the same edifying spectacle of ruin and desolation. Per- 
haps the absence and death of the emperor, and the new 
maxims of a Christian reign, might explain the interruption 
of an arduous work, which was attempted only in the last 
six months of the life of Julian. 78 But the Christians enter- 
tained a natural and pious expectation, that, in this mem- 
orable contest, the honor of religion would be vindicated 

"j Julian, Epist. xxix. xxx. La Bleterie has neglected to translate the second 
of these epistles. 

M See the zeal and impatience of the Jews in Gregory Nazianzen. (Orat. iv. 
p. in), and Theodoret (1. iii. c. 20). 

11 Built by Omar, the second Khalif, who died A. D. 644. This great mosque 
covers the whole consecrated ground of the Jewish temple, and constitutes 
almost a square of 760 toises, or one Roman mile in circumference. See 
D'Anville, 'Jerusalem, p. 45. 

"sAmmianus records the consuls of the year 363, before he proceeds to mention 
the thoughts of Julian. Templum * * * instaurare sumptibus cogitabat 
immodicis. Warburton has a secret wish to. anticipate the design ; but he must 
have understood, from former examples, that the execution of such a work 
would have demanded many years. 



OBSTACLES TO REBUILDING THE TEMPLE. 455 

by some signal miracle. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and 
a fiery eruption, which overturned and scattered the new 
foundations of the temple, are attested, with some variations, 
by contemporary and respectable evidence. 79 This public 
event is described by Ambrose, 80 bishop of Milan, in an 
epistle to the emperor Theodosius, which must provoke the 
severe animadversion of the Jews ; by the eloquent Chrysos- 
tom, 81 who might appeal to the memory of the elder part of 
his congregation at Antioch ; and by Gregory Nazianzen, 82 
who published his account of the miracle before 
the expiration of the same year. The last of Perhaps bya 
these writers has boldly declared, that this pre- pret event" ra 
ternatural event was not disputed by the infidels ; 
and his assertion, strange as it may seem, is confirmed by 
the unexceptionable testimony of Ammianus Marcellinus. 83 

79 The subsequent witnesses, Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Philostorgius, 
&c., add contradictions rather than authority. Compare the objections of 
Basnage {Hist, des Juifs, torn. viii. pp. 157-16S) with Warburton's answers. 
{Julian, pp. 174-258). The bishop has ingeniously explained the miraculous 
crosses which appeared on the garments of the spectators by a similar instance, 
and the natural effects of lightning. 

so Ambros. torn. ii. epist. xl. p. 946, edit. Benedictin. He composed this fanatic 
epistle (A. D. 388) to justify a bishop, who had been condemned by the civil mag- 
istrate for burning a synagogue. 

si Chrysostom, torn. i. p. 580, advers. Judczos et Gentes, torn. ii. p. 574, de Sto. 
Babyla, edit. Montfaucon. I have followed the common and natural supposition; 
but the learned Benedictine, who dates the composition of these sermons in the 
year 383, is confident they were never pronounced from the pulpit. 

82 Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iv. pp. 110-113. To Sev ov TeptfiorjTov raot ■&avfj,a, 
Kal ovde Tolq dOeocc avraic diucTovfievov, Xe^cov, Ipxofiai. 

83 Amtnian. xxiii. 1. Cum itaque rei fortiter instaret Alypius, juvaretque 
provinciae rector, metuendi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebris assultibus 
erumpentes fecere locum exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum ; hocquemodo 
elemento destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum. Warburton labors (pp. 69-90) 
to extort a confession of the miracle from the mouths of Julian and Libanius, and 
to employ the evidence of a rabbi who lived in the fifteenth century. Such wit- 
nesses can only be received by a very favorable judge.* 

* Michaelis has furnished a clever, and at the same time probable, explanation 
of an event, which, however strange, can scarcely be doubted, after the positive 
testimony given to it by Ammianus, a contemporary and a Pagan. It is founded 
on a passage in Tacitus, where Jerusalem is thus described : " Its elevated situa- 
" tion was strengthened by works, which would have fortified a plain. Two 
" very lofty hills were inclosed by a wall, the inward curvatures of which left 
" external projections, that commanded the flanks of assailing besiegers. The 
" temple itself was rendered a citadel by its own walls, constructed with still 
" greater labor and skill, and the very portico, which surrounded it, was a strong 
" bulwark. It had within it a spring of ever-flowing water, and deep excavations 
" under the mountains with tanks and reservoirs, to collect and preserve that 
" which was supplied by rain." These subterranean vaults and cisterns must 
have been of great extent. During the whole siege of Jerusalem, from April to 
August, a season in which no rain falls in that country, they supplied water for 
its eleven hundred thousand inhabitants, to whose wants the fountain of Siloah 
was an inadequate stream. Even before the Babylonian captivity, as well as 
after the return of the Jews, these excavations served not only for their maga- 
zines of oil, wine and corn, but also as safe receptacles for the treasures of the 
temple. Many incidents, related by Josephus, prove their extent. When it was 
evident that Jerusalem could no longer hold out against Titus, the rebel chief- 
tains placed their last hope on these subterranean relreats Cvnovouovg, viroyaia, 



456 



TESTIMONY OF AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS. 



The philosophic soldier, who loved the virtues, without 
adopting the prejudices, of his master, has recorded, in his 
judicious and candid history of his own times, the extraor- 
dinary obstacles which interrupted the restoration of the 

6i6pvx<ic;) and resolved to conceal themselves there, till the departure of the 
Romans, alter the destruction of the city. The greater part of them had not time 
to execute their scheme; but one among them, Simon, the son of Gioras, taking 
with him a supply of provisions and tools for mining the rock, found a refuge in 
that asylum for himself and some of his comrades. He continued there, till Titus 
had returned to Rome. Then, compelled by hunger, he suddenly came forth, on 
the spot where the temple had stood, and in the midst of the Roman guards. He 
was seized, and conveyed to Rome in triumph. From his having made his 
appearance, it was suspected, that there were others in the same place of con- 
cealment, and on exploring its depths, many more were discovered. (Josephus 
De Bell. yud. 1. vii., c. 2.) It is probable, that most of these excavations were 
made in the time of Solomon, when such underground workings were common ; 
any other date can scarcely be assigned to them. When the Jews returned from 
exile, they were too poor to engage in such undertakings; and though Herod, 
when he rebuilt the temple, ordered some, it is impossible that they could all be 
du,i, r out in the short time allowed for completing that operation. (Josephus, 
Ant. Jud., 15, 2, 7.) Some were sewers and drains ; in others were concealed the 
immense treasures, which Crassus plundered 120 years before the Jewish war, 
and which were, no doubt, afterwards replaced. The temple was destroyed in 
the year 70 of our era. Julian's attempt to restore it, and the fact recorded by 
Ammianus, occurred in 363. Nearly three hundred years had intervened, during 
which these vaults, closed up by rubbish, must have been filled with inflammable 
air. It is now a well-known fact, that, when any subterranean cavities which 
have been long shut up are re-opened, either the torches taken into them are 
extinguished, and the bearers at first are seized with fainting fits, and then soon 
expire; or, if the air be inflammable, first a small blaze flickers round the lamp, 
then it spreads and increases, till it fills the whole space, and an explosion follows, 
fatal to all within its reach. As the workmen, employed by Julian, cleared away 
the ruins, they disclosed these passages beneath the fallen temple. Endeavoring 
to penetrate into them by torch-light, sudden flames drove them back, explosions 
were heard, and at every renewed attempt to enter, the phenomena were repeated. 
Another nearly similar event is related by Josephus, which corroborates this 
solution of the mystery. King Herod, having heard, that a great treasure was 
buried in the tomb of David, went down into it, one night, with a few attendants, 
in whom he couid confide. In the outer vault, he found some jewels and robes; 
but when he attempted to penetrate into an inner chamber, which for a long time 
had been unopened, thev were repelled by flames, which killed two of those who 
were with him. {Ant. jud. 16, 7, I.) As no miracle can be alleged here, this fact 
may be considered to prove the truth of what is narrated by Ammianus Marcellinus 
and other contemporary writers. — Guizot. 

In his translation of this note, Dean Milman condemns M. Guizot's "extra- 
" ordinary translation of muri introrsus sinuati by enfoncemens." The reverend 
editor seems to have misunderstood his predecessor, who did not then use the 
Ffench word, in the sense of hollowings or excavations, but in that of inward 
tendings or indentations ; and it must be taken in conjunction with its companion 
"sailhes;" then " walls full of salient points and inward bendings," is perhaps 
the best translation of the Latin, phrase which the French language could afford. 
M. Guizot has done good service, by bringing to bear, on a strange and mis- 
understood event, information, not possessed in Gibbon's time. It should teach 
us, in all such cases, a double lesson of tolerant forbearance, as well for the 
skeptical who deny, as for the credulous who mistake. Bishop Warburton, too 
devoutly believed that no future age could be better informed than his own ; and 
piously denounced every one as "an unbeliever," who did not admit, that when 
the nature and causes of an occurrence are unknown to them, " it is absurd and 
" a wretched evasion, to suppose it a natural event." (Warburton's Julian, 
pp. 287, 284.)— Eng. Ch. 

To the illustrations of the extent of the subterranean chambers adduced by 
Michaelis, may be added, that when John of Gischala, during the siege, sur- 
prised the Temple, the party of Eleazar took refuge within them. Bell. yud. 
vi. 3, i. The sudden sinking of the hill of Sion. when Jerusalem was occupied 
by Barchocab, may have been connected with similar excavations. Hist, of yews, 
vol. iii. 122 and 186.— Milman. 



JULIAN S CONTEMPT FOR CHRISTIANS. 457 

temple of Jerusalem. " Whilst Alypius, assisted by the gov- 
" ernor of the province, urged, with vigor and diligence, the 
" execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out 
" near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, 
" rendered the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the 
" scorched and blasted workmen ; and the victorious ele- 
" ment continuing in this manner obstinately and resolutely 
" bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance, the under- 
" taking was abandoned." Such authority should satisfy 
a believing, and must astonish an incredulous, mind. Yet 
a philosopher may still require the original evidence of im- 
partial and intelligent spectators. At this important crisis, 
any singular accident of nature would assume the appear- 
ance, and produce the effects, of a real prodigy. This 
glorious deliverance would be speedily improved and mag- 
nified by the pious art of the clergy of Jerusalem, and the 
active credulity of the Christian world ; and, at the distance 
of twenty years, a Roman historian, careless of theological 
disputes, might adorn his work with the specious and 
splendid miracle.* 4 

The restoration of the Jewish temple was _, .. ... c 

. i'it*/-t/-M-- Partiahtv of 

secretly connected with the rum 01 the Christian Julian, 
church. Julian still continued to maintain 
the freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing, 
whether this universal toleration proceeded from his justice 
or his clemency. He affected to pity the unhappy Chris- 
tians, who were mistaken in the most important object of 
their lives ; but his pity was degraded by contempt, his 
contempt was imbittered by hatred ; and the sentiments of 
Julian were expressed in a style of sarcastic wit, which in- 
flicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever it issues from the 
mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that the Chris- 
tians gloried in the name of their Redeemer, he counte- 
nanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable 
appellation of Galileans. 85 He declared, that by the folly 

»i Dr. Lardner, perhaps alone of the Christian critics, presumes to doubt the 
truth of this famous miracle. {Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 47-71).* 
The silence of Jerom would lead to a suspicion that the same story, which was 
celebrated at a distance, might be despised on the spot. 

»5 Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 81. And this law was confirmed bv the invariable 
practice of Julian himself. Warburton has justly obseryed (p. 35), that the Pla- 
tonists believed in the mysterious virtue of words ;f and Julian's dislike for the 
name of Christ might proceed from superstition, as well as from contempt. 

* Gibbon has forgotten Basnage, to whom Warburton replied. — Milman. 

t A belief in the potency and efficacy of sacred names in the practice ot leuco- 
mancy, or white magic, and also in necromancy, or black magic, was preyalent in 
the first ages of Christianity, and Gibbon's suggestion, that the Pagan emperor 
" was opposed to the name of the Christian Redeemer," which was then used as 



453 



THE GALILEANS. 




of the Galileans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics, 
contemptible to men, and odious to the gods, the empire 

a charm, a spell, a talisman, or a fetich, may not be without foundation. As it is 
a subject " hallowed " by the dust of centuries, it deserves to be treated gravely. 
il Abracalam," says Crabbe's Technological Dictionary, "was a cabalistic word 
" used as a charm by the Jews, and the name of a Syrian idol. Selden de Diis Syriis. 
"Abracadabra, a cabalistic word used as a y -s "1 W "i V ** V "^ ^ V 
"charm against fevers, and formed by drop- * \ J * ^ * w * \ J * 
" ping from every line the last letter when iJfclJsjJSlJf? 

" written in a kind of cone, as here shown : 2N1N-XTDX 

li Abrasax, the name given bv the heretic V n V ^ y! 1 ^ V 

"Basilides to God and Jesus Christ, and * \ > ' 

"' worshiped by his sect un- "1 N J X ") - N 

"der the figureoflsis, Osiris. N D N 1 2 X 

" and other Egyptian gods; «. o «-, l"*V 

''as also under the figure of J «N I - sN 

" animals, with the head of a X 1 2 X 

" cock, a lion, a beetle, or a 1 2 X 

" sphinx ; the body of a man, "i M 

"as in the annexed cut ; and ■* ^* 

" the tail of a serpent. They N 

" conceived the Saviour to be the material sun, in imitation of the Egyptians, 
" who worshiped the sun under the name of Osiris. The word ABPACAH, 
" Abrasax, or Abraxas, was chosen because the letters, of which it is composed, 
" make up 365, the number of days, according to the Greek computation by letters, 
" in which the sun performs his annual revolution, as follows : 
"ABPACAH 
"1 2 100 1 200 1 60 

" This word was employed as a talisman, and the image was worshiped as a 
" magical deity, who was to dispel evils. (S. Iren. adv. Hceres, 1. i. c. 2 ; Tertul. 
" de Prcec. c. 46 ; Euseb. Eccl. Hist. 1. 4, c. 7 ; Hieron. adv. Luctf. in. Amor. 1. 2 ; 
" S. Epiphan. H&res. 24; 6". August. q*e Hczres, et ad quod vult Deum ; Baron. 
" Annal. Ann. 120; Montfaucon. Antiq. expliq. vol. i. p. 369, et seq." 

The charm was performed by the invocation of a na?ne. And the Rev. Robt. 
Taylor believed "that it was in the name, and the name only, that the first 
" preachers of Christianity believed. ' There is none other name under heaven, 
" 'given among men, whereby we must be saved.' " {Acts, iv. 12.) " This was 
" a charm more powerful than the Abraxas, more sacred than Abracadabra ; in 
" short, those were but the spells that bound the services of inferior demons— this, 
" conjured the assistance of omnipotence, and was indeed, the God's spell." 

"The miraculous powers which the Christians possessed, were not in the 
" least owing to enchantments," says Origen, in his Answer to Celsus (chap. 6), 
"but to their pronouncing the name I. E. S. U. S. and making mention of some 
" remarkable occurrences of his life. Nay, the name of I. E. S. U. S., has had 
" such power over demons, that it has sometimes proved effectual, though pro- 
" nounced by very wicked persons." 

( " And the name of I. E. S. U. S., at this verv dav, composes the ruffled minds 
|| of men, dispossesses demons, cures diseases' ; and works a meek, gentle, and 
" amiable temper in all those persons, who make profession of Christianity, from 
" a higher end than their worldly interests."— (Ibid. 57.) 

"Even to this day," continues Taylor, "the name retained by our sacred 
" writings, is derived from the belief of their magical influence, as a spell or charm 
" of God, to drive away diseases. The Irish peasantry still continue to tie passages 
" of St. John's Spell, or St. John's God's-spell, to the' horns of cows to make them 
" give more milk ; nor would any powers of rational argument shake their con- 
" viction in the efficacy of a bit of the word, tied round a colt's heels, to prevent 
" them from swelling." " Physicians of high claim to science and rationality, use 
" forms of prescription which bear, as the first mark of the pen upon the paper, the 
" mystical hieroglyphic of yupiter, the talismanic -r\ under whose influence the 
" prescribed herbs were to be gathered, and J% from whose miraculous 
" agency their operation was to be expected." x 

In connection with this subject, read the tragi-comic narrative, given bv St. 
Paul (Acts, xix. 14-16), of the seven sons of one Sciva, who presumptuously 
undertook to extract, or rather to exorcise, a demon, by the use of certain sacred 
cabalistic words, which demanded the experience of a skilled exorcist. These 
impious and adventurous youths placed their lives in extreme jeopardy, and 
received a terrible thrashing from the demon, as a punishment for their' sacri- 
legious impudence. — E. 



CHRISTIANS DEPRIVED OF TEMPORAL HONORS. 459 

had been reduced to the brink of destruction ; and he insin- 
uates in a public edict, that a frantic patient might sometimes 
be cured by salutary violence. 86 An ungenerous distinction 
was admitted into the mind and counsels of Julian, that, 
according to the difference of their religious sentiments, one 
part of his subjects deserved his favor and friendship, while 
the other was entitled only to the common benefits that his 
justice could not refuse to an obedient people. 87 According 
to a principle, pregnant with mischief and oppression, the 
emperor transferred to the pontiffs of his own religion, the 
management of the liberal allowances from the public 
revenue, which had been granted to the church by the piety 
of Constantine and his sons. The proud system of clerical 
honors and immunities, which had been constructed with 
so much art and labor, was leveled to the ground ; the 
hopes of testamentary donations were intercepted by the 
rigor of the laws ; and the priests of the Christian sect were 
confounded with the last and most ignominious class of the 
people. Such of these regulations as appeared necessary 
to check the ambition and avarice of the ecclesiastics, were 
soon afterwards imitated by the wisdom of an orthodox 
prince. The peculiar distinctions which policy has bestowed, 
or superstition has lavished, on the sacerdotal order, viiist 
be confined to those priests who profess the religion of the 
state. But the will of the legislator was not exempt from 
prejudice and passion ; and it was the object of the insid- 
ious policy of Julian, to deprive the Christians of all the 
temporal honors and advantages which rendered them 
respectable in the eyes of the world. 88 

A just and severe censure has been inflicted ^chSstialfs 
on the law which prohibited the Christians from from teaching 
teaching the arts of grammar and rhetoric. 89 schools - 
The motives alleged by the emperor to justify this 

86 Fragment. Julian, p. 288. He derides the fiupla Ta?,c7iaio)V {Epist. vii.), and 
so far loses sight of the principles of toleration, as to wish (Epist. xlii.) uKOvrag 
laodat. 

87 Oy lap fioi ^efiiQ e<jt\ Kou.iCifJ.ev 97 elealpeiv 
*Avepa,£, ol ke (^eoiatv uTTExdcovr' ddavdroiaiv. 

These two lines, which Julian has changed and perverted in the true spirit of a 
bigot, (Epist. xlix.), are taken from the speech of ^Eolus, when he refuses to grant 
Ulvsses a fresh supply of winds, (Odyss. x. 73). Libanius (Orat. Parent, c. lix. p. 
286) attempts to justify this partial behavior by an apology, in which persecution 
peeps through the mask of candor. 

88 These laws, which affected the clergv, may be found in the slight hints of 
Julian himself, {Epist. Hi.), in the vague declamations of Gregory, ( Orat. Hi. pp. 
86, 87), and in the positive assertions of Sozomen (1. v. c. 5). 

89 Iuclemens * * * perenni obruendum silentio. Ammian. xxii. 10, xxv. 5. 



460 REPRESSION OF CHRISTIAN TEACHERS. 

partial and oppressive measure, might command, during 
his lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause of flat- 
terers. Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word 
which might be indifferently applied to the language and 
the religion of the Greeks : he contemptuously observes, 
that the men who exalt the merit of implicit faith are unfit 
to claim or to enjoy the advantages of science ; and he 
vainly contends, that if they refuse to adore the gods of 
Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to content themselves 
with expounding Luke and Matthew in the churches of the 
Galileans. 90 In all the cities of the Roman world, the edu- 
cation of the youth was intrusted to the masters of grammar 
and rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, main- 
tained at the public expense, and distinguished by many 
lucrative and honorable privileges. The edict of Julian 
appears to have included the physicians, and professors 
of all the liberal arts ; and the emperor, who reserved to 
himself the approbation of the candidates, was authorized 
by the laws to corrupt, or to punish, the religious constancy 
of the most learned of the Christians. 91 As soon as the 
resignation of the more obstinate 92 teachers had established 
the unrivaled dominion of the Pagan sophists, Julian in- 
vited the rising generation to resort with freedom to the 
public schools, in a just confidence, that their tender minds 
would receive the impressions of literature and idolatry. 
If the greatest part of the Christian youth should be deterred 
by their own scruples, or by those of their parents, from 
accepting this dangerous mode of instruction, they must, 
at the same time, relinquish the benefits of a liberal educa- 
tion. Julian had reason to expect that, in the space of a 
few years the church would relapse into its primaeval sim- 
plicity, and that the theologians, who possessed an adequate 
share of the learning and eloquence of the age, would be 
succeeded by a generation of blind and ignorant fanatics, 

9" The edict itself, which is still extant among the epistles of Julian fxlii.), may 
be compared with the loose invectives of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 96) Tillemont, 
(Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. pp. 1291-1294), has collected the seeming differences of 
ancients and moderns. They may be easily reconciled. The Christians were 
directly forbidden to teach, they were indirectly forbidden to learn ; since they 
would not frequent the schools of the Pagans. 

"i Codex Theodos. 1. xiii. tit. iii. de medicis et professoribus, leg. 5 (published 
the 17th of June, received at Spoleto, in Italy, the 29th of July, A. D. 363J, with 
Godefroy's Illustrations, torn. v. p. 31. 

92 Orosius celebrates their disinterested resolution, Sicut a majoribus nostris 
compertum habemus. omnes ubique propemodum * * * officium quam fidem 
deserere maluerunt, vii. 30. Proaeresius, a Christian sophist, refused to accept 
the partial favor of the emperor. Hieronym. in Chron. p. 185, edit. Scaliger. 
Eunapius in Proccresio, p. 126. 



EXCLUSION OF CHRISTIANS FROM POWER. 46 1 

incapable of defending the truth of their own principles, or 
of exposing the various follies of Polytheism. 93 

It was undoubtedly the wish and the design Disgrace and 
of Julian to deprive the Christians of the advan- oppression 
tages of wealth, of knowledge, and of power; christians. 
but the injustice of excluding them from all 
offices of trust and profit seems to have been the result of 
his general policy, rather than the immediate consequence 
of any positive law. 9i Superior merit might deserve, and 
obtain, some extraordinary exceptions ; but the greater part 
of the Christian officers were gradually removed from their 
employments in the state, the army, and the provinces. The 
hopes of future candidates were extinguished by the declared 
partiality of a prince, who maliciously reminded them that it 
was unlawful for a Christian to use the sword, either of 
justice, or of war ; and who studiously guarded the camp 
and the tribunals with the ensigns of idolatry. The powers 
of government were intrusted to the Pagans, who professed 
an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors ; and as the 
choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules of 
divination, the favorites whom he preferred as the most 
agreeable to the gods, did not always obtain the approbation 
of mankind. 95 Under the administration of their enemies, 
the Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. 

93 They had recourse to the expedient of composing: books for their own 
schools. Within a few months, Apollinaris produced his Christian imitations of 
Homer, (a sacred history in twenty-four books), Pindar, E21ripid.es, and Menander; 
and Sozomen is satisfied, that they equaled, or excelled, the originals.* 

9-1 It was the instruction of Julian to his magistrates (Epist. vii.), TTpOTt/2U,C-&ai 
fievrot rove dsoaedeig nal ttuvv (pTj^l deiv. Sozomen (1. v. c. 18), and Socrates 
1. iii. c. 13) must be reduced to the standard of Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 95), not less 
prone to exaggeration, but more restrained by the actual knowledge of his con- 
temporary readers, 

95 'irjtyui' -&SUV nal didovg nal fir) didovr. Libanius, Orat. Parent, c. 88, p. 314. 



* Socrates, however, implies that, on the death of Julian, they were contemptu- 
ously thrown aside by the Christians. T Qv d£ ol tzovoi kv iou rod an ypa&i/vat. 
loyL&vrai. Socr. Hist. iii. 16.— M, 'irri 

It is now a useless question to argue, but it is fair, and might be a pleasing subject 
to speculate upon, what would have been the effect of Julian's measures on 
Christianity, had his life been prolonged ? By depressing the hierarchy, which 
was his first object, he would have raised the laity. The usurped power and 
insolent dictation of the former would have been overthrown ; but the latter 
would have been emancipated from the stern control, beneath which their ener- 
gies were sinking into torpor and decay. The revival of Paganism was hopeless 
and impossible. Its "various follies" had been exposed, not by the learned 
theologians and fierce polemics of that age, but by the growing intelligence, 
which after seven centuries of free discussion, was then intimidated by the worst 
tyranny to which man have ever been subjected. Had Julian dethroned this, 
and had Christianity '' relapsed into its primeval simplicity," we should probably, 
instead of " a generation of blind and ignorant fanatics," as anticipated by 
Gibbon, have witnessed a more rational religion ; and its milder teachers might 
have prevented the barbarism and ignorance'of succeeding centuries.— Exg. Ck. 



462 EDICT REGARDING THE TEMPLES. 

The temper of Julian was averse to cruelty ; and the care 
of his reputation, which was exposed to the eyes of the 
universe, restrained the philosophic monarch from violating 
the laws of justice and toleration, which he himself had so 
recently established. But the provincial ministers of his 
authority were placed in a less conspicuous station. In the 
exercise of arbitrary power, they consulted the wishes rather 
than the commands, of their sovereign ; and ventured to ex- 
ercise a secret and vexatious tyranny against the sectaries, 
on whom they were not permitted to confer the honors of 
martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled, as long as 
possible his knowledge of the injustice that was exercised 
in his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of his 
officers, by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards. 96 

The most effectual instrument of oppression, 
^emnecUo 1 " W1 ^ which they were armed, was the law that 
restore the obliged the Christians to make full and ample 
temples. satisfaction for the temples which they had de- 
stroyed under the preceding reign. The zeal of 
the triumphant church had not always expected the sanction 
of the public authority ; and the bishops, who were secure 
of impunity, had often marched, at the head of their con- 
gregations, to attack and demolish the fortresses of the 
prince of darkness. The consecrated lands, which had in- 
creased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the clergy, 
were clearly defined and easily restored. But on these 
lands, and on the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians 
had frequently erected their own religious edifices ; and as 
it was necessary to remove the church before the temple 
could be rebuilt, the justice and piety of the emperor were 
applauded by one party, while the other deplored and exe- 
crated his sacrilegious violence. 97 After the ground was 
cleared, the restitution of those stately structures, which 
had been leveled with the dust ; and of the precious orna- 
ments, which had been converted to Christian uses ; swelled 
into a very large account of damages and debt. The 
authors of the injury had neither the ability nor the inclina- 
tion to discharge this accumulated demand ; and the impar- 
tial wisdom of a legislator would have been displayed in 

96 Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. pp. 74. 91, 92. Socrates, 1. iii. c. 14. Theodoret, 1. iii. c. 6. 
Some drawback, may, however, be allowed for the violence of their zeal, not less 
partial than the zeal of Julian. 

9" If we compare the gentle language of Libanius {Orat. Parent, c. 60, p. 286) 
with the passionate exclamations of Gregory, [Oral. iii. 1 we may find it 

difficult to persuade ourselves that the two orators are leally describing the same 
events. 



MARK OF ARETHUSA. 463 

balancing the adverse claims and complaints, by an equitable 
and temperate arbitration. But the whole empire, and par- 
ticularly the East, was thrown into confusion by the rash 
edicts of Julian ; and the Pagan magistrates, inflamed by 
zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous privilege of the 
Roman law, which substitutes in the place of his inadequate 
property, the person of the insolvent debtor. Under the 
preceding reign, Mark, bishop of Arethusa, 98 had labored in 
the conversion of his people with arms more effectual than 
those of persuasion." The magistrates required the full 
value of a temple which had been destroyed by his intol- 
erant zeal ; but as they were satisfied of his poverty, they 
desired only to bend his inflexible spirit to the promise of 
the slightest compensation. They apprehended the aged 
prelate, they inhumanly scourged him, they tore his beard ; 
and his naked body, anointed with honey, was suspended 
in a net, between heaven and earth, and exposed to the stings 
of insects and the rays of a Syrian sun. 100 From this 
lofty station, Mark still persisted to glory in his crime, and 
to insult the impotent rage of his persecutors. He was at 
length rescued from their hands, and dismissed to enjoy the 
honor of his divine triumph. The Arians celebrated the 
virtue of their pious confessor ; the Catholics ambitiously 
claimed his alliance ; 101 and the Pagans, who might be sus- 
ceptible of shame or remorse, were deterred from the 
repetition of such unavailing cruelty. 102 Julian spared his 

98 Restan, or Arethusa, at the equal distance of sixteen miles between Emesa 
{Hems) and Epiphania {Hamath , was founded, or at least named, by Seleueus 
Nicator. Its peculiar sera dates from the year of Rome 685, according to the 
medals of the city. In the decline of the Seleucides, Emesa and Arethusa were 
ursurped by the Arab Sampsiceramus, whose posterity, the vassals of Rome, were 
not extinguished in the reign of Vespasian. See D'Anville's Maps and Geogra- 
phic Ancienne, torn. ii. p. 134. Wesseling, Itineraria, p. 18S, and Noris. Epoch. 
Syro- Mace don. pp. 80, 481, 482. 

99 Sozomen, 1. v. c. 10. It is surprising that Gregory and Theodoret should 
support a circumstance, which, in their eyes, must have enhanced the religious 
merit of the confessor. 

looThe sufferings and constancy of Mark, which Gregory has so tragically painted, 
(Orat. iii. pp. 89-91), are confirmed by the unexceptionable and reluctant evidence 
of Libanius. M.dpnoc enelvog KpefidfJLEVOQ, nai /ua.CTiyov,uei ! or, ncil rod Tfcjycovog 
airy TL?i.7 u ofiivov i wavro eveyncov uvftpeiur vvv Ico&ear eon rait; Tifialg, kuv 
fftavi/ -nov, TZEptudxV'og votive. Epist. 730, pp. 350, '351. Edit. Wolf. Amstel. 173S. 

101 B.Epc/ldxV~og, certatim eum sibi (Christiani) vindicant. It is thus that La 
Croze and Wolfius (ad loc.) have explained a Greek word, whose true signification 
had been mistaken by former interpreters, and even by Le Clerc (Bibliothcque 
Ancienne et Moderne, torn. iii. p. 371). Vet Tillemont is strangely puzzled to 
understand (Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. p. 1309) how Gregory and Theodoret could 
mistake a Semi-Arian bishop for a saint. 

102 See the probable advice of Sallust (Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. pp. 90, 91). 
Libanius intercedes for a similar offender, lest they should find many Marks ; yet 
he allows, that if Orion had secreted the consecrated wealth, he deserved to 
suffer the punishment of Marsyas; to be flayed alive (Epist. 730, pp. 349 _ 35 r )- 



464 GROVE AND TEMPLE OF DAPHNE. 

life ; but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the infancy of 
Julian, 103 posterity will condemn the ingratitude, instead of 
praising the clemency, of the emperor. 

At the distance of live miles from Antioch, 
and sacred the Macedonian kings of Syria had consecrated 
Ba V hne f to ^P°^° one °f tne most elegant places of de- 
votion in the Pagan world. 104 A magnificent 
temple rose in honor of the god of light ; and his colossal 
figure 105 almost filled the capacious sanctuary, which was 
enriched with gold and gems, and adorned by the skill 
of the Grecian artists. The deity was represented in a 
bending attitude, with a golden cup in his hand, pouring out 
a libation on the earth ; as if he supplicated the venerable 
mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous Daphne : 
for the spot was ennobled by fiction ; and the fancy of the 
Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the 
banks of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient 
rites of Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. 
A stream of prophecy, which rivaled the truth and reputa^ 
tion of the Delphic oracle, flowed from the Castalian fountain 
of Daphne. 106 In the adjacent fields a stadium was built by 
a special privilege, 107 which had been purchased from Elis ; 
the Olympic games were celebrated at the expense of the 
city ; and a revenue of thirty thousand pounds sterling was 
annually applied to the public pleasures. 108 The perpetual 

103 Gregory (Orat. iii. p. 90) is satisfied that, by saving the apostate, Mark had 
deserved still more than he had suffered. 

101 The grove and temple of Daphne are described by Strabo (1. xvi. pp. 1089, 
1090, edit. Amstel. 1707), Libanius (Ncoiia, pp. 185-188. Antiochic. Orat. xi. pp. 
3S0, 3Si), and Sozometi (1. v. c. 19). Wesseling (Itinerar. p. 581) and Cassaubon 
(ad Hist. August, p. 64) illustrate this curious suhject. 

i (l " Simulacrum in eo Olympiad Jovis imitamenti aequiparans magnitudinem. 
Ammian. xxii. 13. The Olympic Jupiter was sixty feet high, and his bulk was 
consequently equal to that of a thousand men. See a curious Memoire of the 
Abbe Gedoyn (Academie des Inscriptions, torn. ix. p. 198). 

10c Hadrian read the history of his future fortunes on a leaf dipped in the Cas- 
talian stream; a trick which, according to the physician Vandale, (de Oraculis, 
pp. 28-2S2), might be easily performed by chemical preparations. The emperor 
stopped the source of such dangerous knowledge ; which was again opened by 
the devout curiosity of Julian. 

i»" It was purchased, A. D. 44, in the year 92 of the sera of Antioch, (Noris. 
Epoch. Syro-Maced. pp. 139-174), for the term of ninety Olympiads. But the 
Olympic games of Antioch were not regularly celebrated till the reign of Corn- 
modus. See the curious details in the Chronicle of John Malala, (torn. i. pp. 293, 
320, 372-381 1. a writer whose merit and authority are confined within the limits of 
his native city.* 

10s Fifteen talents of gold, bequeathed by Sosibius, who died in the reign of 
Augustus. The theatrical merits of the Syrian cities, in the age of Constantine, 
are compared in the Expositio totius Alundi, p. 6, (Hudson, Geograph. Minor. 
torn. iii.). 



* These games were revived in the 260th year of the era of Antioch, or July and 
Aug., a.d. 212. which was in the third ofCaracalla. Malalas, writing 300 years after 
that time, has used the name of Commodus incorrectly. Clin. E. R. 1,220. — E. C. 



JULIAN AT DAPHNE. 



4^5 



resort of pilgrims and spectators insensibly formed, in the 
neighborhood of the temple, the stately and populous 
village of Daphne, which emulated the splendor, without 
acquiring the title, of a provincial city. The temple and 
the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of laurels 
and cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of 
ten miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool 
and impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest 
water, issuing from every hill, preserved the verdure of the 
earth, and the temperature of the air ; the senses were 
gratified with harmonious sounds and aromatic odors ; and 
the peaceful grove was consecrated to health and joy, to 
luxury and love. The vigorous youth pursued, like Apollo, 
the object of his desires ; and the blushing maid was 
warned by the fate of Daphne, to shun the folly of unseason- 
able coyness. The soldier and the philosopher wisely 
avoided the temptation of this sensual paradise ; 109 where 
pleasure assuming the character of religion, imperceptibly 
dissolved the firmness of manly virtue. But the groves of 
Daphne continued for many ages to enjoy the veneration 
of natives and strangers ; the privileges of the holy ground 
were enlarged by the munificence of succeeding emperors ; 
and every generation added new ornaments to the splendor 
of the temple. 110 

When Julian, on the day of the annual festival, 
hastened to adore the Apollo of Daphne, his 
devotion was raised to the highest pitch of 
eagerness and impatience. His lively imagina- 
tion anticipated the grateful pomp of victims, of libations, 
and of incense ; a long procession of youths and virgins, 
clothed in white robes, the symbol of their innocence ; and 
the tumultuous concourse of an innumerable people. But 
the zeal of Antioch was diverted, since the reign of Chris- 
tianity, into a different channel. Instead of hecatombs of 
fat oxen sacrificed by the tribes of a wealthy city to their 
tutelar deity, the emperor complains that he found only a 
single goose, provided at the expense of a priest, the pale 
and solitary inhabitant of this decayed temple. 111 The altar 

109 Avidio Cassio Syriacas legiones dedi luxuria diffluentes et Daphnicis moribus. 
These are the word's of the emperor Marcus Antoninus, in an original letter, 
preserved by his biographer, in Hist. August, p. 41. Cassius dismissed or pun- 
ished every soldier who was seen at Daphne. 

no Aliquantum agrorum Daphnensibus dedit (Pompey) quo locus ibi spatiosior 
fieret ; delectatus amcenitate loci et aquarum abundantia. JSutropius, vi. 14. 
Sextus Rufus, de Provinciis, c. 16. 

111 Julian, (Misopogon, pp. 361, 362), discovers his own character with that 
naivete, that unconscious simplicity which always constitutes genuiue humor. 



Neglect and 
profanation 
of Daphne. 



465 RESTORATION OF THE TEMPLE OF DAPHNE. 

was deserted, the oracle had been reduced to silence, and 
the holv ground was profaned by the introduction of Chris- 
tian and funereal rites. After Babylas 112 (a bishop of Antioch, 
who died in prison in the persecution of Decius) had rested 
near a century in his grave, his body, by the order of Csesar 
Gallus, was transported into the midst of the grove of 
Daphne. A magnificent church was erected over his re- 
mains ; a portion of the sacred lands was usurped for the 
maintenance of the clergy, and for the burial of the Christians 
of Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at the feet of their 
bishop ; and the priests of Apollo retired, with their affrighted 
and indignant votaries. As soon as another revolution 
seemed to restore the fortune of Paganism, the church of 
St. Babylas was demolished, and new buildings were added 
to the mouldering edifice which had been raised by the 
piety of Syrian kings. But the first and most serious care 
of Julian was to deliver his oppressed deity from the odious 
presence of the dead and living Christians, who had so 
effectually suppressed the voice of fraud or enthusiasm. 113 

The scene of infection was purified, according to 

R t e i™°dead >f tne f° rms of ancient rituals ; the bodies were 

bodies, and decently removed ; and the ministers of the 

oFthe a femp?e! church were permitted to convey the remains of 

St. Babylas to their former habitation within the 
walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might have 
assuaged the jealousy of an hostile government, was neg- 
lected on this occasion by the zeal of the Christians. The 
lofty car, that transported the relics of Babylas, was fol- 
lowed, and accompanied, and received, by an innumerable 
multitude, who chanted, with thundering acclamations, the 
Psalms of David, the most expressive of their contempt for 
idols and idolaters. The return of the saint was a triumph ; 
and the triumph was an insult on the religion of the em- 
peror, who exerted his pride to dissemble his resentment. 
During the night which terminated this indiscreet pro- 
cession, the temple of Daphne was in flames ; the statue of 
Apollo was consumed ; and the walls of the edifice were 

us Babylas is named by Eusebius in the succession of the bishops of Antioch, 
(Hist. Eccles. 1. vi. c. 29, 39). His triumph over two emperors, (the first fabulous, 
the second historical), is diffusely celebrated by Chrysostom, (torn. ii. pp. 536-579, 
edit. Montfauijon). Tillemont. {Mem. Eccles. torn. iii. part ii. pp. 287-302, 459-465), 
becomes almost a skeptic. 

us Ecclesiastical critics, particularly those who love relics, exult in the con- 
fession of Julian, (Misopogon, p. 361), and Libanius, (Ncznia. p. 185), that Apollo 
was disturbed by the vicinity of one dead man. Yet Ammianus, (xxii. 12), clears 
and purifies the whole ground, according to the rites which the Athenians for- 
merly practiced in the Isle of Delos. 



THE CATHEDRAL OF ANTIOCH CLOSED. 



467 



eft a naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians 
>f Antioch asserted, with religious confidence, that the 
>owerful intercession of St. Babylas had pointed the light- 
lings of heaven against the devoted roof; but as Julian 
vas reduced to the alternative, of believing either a crime 
>r a miracle, he chose, without hesitation, without evidence, 
mt with some color of probability, to impute the fire of 
Daphne to the revenge of the Galileans. 114 Their offence, 
Lad it been sufficiently proved, might have justified the 
etaliation which was immediately executed by T .. , . 

„ . . J J Julian shuts 

he order ot Julian, of shutting the doors, and the cathedral 
confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of An- of Antioch ' 
ioch. To discover the criminals who were guilty of the 
umult, of the fire, or of secreting the riches of the church, 
everal ecclesiastics were tortured ; 115 and a presbyter of the 
tame of Theodoret, was beheaded by the sentence of the 
:ount of the east. But this hasty act was blamed by the 
mperor ; who lamented, with real or affected concern, that 
he imprudent zeal of his ministers would tarnish his reign 
nth the disgrace of persecution. 116 

The zeal of the ministers of Julian was instantly checked 
>y the frown of their sovereign ; but when the father of his 
:ountry declares himself the leader of a faction, the license 
>f popular fury cannot easily be restrained, nor consistently 
mnished. Julian, in a public composition, applauds the 
levotion and loyalty of the holy cities of Syria, whose pious 
nhabitants had destroyed, at the first signal, the sepulchres 
>f the Galileans ; and faintly complains, that they had 
evenged the injuries of the gods with less moderation than 
le should have recommended. 117 This imperfect and re- 
uctant confession may appear to confirm the ecclesiastical 
larratives ; that in the cities of Gaza, Ascalon, Csesarea, 
ieliopolis, &c. the Pagans abused, without prudence or 
emorse, the moment of their prosperity. That the un- 

iw Julian, (in Misopogon, p. 361), rather insinuates, than affirms, their guilt. 
ImmianuSj (xxii. 13), treats the imputation as levissimus rumor, and relates the 
tory with extraordinary candor. 

115 Quo tam atroci casu repente consumpto, ad id usque imperatoris ira pro- 
exit, ut qusestiones agitare juberet solito acriores, (yet Julian blames the lenity 
f the magistrates of Antioch), et majorem ecclesiam Antiochise claudi. This 
iterdiction was performed with some circumstances of indignity and profana- 
ion ; and the seasonable death of the principal actor, Julian's uncle, is related 
yith much superstitious complacency by the Abbe de la Bleterie. Vie de Julien, 
>p. 362-369. 

us Besides the ecclesiastical historians, who are more or less to be suspected, 
ve may allege the passion of St. Theodore, in the Acta Sincera of Ruinart, p. 591. 
"he complaint of Julian gives it an original and authentic air. 

117 Julian, Misopogon, p. 361. 



468 GEORGE OF CAPPADOCIA. 

happy objects of their cruelty were released from torture 
only by death ; that as their mangled bodies were dragged 
through the streets, they were pierced (such was the uni- 
versal rage) by the spits of cooks, and the distaffs of en- 
raged women ; and that the entrails of Christian priests 
and virgins, after they had been tasted by those bloody 
fanatics, were mixed with barley, and contemptuously 
thrown to the unclean animals of the city. 118 Such scenes 
of religious madness exhibit the most contemptible and 
odious picture of human nature ; but the massacre of 
Alexandria attracts still more attention, from the certainty 
of the fact, the rank of the victims, and the splendor of the 
capital of Egypt. 

George, 119 from his parents or his education, 
Cappadocia. siiniaiiii'd the Cappadocian, was born at Epi- 
phania in Cilicia, in a fuller's shop. From this 
obscure and servile origin he raised himself by the talents 
of a parasite ; and the patrons, whom he assiduously 
flattered, procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative 
commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. 
His employment was mean ; he rendered it infamous. He 
accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corrup- 
tion ; but his malversations were so notorious, that George 
was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice. After 
this disgrace, in which he appears to have saved his fortune 
at the expense of his honor, he embraced, with real or af- 
fected zeal, the profession of Arianism. From the love, or 
the ostentation, of learning, he collected a valuable library 
of history, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology ; 120 and the 
choice of the prevailing faction promoted George of Cappa- 
docia to the throne of Athanasius. The entrance of the new 
archbishop was that of a barbarian conqueror ; and each 

118 See Gregory Nazianzen, {Orat. iii. p. 87). Sozomen, (1. v. c. 9), may be con- 
sidered as an original, though not impartial, witness. He was a native of Gaza, 
and had conversed with the confessor Zeno, who, as bishop of Maiuma, lived to 
the age of a hundred, (1. viii. c. 28). Philostorgius, (1. vii. c. 4, with Godefroy's 
Dissertations, p. 284 , adds some tragic circumstances, of Christians, who were 
literally sacrificed at the altars of the gods, &c. 

119 The life and death of George of Cappadocia are described by Am?nianus, 
(xxii. 11), Gregory of Nazianzen, {Orat. xxi. pp. 382, 385, 389, 390), and Epiphanius, 
(H&resAxxvi). The invectives of the two saints might not deserve much credit, 
unless they were confirmed by the testimony of a cool and impartial infidel. 

138 After the massacre of George, the emperor Julian repeatedly sent orders to 
preserve the library for his own use, and to torture the slaves who might be 
suspected of secreting any books. He praises the merit of the collection, from 
whence he had borrowed and transcribed several manuscripts while he pursued 
his studies in Cappadocia. He could wish, indeed, that the works of the Gali- 
loeans might perish ; but he requires an exact account, even of those theological 
volumes, lest other treatises more valuable should be confounded in their loss. 
Julian. Epist. ix. xxxyi. 



MASSACRE OF THE ARCHBISHOP. 469 

noment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice. 
Hie Catholics of Alexandria and Egypt were abandoned 

a tyrant, qualified by nature and education, to exercise 
he office of persecution ; but he oppressed 

vith an impartial hand the various inhabitants ^fJandria 
)f his extensive diocese. The primate of Egypt and Egypt. 
assumed the pomp and insolence of his lofty 
itation ; but he still betrayed the vices of his base and 
servile extraction. The merchants of Alexandria were im- 
poverished by the unjust, and almost universal monopoly, 
vhich he acquired of nitre, salt, paper, funerals, &c. : and 
lie spiritual father of a great people condescended to prac- 
ice the vile and pernicious arts of an informer. The 
Alexandrians could never forget, nor forgive, the tax which 
le suggested on all the houses of the city, under an obsolete 
:laim, that the royal founder had conveyed to his successors, 
:he Ptolemies and the Caesars, the perpetual property of the 
soil. The Pagans, who had been flattered with the hopes 
}f freedom and toleration, excited his devout avarice; and 
:he rich temples of Alexandria were either pillaged or in- 
sulted by the haughty prelate, who exclaimed, in a loud and 
:hreatening tone, " How long will these sepulchres be per- 

1 mitted to stand ? " Under the reign of Constantius, he was 
expelled by the fury, or rather by the justice of the people; 
and it was not without a violent struggle that the civil and 
military powers of the state could restore his authority, 
and gratify his revenge. The messenger who proclaimed at 
Alexandria the accession of Julian, announced the downfall 
of the archbishop. George, with two of his ob- a. d. 361. 
sequious ministers, count Diodorus, and Dra- Nov - 3 °- 
contius, master of the mint, were ignominiously dragged 
in chains to the public prison. At the end of Massacred by 
twenty-four days, the prison was forced open by the P e °P le - 
the rage of a superstitious multitude, impatient of the tedious 
forms of judicial proceedings. The enemies of Dec 
gods and men expired under their cruel insults ; 

the lifeless bodies of the archbishop and his associates were 
carried in triumph through the streets on the back of a camel,* 
and the inactivity of the Athanasian party 121 was esteemed a 
shining example of evangelical patience. The remains of 

121 Philostorgius.with cautious malice, insinuates their guilt, nai tjjv 'AOavadov 
yvufiTjv GTparriyTiaai 7% 7rpd&vg, 1. vii. c. ii. Godefroy, p. 267. 

* Julian himself says, that they tore him to pieces like dogs, roluu dyuoi yancp 
ol tcvvec, GirapdeTTeiv. Epist. x.-Milman. 



470 ST. GEORGE OF ENGLAND. 

these guilty wretches were thrown into the sea: and the 
popular leaders of the tumult declared their resolution to 
disappoint the devotion of the Christians, and to intercept 
the future honors of these martyrs, who had been punished, 
like their predecessors, by the enemies of their religion. 122 
The fears of the Pagans were just, and their precautions in- 
effectual. The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated 
the memory of his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear 
and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming conversion of 
those sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the 
Catholic church. 123 The odious stranger, disguising every 
circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a 
martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero ; m and the infamous 
And v.or- George of Cappadocia has been transformed 125 
S samt d and a mto tne renowned St. George of England, the 
martyr. patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter. 126 
About the same time that Julian was informed of the 
tumult of Alexandria, he received intelligence from Edessa, 
that the proud and wealthy faction of the Arians had in- 
sulted the weakness of the Valentinians, and committed 
such disorders as ought not to be suffered with impunity 
in a well-regulated state. Without expecting the slow 

122 Cineres projecit in mare, id metuens ut clamabat, ne, collectis supremis, 
sedes illis exstruerent ; ut reliquis, qui deviare a religione compulsi, pertuleer 
cruciabiles pcenas. adusque gloriosam mortem intemerata ride progressi, et nunc 
Martyres appellantur. Ammian. xxii. II. Epiphauius proves to the Arians 
that George was not a martyr. 

las Some Donatists, (Optatus Milev. pp. 60, 303, edit. Dupin ; and Tillemont, 
Mem. Eccles. torn. vi. p. 713, in 4to.), and Priscillianists, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. 
torn. viii. p. 517, in 4to.), have in like manner usurped the honors of the Catholic 
saints and martyrs. 

121 The saints'of Cappadocia, Basil, and the Gregories, were ignorant of their 
holy companion. Pope Gelasius, (A. D. 494), the first Catholic who acknowledges 
St. George, places him among the martyrs, " qui Deo magis quam hominibus noti 
" sunt.'' He rejects his Acts as the composition of heretics. Some, perhaps not 
the oldest, of the spurious Acts, are still extant ; and, through a cloud of fiction, 
we may yet distinguish the combat which St. George of Cappadocia sustained, in 
the presence of Queen Alexandria, against the magician Athanasius. 

135 This transformation is not given as absolutely certain, but as extremely 
probable. See the Longueruana, torn. i. p. 194.* 

126 A curious history of the worship of St. George, from the sixth century, (when 
he was already revered in Palestine, in Armenia, at Rome, and at Treves, in 
Gaul), might be extracted from Dr. Heylin, {History of St. George, 2d edition 
London, 1633, in 4to, p. 429), and the Bollandists, {Act. SS. Mens. April, torn, iii., 
pp. 100-163). His fame and popularity in Europe, and especially in England, 
proceeded from the Crusades. 

* The late Dr. Milner, (the Roman Catholic bishop), wrote a tract to vindicate 
the existence and the orthodoxy of the tutelar saint of England. He succeeds, I 
think, in tracing the worship of St. George up to a period which makes it improb- 
able that so notorious an Arian could be palmed upon the Catholic church as a 
saint and a martyr. The Acts rejected by Gelasius may have been of Arian origin, 
and designed to engraft the story of their hero on the obscure adventures of some 
earlier saint. See an Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Existence and 
Character of St. George, in a letter to the Earl of Leicester, by the Rev. J. Milner, 
F. S. A., London, 1792.— Milman. 



JULIAN S REMONSTRANCES. 47 I 

forms of justice, the exasperated prince directed his man- 
date to the magistrates of Edessa, 127 by which he confiscated 
the whole property of the church : the money was distributed 
among the soldiers ; the lands were added to the domain ; 
and this act of oppression was aggravated by the most 
ungenerous irony, — " I show myself," says Julian, " the true 
" friend of the Galileans. Their admirable law has promised 
" the kingdom of heaven to the poor ; and they will advance 
" with more diligence in the paths of virtue and salvation, 
" when they are relieved by my assistance from the load of 
" temporal possessions. Take care," pursued the monarch, 
in a more serious tone, " take care how you provoke my 
" patience and humanity. If these disorders continue, I will 
" revenge on the magistrates the crimes of the people ; and 
" you will have reason to dread, not only confiscation and 
" exile, but fire and the sword." The tumults of Alexandria 
were doubtless of a more bloody and dangerous nature : 
but a Christian bishop had fallen by the hands of the 
Pagans ; and the public epistle of Julian affords a very 
lively proof of the partial spirit of his administration. His 
reproaches to the citizens of Alexandria are mingled with 
expressions of esteem and tenderness ; and he laments, that 
on this occasion they should have departed from the gentle 
and generous manners which attested their Grecian extrac- 
tion. He gravely censures the offence which they had 
committed against the laws of justice and humanity ; but he 
recapitulates, with visible complacency, the intolerable pro- 
vocations which they had so long endured from the impious 
tyranny of George of Cappadocia. Julian admits the prin- 
ciple, that a wise and vigorous government should chastise 
the insolence of the people ; yet, in consideration of their 
founder, Alexander, and of Serapis, their tutelar deity, he 
grants a free and gracious pardon to the guilty city, for 
which he again feels the affection of a brother. 12S 

After the tumult of Alexandria had subsided, „ . ,. 

« .. . . * , , ',; , ' Restoration 

Atnanasius, amidst the public acclamations, ofAthanasius 
seated himself on the throne from whence his "Ve?" 2?" 
unworthy competitor had been precipitated ; and 
as the zeal of the archbishop was tempered with discretion, 
the exercise of his authority tended not to inflame, but to 
reconcile, the minds of the people. His pastoral labors were 

12T Julian. Epistol. xliii. 

12s Julian. Epist. x. He allowed his friends to assuage his anger. Ammian. 
xxii. 11. 



472 CONCILIATORY POLICY OF ATHANASIUS. 

« 

not confined to the narrow limits of Egypt. The state of 
the Christian world was present to his active and capacious 
mind ; and the age, the merit, the reputation of Athanasius 
enabled him to assume, in a moment of danger, the office 
of ecclesiastical dictator. 129 Three years were not yet 
elapsed since the majority of the bishops of the West 
had ignorantly, or reluctantly, subscribed the confession of 
Rimini. They repented, they believed, but they dreaded 
the unseasonable rigor of their orthodox brethren ; and if 
their pride was stronger than their faith, they might throw 
themselves into the arms of the Arians, to escape the in- 
dignity of a public penance, which must degrade them to 
the condition of obscure laymen. At the same time, the 
domestic differences concerning the union and distinction 
of the divine persons, were agitated with some heat among 
the Catholic doctors ; and the progress of this metaphysical 
controversy seemed to threaten a public, and lasting division 
of the Greek and Latin churches. By the wisdom of a select 
synod, to which the name and presence of Athanasius gave 
the authority of a general council, the bishops, who had 
unwarily deviated into error, were admitted to the com- 
munion of the church, on the easy condition of subscribing 
the Nicene creed, without any formal acknowledgment of 
their past fault, or any minute definition of their scholastic 
opinions. The advice of the primate of Egypt had already 
prepared the clergy of Gaul and Spain, of Italy and Greece, 
for the reception of this salutary measure ; and, notwith- 
standing the opposition of some ardent spirits, 130 the fear of 
the common enemy promoted the peace and harmony of 
the Christians. 131 
„ . The skill and diligence of the primate of 

He is perse- -^ „_ij- 11 r •■,,- 

cuted and Egypt had improved the season of tranquillity, 

ex ju!!an. by before it was interrupted by the hostile edicts of 

a. d. 362. the emperor. 132 Julian, who despised the Chris- 

° cL 23 ' tians, honored Athanasius with his sincere and 

129 See Athanas. ad Rufin. Ctom. ii. pp. 40. 41), and Greg. Nazianzen, (Orat. iii. 
PP- 395. .3961 ; who justly states the temperate zeal of the primate, as much more 
meritorious than his prayers, his fasts, his persecutions, &c. 

130 I have not leisure to follow the blind obstinacy of Lucifer of Cagliari. See 
his adventures in Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn. v'ii. pp. 900-926) ; and observe 
how the color of the narrative insensibly changes, as the confessor becomes a 
schismatic. 

1:11 Asseusus est huic sententiae Occidens, et, per tarn necessarium concilium. 
Satanae faucibus mundus ereptus. The lively and artful dialogue of Jerome 
against the Luciferians, (torn. ii. pp. 135-155), e'xhibits an original picture of the 
ecclesiastical policy of the times. 

•as Tillemont, who supposes that George was massacred in August, crowds the 
actions of Athanasius into a narrow space, {Mem. Eccles. torn. viii. p. 360). An 



JULIAN S HATRED OF ATHANASIUS. 473 

* 

peculiar hatred. For his sake alone, he introduced an ar- 
bitrary distinction, repugnant at least to the spirit of his 
former declarations. He maintained, that the Galileans, 
whom he had recalled from exile, were not restored, by that 
general indulgence, to the possession of their respective 
churches : and he expressed his astonishment that a criminal, 
who had been repeatedly condemned by the judgment of 
the emperors, should dare to insult the majesty of the laws, 
and insolently usurp the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria 
without expecting the orders of his sovereign. As a pun- 
ishment for the imaginary offence, he again banished 
Athanasius from the city ; and he was pleased to suppose, 
that this act of justice would be highly agreeable to his 
pious subjects. The pressing solicitations of the people 
soon convinced him that the majority of the Alexandrians 
were Christians ; and that the greatest part of the Christians 
were firmly attached to the cause of their oppressed primate. 
But the knowledge of their sentiments, instead of persuading 
lim to recall his decree, provoked him to extend to all 
Egypt the term of the exile of Athanasius. The zeal 
:>f the multitude rendered Julian still more inexorable : he 
was alarmed by the danger of leaving at the head of a 
:umultuous city a daring and popular leader ; and the lan- 
guage of his resentment discovers the opinion which he 
entertained of the courage and abilities of Athanasius. The 
execution of the sentence was still delayed, by the caution 
Dr negligence of Ecdicius, prefect of Egypt, who was at 
ength awakened from his lethargy by a severe reprimand. 
' Though you neglect" says Julian, " to write to me on any 
' other subject, at least it is your duty to inform me of your 
' conduct towards Athanasius, the enemy of the gods. My 
' intentions have been long since communicated to you. 
' I swear by the great Serapis, that unless, on the calends 
' of December, Athanasius has departed from Alexandria, 
' nay from Egypt, the officers of your government shall 
' pay a fine of one hundred pounds of gold. You know my 
1 temper : I am slow to condemn, but I am still slower to 
1 forgive." This epistle was enforced by a short postscript, 
written with the emperor's own hand. " The contempt that 
' is shown for all the gods fills me with grief and indigna- 
' tion. There is nothing that I should see, nothing that 

>riginal fragment, published by the Marquis Maffei, from the old Chapter library 
)f Verona, (Osservazioni Lctterarie, torn. ii. pp. 60-92), affords many important 
lates, which are authenticated by the computation of Egyptian months. 



474 IMPRUDENCE OF THE CHRISTIANS. 

" I should hear, with more pleasure, than the expulsion of 
" Athanasius from all Egypt. The abominable wretch ! 
" Under my reign, the baptism of several Grecian ladies of 
" the highest rank has been the effect of his persecutions. 133 
The death of Athanasius was not expressly commanded ; 
but the prefect of Egypt understood, that it was safer for 
him to exceed, than to neglect the orders of an irritated 
master. The archbishop prudently retired to the monas- 
teries of the Desert ; eluded, with his usual dexterity, the 
snares of the enemy ; and lived to triumph over the ashes 
of a prince, who, in words of formidable import, had de- 
clared his wish, that the whole venom of the Galilean school 
were contained in the single person of Athanasius. 134 

I have endeavored faithfully to represent the 
pradetlce of artful system by which Julian proposed to obtain 
the Chris- the effects, without incurring the sruilt, or re- 
proach of persecution. But if the deadly spirit of 
fanaticism perverted the heart and understanding of a vir- 
tuous prince, it must, at the same time, be confessed, that 
the real sufferings of the Christians were inflamed and mag- 
nified by human passions and religious enthusiasm. The 
meekness and resignation which had distinguished the 
primitive disciples of the gospel, were the object of the 
applause, rather than of the imitation, of their successors. 
The Christians, who had now possessed above forty years 
the civil and ecclesiastical government of the empire, had 
contracted the insolent vices of prosperity, 135 and the habit 
of believing that the saints alone were entitled to reign over 
the earth. As soon as the enmity of Julian deprived the 
clergy of the privileges which had been conferred by the 
favor of Constantine, they complained of the most cruel op- 
pression ; and the free toleration of idolaters and heretics 
was a subject of grief and scandal to the orthodox party. 136 
The acts of violence, which were no longer countenanced 

133 Tdv ftiapbv, 'of IroAiirjaev ''ETiXrjviSa^, err' ljunv, yvvalicac t&v Itclotjvuv 
(3aiTTiaai, ditjuecdat. I have preserved the ambiguous sense of the last word, 
the ambiguity of a tyrant, who wished to find, or to c'reate, guilt. 

i3i The three epistles of Julian, which explain his intentions and conduct with 
regard to Athanasius, should be disposed in the following chronological order, 
xx vi. x. vi.* See, likewise, Greg. Nazianzen, xxi. p. 393. Sozomen, 1. v. c. 15. 
Socrates, 1. iii. c. 14. Theodoret, 1. iii. c. 9, and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. viii. 
pp. 36^368, who has used some materials prepared by the Bollandists. 

135 See the fair confession of Gregory {Orat. iii pp. 61, 62). 

136 Hear the furious and absurd complaint of Optatus {de Schismat. Donatist. 
1. ii. c. 16, 17). 

* The sentence in the text is from Epist. Ii., addressed to the people of 
Alexandria. — Milman. 



FEARS OF PERSECUTION. 475 

by the magistrates, were still committed by the zeal of the 
people. At Pessinus, the altar of Cybele was overturned 
almost in the presence of the emperor, and in the city of 
Csesarea in Cappadocia, the temple of Fortune, the sole 
place of worship which had been left to the Pagans, was de- 
stroyed by the rage of a popular tumult. On these occa- 
sion's, a prince, who felt for the honor of the gods, was not 
disposed to interrupt the course of justice; and his mind 
was still more deeply exasperated, when he found, that the 
fanatics, who had deserved and suffered the punishment of 
incendiaries, were rewarded with the honors of martyr- 
dom. 137 The Christian subjects of Julian were assured of 
the hostile designs of their sovereign ; and, to their jealous 
apprehension, every circumstance of his government might 
afford some grounds of discontent and suspicion. In the or- 
dinary administration of the laws, the Christians, who formed 
so large a part of the people, must frequently be condemned : 
but their indulgent brethren, without examining the merits 
of the cause, presumed their innocence, allowed their claims, 
and imputed the severity of their judge to the partial 
malice of religious persecution. 138 These present hardships, 
intolerable as they might appear, were represented as a 
slight prelude of the impending calamities. The Christians 
considered Julian as a cruel and crafty tyrant; who sus- 
pended the execution of his revenge, till he should return 
victorious from the Persian war. They expected that as 
soon as he had triumphed over the foreign enemies of 
Rome, he would lay aside the irksome mask of dissimula- 
tion ; that the amphitheatres would stream with the blood 
of hermits and bishops ; and that the Christians, who still 
persevered in the profession of the faith, would be deprived 
of the common benefits of nature and society. 139 Every 
calumny 140 that could wound the reputation of the apostate, 

is" Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 91, iv. p. 133. He praises the rioters of 
Caesarea, rovrov de rdv tieyakofyvfiv nal ■&ep/j.u>v etc evae&eiav. See Sozomen, 
1. v. c. 4, 11. Tillemont, {Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. pp. 649, 650), owns, that their 
behavior was not dans l'ordre commun ; but he is perfectly satisfied, as the great 
St. Basil always celebrated the festival of these blessed martyrs. 

133 Julian determined a lawsuit against the new Christian city at Maiuma, the 
port of Gaza: and his sentence, though it might be imputed to bigotry, was never 
reversed by his successors. Sozomen, 1. v. c. 3. Reland, Palestin. torn. ii. p. 791. 

139 Greg., {Orat. iii. pp. 93, 94, 95. Graf. iv. p. 114), pretends to speak from the 
information of Julian's confidants, whom Orosius, (vii. 30, could not have seen. 

no Gregory, {Orat. iii. p. 91), charges the Apostate with secret sacrifices of 
boys and girls ; and positively affirms, that the dead bodies were thrown into 
the Orontes. See Theodoret, 1. iii. c. 26, 27 ; and the equivocal candor of the 
Abbe de la Bleterie, Vie de Julien, pp. 351, 352. Yet, contemporary malice could 
not impute to Julian the troops of martyrs, more especially in the West, which 
Baronius so greedily swallows, and Tillemont so faintly rejects, {Mem. Eccles. 
torn. vii. pp. 1295-1315). 



476 Julian's motives. 

was creduously embraced by the fears and hatred of his 
adversaries ; and their indiscreet clamors provoked the 
temper of a sovereign, whom it was their duty to respect 
and their interest to flatter. They still protested, that 
prayers and tears were their only weapons against the im- 
pious tyrant, whose head they devoted to the justice of 
offended heaven. But they insinuated with sullen resolu- 
tion, that their submission was no longer the effect of 
weakness ; and that, in the imperfect state of human virtue, 
the patience, which is founded on principle, may be ex- 
hausted by persecution. It is impossible to determine how 
far the zeal of Julian would have prevailed over his good 
sense and humanity ; but if we seriously reflect on the 
strength and spirit of the church, we shall be convinced, 
that, before the emperor could have extinguished the 
religion of Christ, he must have involved his country in the 
horrors of a civil war. 141 

Ml The resignation of Gregory is truly edifying, (Orat. iv. pp. 123, 124). Yet 
when an officer of Julian attempted to seize the church of Nazianzus, he would 
have lost his life, if he had not yielded to the zeal of the bishop and people, {Orat. 
xix. p. 30S). See the reflections of Chrysostom, as they are alleged by Tillemont, 
{Mem. Ecclcs. torn. vii. p. 575).* 

* Evidently pleased with his subject, Gibbon has still delineated the opinions 
and conduct of Julian, with a fairness of which the impartial have expressed 
their admiration. Niebuhr says, "Julian's is an ever memorable name, which 
" has sometimes been overrated beyond measure, and on the other hand, cried 
" down in the most unworthy manner. Distinguished men, of most opposite 
" minds, have, during the last fifty years, turned their attention to him ;* first of 
" all, Gibbon, who was not, however, carried away by his anti-Christian feelings, 
" but very readily acknowledged his weak points." {Lectures, vol. iii, p. 309.) 
Eckhel, too, gives a still more decided testimony to the same effect: " Optime, 
'" ut ego existimo, de Juliani philosophia, virtutibusque et vitiis, judicavit 
" Eduardus Gibbon, Anglus." {Num. Vet. vol. viii, p. 132.) Sensitiveness to 
the acrimony with which his fifteenth and sixteenth chapters had been assailed, 
made Gibbon cautious here. So far did he carry this, that recent editors, who, 
in republishing his History, undertook to correct all that he had misstated 
respecting Christianity, have raised no objection to any part of the present 
chapter. If he has erred, it has been rather by sometimes doing injustice to the 
imperial mystic. There are instances of his having wrongly supposed Christians 
at large to have been the objects of vindictive feelings and coercive measures, 
which were directed only against the priesthood ; and he has thence inferred an 
encouragement to clandestine or indirect persecution, which Julian was too 
sagacious, if not too generous, to have favored. The restorer of Paganism 
would, of course, gladly have extinguished Christianity. But his harsh pro- 
ceedings tended to this only so far as they took from the hierarchy the tempting 
bribes by which they had allured time-serving proselytes. That he wished by 
gentle and more persuasive convictions, to win the laity, and first the educated 
portion of them, is clearly evident from the fragments which we possess of what 
he wrote against their faith. The early fathers had made their most successful 
impressions by arguing that the Jewish Scriptures had divinely predicted in Chris- 
tianity that dispensation which realized the favorite philosophy of the Greeks. 
Against this Mosaic foundation, Julian therefore directed his attacks. Those 
parts of it which are the most difficult to defend, he assailed by his most powerful 
arguments. His idea was, that, if he could detach the basis, the superstructure 
would be safely removed to the Pagan ground, which he had endeavored to 
intellectualize for its reception. A sovereign who could thus reason with his 
subjects, was not likely to harbor those covert designs of forcible propagandism, 
which the fears or the hatred of Christian writers ascribed to him. — Eng. Ch. 



ANXIETY OF JULIAN.* 477 

While Julian struggled with the almost in- 
superable difficulties of his situation, the silent {"% wjfuuded. 
hours of the night were still devoted to study 
and contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes in short 
and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated with painful 
anxiety ; nor can it be thought surprising, that the genius 
of the empire should once more appear before him, covering, 
with a funeral veil, his head and his horn of abundance, 
and slowly retiring from the imperial tent. The monarch 
started from his couch, and stepping forth, to refresh his 
wearied spirits with the coolness of the midnight air, he 
beheld a fiery meteor, which shot athwart the sky, and sud- 
denly vanished. Julian was convinced that he had seen the 
menacing countenance of the god of war ; 142 the council 
which he summoned, of Tuscan Haruspices, U3 unanimously 
pronounced that he should abstain from action : but, on this 
occasion, necessity and reason were more prevalent than 
superstition ; and the trumpets sounded at the break of day. 
The army marched through a hilly country ; and the hills 
had been secretly occupied by the Persians. Julian led the 
van with the skill and attention of a consummate general ; 
he was alarmed by the intelligence that his rear was sud- 
denly attacked. The heat of the weather had tempted him 
to lay aside his cuirass ; but he snatched a shield from one 
of his attendants, and hastened, with a sufficient reinforce- 
ment, to the relief of the rear guard. A similar danger 
recalled the intrepid prince to the defence of the front, and, 
as he galloped between the columns, the centre of the left 
was attacked, and almost overpowered, by a furious 
charge of the Persian cavalry and elephants. This huge 
body was soon defeated, by the well-timed evolution of the 
light infantry, who aimed their weapons, with dexterity and 
effect, against the backs of the horsemen, and the legs of the 
elephants. The barbarians fled ; and Julian, who was fore- 
most in every danger, animated the pursuit with his voice 
and gestures. His trembling guards, scattered and oppressed 
by the disorderly throng of friends and enemies, reminded 
their fearless sovereign that he was without armor ; and 

142 Ammian. xxv. 2. Julian had sworn in a passion, nunquam se Marti sacra 
facturum, (xxiv. 6). Such whimsical quarrels were not uncommon between the 
gods and their insolent votaries ; and even the prudent Augustus, after his fleet 
had been twice shipwrecked, excluded Neptune from the honors of publi* pro- 
cessions. See Hume's Philosophical Reflections. Essays, vol. ii. p. 418. 

1*3 They still retained the monopoly of the vain but lucrative science, which 
had been invented in Hetruria; and professed to derive their knowledge of signs 
and omens from the ancient books of Tarquitius, a Tuscan sage. 

* This account of the death of Julian is from chap. xxiv. of the Decline and Fall. 



478 JULIAN MORTALLY WOUNDED. 

conjured him to decline the fall of the impending ruin. 
As they exclaimed, 144 a cloud of darts and arrows was 
discharged from the flying squadrons ; and a javelin, 
after razing the skin of his arm, transpierced the ribs, and 
fixed in the inferior part of the liver. Julian attempted to 
draw the deadly weapon from his side ; but his fingers were 
cut by the sharpness of the steel, and he fell senseless from 
his horse. His guards flew to his relief; and the wounded 
emperor was gently raised from the ground, and conveyed 
out of the tumult of the battle into an adjacent tent. The 
report of the melancholy event passed from rank to rank ; 
but the grief of the Romans inspired them with invincible 
valor, and the desire of revenge. The bloody and obstinate 
conflict was maintained by the two armies, till they were 
separated by the total darkness of the night. * * * * 
But the event of the day was adverse to the barbarians. 
They abandoned the field ; * * * and the success of 
the Romans, if Julian had survived, might have been im- 
proved into a decisive and useful victory. 

The death of ^ e nrst words that Julian uttered, after his 
Julian. recovery from the fainting fit into which he had 

A ]\mv26 3 ' been thrown by loss of blood, were expressive 
of his martial spirit. He called for his horse and 
arms, and was impatient to rush into the battle. His re- 
maining strength was exhausted by the painful effort; and 
the surgeons, who examined his wound, discovered the 
symptoms of approaching death. He employed the awful 
moments with the firm temper -of a hero and a sage; the 
philosophers who had accompanied him in this fatal expedi- 
tion, compared the tent of Julian with the prison of Socrates ; 
and the spectators, whom duty, or friendship, or curiosity, 
had assembled round his couch, listened with respectful 
grief to the funeral oration of their dying emperor. 145 
" Friends and fellow soldiers, the seasonable period of my 
" departure is now arrived, and I discharge, with the cheer- 
" fulness of a ready debtor, the demands of nature. I have 
" learned from philosophy how much the soul is more ex- 
" cellent than the body ; and that the separation of the 

144 Clamabant hinc inde candidati, (see the note of Valesius), quos disjecerat 
terror, ut fugientium molem tanquam ruinam male compositi culminis declinaret. 
Ammian. xxv. 3. 

143 The character and situation of Julian might countenance the suspicion that 
he had previously composed the elaborate oration, which Ammianus heard, and 
has transcribed. The version of the Abbe de la Bleterie is faithful and elegant. 
I have followed him in expressing the Platonic idea of emanations, which is 
darkly insinuated in the original. 



JULIAN S DYING ORATION. 479 

nobler substance should be the subject of joy, rather than 
of affliction. I have learned from religion, that an early- 
death has often been the reward of piety, 116 and I accept, 
as a favor of the gods, the mortal stroke that secures me 
from the danger of disgracing a character, which has 
hitherto been supported by virtue and fortitude. I die 
without remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am 
pleased to reflect on the innocence of my private life ; and 
I can affirm with confidence, that the supreme authority, 
that emanation of the Divine Power, has been preserved 
in my hands pure and immaculate. Detesting the cor- 
rupt and destructive maxims of despotism, I have consid- 
ered the happiness of the people as the end of government. 
Submitting my actions to the laws of prudence, of justice, 
and of moderation, I have trusted the event to the care of 
Providence. Peace was the object of my counsels, as long 
as peace was consistent with the public welfare ; but when 
the imperious voice of my country summoned me to arms, 

1 exposed my person to the dangers of war, with the clear 
foreknowledge (which I had acquired from the art of 
divination) that I was destined to fall by the sword. I now 
offer my tribute of gratitude to the Eternal Being, who has 
not suffered me to perish by the cruelty of a tyrant, by 
the secret dagger of conspiracy, or by the slow tortures 
of lingering disease. He has given me, in the midst of an 
honorable career, a splendid and glorious departure from 
this world ; and I hold it equally absurd, equally base, to 
solicit, or to decline, the stroke of fate. Thus much I 
have attempted to say ; but my strength fails me, and I feel 
the approach of death. I shall cautiously refrain from 
any word that may tend to influence your suffrages in the 
election of an emperor. My choice might be imprudent 
or injudicious ; and if it should not be ratified by the con- 
sent of the army, it might be fatal to the person whom I 
should recommend. I shall only, as a good citizen, ex- 
press my hopes, that the Romans may be blessed with the 
government of a virtuous sovereign." After this discourse, 
lich Julian pronounced in a firm and gentle tone of voice, 
: distributed by a military testament, 147 the remains of his 

« Herodotus, (1. i. c. 31), has displayed that doctrine in an agreeable tale. Yet the 
piter, {Iliad, book xvi,) who laments with tears of blood the death of Sarpedon, 
son, had a very imperfect notion of happiness or glory beyond the grave. 
i~> The soldiers who made their verbal or nuncupatory testaments, upon actual 
vice, (in procinctu), were exempted from the formalities of the Roman law. 

2 Heineccius, {Antiquit. yur. Roman, torn. i. p. 504), and Montesquieu, {Esprit. 
r Loix, 1. xxvii.). 



480 DEATH OF JULIAN. 

private fortune ; and making some inquiry why Anatolius 
was not present, he understood, from the answer of Sallust, 
that Anatolius was killed ; and bewailed, with amiable in- 
consistency, the loss of his friend. At the same time he 
reproved the immoderate grief of the spectators ; and con- 
jured them not to disgrace by unmanly tears, the fate of a 
prince, who in a few moments would be united in heaven, 
and with the stars. 148 The spectators were silent ; and Julian 
entered into a metaphysical argument with the philosophers 
Priscus and Maximus, on the nature of the soul. The efforts 
which he made, of mind as well as body, most probably 
hastened his death. His wound began to bleed with fresh 
violence ; his respiration was embarrased by the swelling 
of the veins ; he called for a draught of cold water, and, as 
soon as he had drank it, expired without pain, about the 
hour of midnight. Such was the end of that extraordinary 
man in the thirty-second year of his age, after a reign of 
one year and about eight months, from the death of Con- 
stantius. In his last moments he displayed, perhaps with 
some ostentation, the love of virtue and of fame, which had 
been the ruling passions of his life. 149 

l« This union of the human soul with the divine sethereal substance of the 
universe, is the ancient doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato ; but it seems to 
exclude any personal or conscious immortality. See Warburton's learned and 
rational observations. Divine Legation, vol. ii. pp. 199-216. 

\vi The whole relation of the death of Julian is given by Amianus, (xxv. 3), an 
intelligent spectator. Libanius, who turns with horror from the scene, has sup- 
plied some circumstances, (Orat. Parental, c. 136-140, pp. 359-362). The calumnies 
of Gregory, and the legends of more recent saints, may now be silently despised.* 

* A very remarkable fragment of Eunapius describes, not without spirit, the 
struggle between the terror of the army on account of their perilous situation, 
and their grief for the death of Julian. " Even the vulgar felt that they would 
" soon provide a general, but such a general as Julian they would never find, 
" even though a god in the form of man— 7r AaoTOf Oeoc Julian, who, with a mind 
" equal to the divinity, triumphed over the evil propensities of human nature, — 
" * * * who held commerce with immaterial beings while yet in the body,— 
" who condescended to rule because a ruler was necessary to the welfare of man- 
" kind.'' Mai, Nov. Coll. ii. 261. Eunapius in Niebuhr, 69. The TzAaaror debc, 
to which Julian is thus advantageously compared, is manifestly, as M. Mai 
observes, a bitter sneer at the Incarnate Deity of the Christians. The fragment 
is followed by an indignant comment by some Christian writer. Ibid. — Milman. 
t The Pagan emperor died serene and hopeful. He believed his soul an emana- 
tion of the Divine Power, and that, at the moment of death, this soul would be 
forever united in heaven with that Eternal Being from whence it proceeded. Is 
not this simple Pagan faith at least as reasonable as the complex Christian belief 
in the incarnation and crucifixion of God, the Son, to appease the anger of God, the 
Father; these two, with the addition of the Holy Ghost, being one and the same; 
and this divine and human tragedy was enacted at Calvary because Adam, tempted 
by Satan, had sinned, and his descendants had thereby incurred damnation? 

Gibbon has not noticed the absurd fable of Julian throwing a handful of his blood 
in the air, and saying, "Galilean, thou hast conquered!" He simply remarks, 
that " the calumnies of Gregory, and the legends of more recent saints, may now 
" be silently despised." Sensational preachers, however, care very little for silent 
despiciency, and continue to repeat the pious romance. In one of the answers 
in the Talmagian Catechism, on page 413 of IngersolV s Interviews on Talmage, 
this standard Christian argument is neatly given. It is also referred to by Voltaire 
in his Philosophical Dictionary.— 1*. 




DIANA EPHESIA. 



DIANA 
" Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " — Acts, xix : 28. 

ACCORDING to the genealogy of the Greek and Roman gods, as given by 
Mayo, Diana was a daughter of Jupiter and Latona, born on the Island of 
Delos, and a twin-sister of Apollo. " As in Apollo the sun was deified and 
" adored," says Eschenburg's Manual of Classical Literature, " so was the moon 
" in Diana." The chasteness of Diana was aptly symbolized by the shining orb 
of night, " who scatters," says Moritz in Mythological Fictions of the Greeks and 
Romans, " her modest silver light over mountain tops and forest glades." 

The illustration on the preceding page of the Ephesian Diana or Artemis, is 
from Moutfaucon, i. 157. Cf., p. ii. \ 40.3, " On the head of the statue," says Eschen- 
burg, " is a double mural crown ; a large festoon is suspended from the neck, and 
" within it are two images of Victory ; 011 each arm are two lions ; the body tapers 
" to the feet like a Hermes, but is divided into four portions, the first of which 
" is occupied by numerous breasts, the second by heads of stags, and the third 
" and fourth by heads of oxen." 

The statue of Diana at Ephesus, says M. Lame Fleury in his Mythology, " was 
" of ebony, and of the most exquisite workmanship." M. A Dwight.in his Grecian 
ami Roman Mythology, says " that the statue came down from the skies," and the 
New Testament, {Acts, xix. 35,) intimates that it " fell down from Jupiter! " But 
Win. Smith. LL.D.,in his Classical Dictionary, more rationally believes that the 
Ephesian Diana was totally distinct from the Greek goddess of the same name, 
and that " she was an ancient Asiatic divinity whose worship the Greeks found 
" established in Ionia, when they settled there, and to whom they gave the name 
" of Artemis. Her image, in the magnificent temple of Ephesus. was represented 
" with many breasts." 

St. Paul was the cause of an exciting controversy at Ephesus in regard to the 
image of Diana. Demetrius, an artist of Ephesus, asserts; {Acts, xix : 27-37.) 

" That not only this our craft is in danger ; but also that the temple of the great 
" goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, 
'" whom all Asia and the world wo.^hipeth. And when they heard these sayings, 
" they were full of wrath, and cried" CAlt saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians. 
' ' And when the townclerk had appeased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, 
" what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a 
" worshiper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from 
" Jupiter? Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against, ye ought to 
" be quiet, and to do nothing rashly. For ye have brought hither these men, 
" which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blasphemers of your goddess." 

The " town-clerk " thus seems to endorse the teaching of the Apostle Paul as 
orthodox Paganism, which it probably was " when properly understood." St. Paul, 
it will be remembered, also recognized the Altar to the Unknown God of the 
Pagans, which he found at Athens, {Acts, xvii : 23,) and by his diplomatic skill 
and persuasive eloquence easily won the confidence of his credulous hearers. 
" Being crafty," was his unnecessary admission and triumphant boast, " I caught 
" you with guile." (//. Cor. xii : 16.) 

Gibbon describes, in the tenth chapter of his History, the temple of the great 
Diana, as follows : " In the general calamities of mankind, the death of an indi- 
" vidual, however exalted, the ruin of an edifice, however famous, are passed over 
" with careless attention. Yet we cannot forget that the temple of Diana at Ephesus. 
" after having risen with increasing splendor from seven repeated misfortunes, was 
" finally burnt by the Goths in their third naval invasion. The arts of Greece. 
" an! the wealth of Asia, had conspired to erect that sacred and magnificent 
" structure. It was supoorted by a hundred and twenty-seven marble columns 
" of the Ionic order. They were the gifts of devout monarchs, and each was 
" sixty feet high. The altar was adorned with the masterly sculptures of Praxiteles. 
" who had, perhaps, selected from the favorite legends'of the place, the birth of 
" the divine children of Latona, the concealment of Apollo after the slaughter 
" of the Cyclops, and the clemency of Bacchus to the vanquished Amazons. 
" Yet the length of the temple of Ephesus was only four hundred and twenty-five 
" feet, about two-thirds of the measure of the church of St. Peter's at Rome. In 
" the other dimensions, it was still more inferior to that sublime production of 
" modern architecture. The spreading arms of a Christian cross require a much 
" greater breadth than the oblong temples of the Pagans ; and the boldest artists 
" of antiquity would have been startled at the proposal of raising in the air a 
" dome of the size and proportions of the Pantheon. The temple of Diana was, 
" however, admired as one of the wonders of the world. Successive empires. 
" the Persian, the Macedonian, and the Roman, had revered its sanctity, and 
" enriched its splendor. But the rude savages of the Baltic were destitute oi 
" a taste for the elegant arts, and they despised the ideal terrors of a foreign 
" superstition." A fine steel engraving of this celebrated temple is given in 
Eschenburg's Manual, page 423. — E. 




Fortuna.* Venerated in Greece, idolized in Rome, wo. sloped in America. 



VII. 

THE GOVERNMENT OF JOVIAN. — Ei'VlL AND ECCLESIAS* 
TICAL ADMINISTRATION^ 



State of the 
Church. 
A. D. 363. 

necessary 



THE death of Julian had left the public 
affairs of the empire in a very doubtful 
and dangerous situation. The Roman 
army was saved by an inglorious, perhaps a 
treaty ; * and the first moments of peace were consecrated 

1 The medals of Jovian adorn him with victories, laurel crowns, and prostrate 
captives. Ducange, Famil. Byzantin. p. 52. Flattery is a foolish suicide ; she 
destroys herself with her own hands.J 

* Fortuna is the only deity honored by universal and unceasing adoration. 
To her the people ever bow. To her all nations render obeisance. Her shrines 
are ere6ted in the hearts of mankind, and her worshipers comprise the human 
family. Saint, sophist, sage, and savage unite to do her reverence ; and love and 
honor and health and even life are freely sacrificed upon her altars. 

Her eyes are bandaged, and blindly she showers her gifts upon her worshipers : 
hence chance, not merit, controls their destiny. The wheel, on which she rests, 
appropriately symbolizes her capricious and unstable character : and the cornu- 
copia in her right hand, from which the blessings or miseries of untold wealth pro- 
ceed, strikes that responsive chord of human sympathy which vibrates through 
every heart, and which is, indeed, "the one touch of nature that makes the 
" whole world kin." — E. 

fFrom Chap. xxv. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 
JThese are described by Eckhel, {Num. Vet. v. viii, p. 147.) The earliest of them 
like those of preceding emperors, have a figure of Victory standing on the globe, 
which was first stamped on Roman coins by Julius Caesar, as the symbol of 
imperial dominion. On the latter coins of this short reign, the cross is substi- 
tuted for the Pagan goddess, so that the globe surmounted by the emblem of 
Christianity, as used in the coronation ceremonies of modern' sovereigns, was 
first introduced by Jovian. " Nunc primum apparet," are Eckhel's words. The 
same is indeed placed by Nicephorus Callistus, {Hist. Ecc. lib. 7, c 49), in the 

(481) 



482 STATE OF THE CHURCH. 

by the pious Jovian to restore the domestic tranquillity of 
the church and state. The indiscretion of his predecessor, 
instead of reconciling, had artfully fomented the religious 
war : and the balance which he affected to preserve between 
the hostile factions, served only to perpetuate the contest, 
by the vicissitudes of hope and fear, by the rival claims of 
ancient possession and actual favor. The Christians had 
forgotten the spirit of the gospel ; and the Pagans had im- 
bibed the spirit of the church. In private families, the 
sentiments of nature were extinguished by the blind fury 
of zeal and revenge; the majesty of the laws was violated 
or abused ; the cities of the East were stained with blood ; 
and the most implacable enemies of the Romans were in 
the bosom of their country. Jovian was educated in the 
profession of Christianity ; and as he marched from Nisibis 
to Antioch, the banner of the Cross, the Labarum of Con- 
stantine, which was again displayed at the head of the 
legions, announced to the people the faith of their new em- 
peror. As soon as he ascended the throne, he transmitted 
a circular epistle to all the governors of provinces ; in which 
he confessed the divine truth, and secured the legal es- 
tablishment, of the Christian religion. The insidious edicts 
of Julian were abolished ; the ecclesiastical immunities were 
restored and enlarged ; and Jovian condescended to lament, 
that the distress of the times obliged him to diminish the 
measure of charitable contributions. 2 The Christians were 
unanimous in the loud and sincere applause which they 
bestowed on the pious successor of Julian. But they were 
still ignorant what creed, or what synod, he would choose 
for the standard of orthodoxy ; and the peace of the church 
immediately revived those eager disputes which had been 
suspended during the season of persecution. The episcopal 

2 Jovian restored to the church top upxatov Koaiiov ; a forcible and compre- 
hensive expression, (Philostorgius, 1. viii. c. 5, with Godefroy's Dissertations, 
p. 329. Sozomen, 1. vi. c. 3). The new law, which condemned the rape or mar- 
riage of nuns, (Cod. Theod. 1. ix. tit. xxv. leg. 2), is exaggerated by Sozomen : 
who supposes, that an amorous glance, the adultery of the heart, was punished 
with death by the evangelic legislator. 

right hand of the statue on Constantine's porphyry pillar. But his accuracy, as 
to the cross, is generally questioned. He calls the giobe an apple, /biT/'/.ov ; >' et it 
may be observed, that the Germans* also designate that part of their imperial 
insignia by the same term, Reichsapfel. Nicephorus; however, is not corrobo- 
rated by any other historian. Procopius, (De ALd. ?ust. lib. 1, c. 2), and Suidas, 
after him, speak of the globe and cross in the left hand of Justinian's equestrian 
statue, as if the sign of universal rule had never before decorated any statue in 
that form. There is certainly no existing proof of its use earlier than the coius 
of Jovian.— Eng. Ch. 



RETURN OF ATHANASIUS. 483 

leaders of the contending sects, convinced, from experience, 
how much their fate would depend on the earliest impres- 
sions that were made on the mind of an untutored soldier, 
hastened to the court of Edessa, or Antioch. The high- 
ways of the East were crowded with Homoousian, and Arian, 
and semi-Arian, and Eunomian bishops, who struggled 
to outstrip each other in the holy race ; the apartments of 
the palace resounded with their clamors ; and the ears of 
their prince were assaulted, and perhaps astonished, by the 
singular mixture of metaphysical argument and passionate 
invective. 3 The moderation of Jovian, who recommended 
concord and charity, and referred the disputants to the sen- 
tence of a future council, was interpreted as a symptom of 
indifference ; but his attachment to the Nicene creed was at 
length discovered and declared, by the reverence which he 
expressed for the celestial* virtues of the great Athanasius. 
The intrepid veteran of the faith, at the age of seventy, had 
issued from his retreat on the first intelligence of the tyrant's 
death. The acclamations of the people seated him once 
more on the archiepiscopal throne ; and he wisely accepted, 
or anticipated, the invitation of Jovian. The venerable 
figure "of Athanasius, his calm courage, and insinuating 
eloquence, sustained the reputation which he had already 
acquired in the courts of four successive princes. 5 As soon 
as he had gained the confidence and secured the faith of 
the Christian emperor, he returned in triumph to his diocese, 
and continued, with mature counsels, and undiminished 
vigor, to direct, ten years longer, 6 the ecclesiastical govern- 
ment of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Catholic church. Be- 
fore his departure from Antioch, he assured Jovian that his 
orthodox devotion would be rewarded by a long and peace- 
ful reign. Athanasius had reason to hope, that he should 

3 Compare Socrates, 1. iii. c. 25, and Philostorgius, 1. viii. c. 6, with Godefroy's 
Dissertatio-,is, 330. 

4 The word celestial faintly expresses the impious and extravagant flattery of 
the emperor to the archbishop, rr/c irpbc rbv Qeov ruv b/-o)v ouotwaeoc. (See 
the original epistle in Athanasius, torn. ii. p. 33.) Gregory Nazianzen, (Oral. 
xxi. p. 392), celebrates the friendship of Jovian and Athanasius. The primate's 
journey was advised by the Egyptian monks, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn, vii, 
p. 221). 

s Athanasius, at the court of Antioch, is agreeably represented by La Bleterie, 
{Hist, de Jovien, torn. i. pp. 121-148) ; he translates the singular and original con- 
ferences of the emperor, the primate of Egypt, and the Arian deputies. _ The 
Abbe is not satisfied with the coarse pleasantry of Jovian ; but his partiality for 
Athanasius assumes, in his eyes, the character of justice. 

6 The true aera of his death is perplexed with some difficulties, (Tillemont, 
Mem. Eccles. torn. viii. pp. 719-723). But the date, (A. D. 373, May 2), which 
seems the most consistent with history and reason, is ratified by his authentic 
life, (Maffei Osservazioni Letterarie, torn. iii. p. Si). 



484 UNIVERSAL TOLERATION. 

be allowed either the merit of a successful prediction, or the 
excuse of a grateful, though ineffectual prayer. 7 

The slightest force, when it is applied to as- 
ciaimsumve'r- sist and guide the natural descent of its object, 
sal toleration. p era tes with irresistible weight ; and Jovian had 
the good fortune to embrace the religious opinions which 
were supported by the spirit of the times, and the zeal and 
numbers of the most powerful sect. 8 Under his reign, 
Christianity obtained an easy and lasting victory ; and as 
soon as the smile of royal patronage was withdrawn, the 
genius of Paganism, which had been fondly raised and 
cherished by the arts of Julian, sank irrecoverably in the 
dust. In many cities, the temples were shut or deserted ; 
the philosophers, who had abused their transient favor, 
thought it prudent to shave their beards, and disguise their 
profession ; and the Christians rejoiced, that they were now 
in a condition to forgive, or to revenge, the injuries which 
they had suffered under the preceding reign. 9 The con- 
sternation of the Pagan world was dispelled by a wise and 
gracious edict of toleration ; in which Jovian explicitly de- 
clared, that although he should severely punish the sacri- 
ligious rites of magic, his subjects might exercise, with 
freedom and safety, the ceremonies of the ancient worship. 
The memory of this law has been preserved by the orator 
Themistius, who was deputed by the senate of Constanti- 
nople to express their loyal devotion for the new emperor. 
Themistius expatiates on the clemency of the Divine nature, 
the facility of human error, the rights of conscience, and 
the independence of the mind ; and, with some eloquence, 
inculcates the principles of philosophical toleration ; whose 
aid Superstition herself, in the hour of her distress, is not 
ashamed to implore. He justly observes, that, in the recent 
changes, both religions had been alternately disgraced by 
the seeming acquisition of worthless proselytes, of those 
votaries of the reigning purple, who could pass, without a 
reason, and without a blush, from the church to the temple, 

1 See the observations of Valesius and Jortin {Remarks on Ecclesiastical 
History, vol. iv. p. 38), on the original letter of Athanasius; which is preserved 
by Theodoret, 1. iv. c. 3). In some MSS., this indiscreet promise is omitted; 
perhaps by the Catholics, jealous of the prophetic fame of their leader. 

8 Athanasius, (apud Theodoret, 1. iv. c. 3), magnifies the number of the orthodox, 
who composed the whole world, nupe^ bliyuv tuv to. 'Apeiov fypovovvrov. This 
assertion was verified in the space of thirty or forty years. 

9 Socrates, I. iii. c. 24. Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. iv. p. 131), and Libanius 
(Orat. Parent alis, c. 148, p. 369), expresses the living- sentiments of their respective 
factions. 



THE CRIME OF MAGIC. 485 

and from the altars of Jupiter to the sacred table of the 
Christians. 10 

The inquisition into the crime of magic,f which Severe inqui' 
was so rigorously prosecuted both at Rome and tlo C rime°of he 
Antioch, was interpreted as the fatal symptom, magic at 
either of the displeasure of Heaven, or of the Antioch. 
depravity of mankind. 11 Let us not hesitate to A - D - 373. &c. 

10 Themistius, Orat. v. pp. 63-71, edit. Harduin, Paris, 16S4. The Abbe de la 
Bleterie judiciously remarks, {Hist, de Jovien, torn. i. p. 199), that Sozomen has 
forgotten the general toleration ; and Themistius the establishment of the Catholic 
religion. Each of them turned away from the object which he disliked, and 
wished to supress the part of the edict the least honorable, in his opinion, to the 
emperor Jovian.* 

11 Libanius de ulciscend, Julian, nece, c. ix. pp. 158, 159. The sophist deplores 
the public frenzy, but he does not, (after their deaths), impeach the justice of the 
emperors. 

* Full justice is not done here to this oration. Neander, {Hist. vol. iii, p, 97), 
bestows on it high and deserved commendation. " Golden words," he says, 
" were those which the moderate Pagan, Themistius, addressed to Jovian on his 
" entrance upon the consular office, with a view to confirm him, in those principles, 
" recognizing man's universal rights and the toleration in matters of religion, 
" connected therewith, which he had expressed immediately after coming to the 
"throne." He then gives an extract, too long for transfer to this page; but 
the following passages may not be omitted : "You alone," said the orator to his 
sovereign, "seem to be aware, that the monarch cannot force everything from 
" his subjects ; that there are things which are superior to all constraint, threat- 
" enings, and law, — whoever employs force here, takes away the freedom which 
" God bestowed on every man. The laws of a Cheops and Cambyses hardly 
" lasted as long as their authors' lives. But the law of God and your law — 
" remain forever unchangeable— the law, that every man's soul is free in reference 
" to its own peculiar mode of worship. This law, no pillage of goods, no death 
" on the cross or at the stake, has ever been able to extinguish. You may indeed 
" force and kill the body ; but though the tongue may be silenced, the soul will rise 
" and carry along with it its own free will, free from the constraint of authority." 
Such words, from a Pagan, and in such an age, ought to make many a Christian 
blush, both sovereign, priest, and sectarian.— Eng. Ch. 

Religious toleration was in harmony with the genius of Paganism, and Pagan 
philosophers invariably advocated religious freedom. " The tolerating spirit of 
" idolaters, both in ancient and modern times," says Hume, "is very obvious to 
" any one, who is the least conversant in the writings of historians or travelers. 
" When the oracle of Delphi was asked, what rites of worship were most accept- 
" able to the gods? Those which are legally established in each city, replied 
" the oracle. Even priests, in those ages, could, it seems, allow salvation to 
" those of a different communion." Hume's Essays, vol. ii. p. 417. — E. 

t This infamous inquisition into sorcery and witchcraft has been of greater 
influence on human affairs than is commonly supposed. The persecution against 
philosophers and their libraries was carried on with so much fury, that from this 
time, (A. D. 374), the names of the Gentile philosophers became' almost extinct ; 
and the Christian philosophy and religion, particularly in the East, established 
their ascendancy. I am surprised that Gibbon has not made this observation. 
Heyne, Note on Zosimus, 1. iv. 14, p. 637. Besides vast heaps of manuscripts 
publicly destroyed throughout the East, men of letters burned their whole libra- 
ries, lest some fatal volume should expose them to the malice of the informers 
and the extreme penalty of the law. Amm. Marc. xxix. 11. — Milman. 

The Christian doctrine of " casting out devils," the belief that devils frequently 
inhabited the human body, that certain persons " were possessed with devils," 
that regular commercial intercourse was maintained between mortals and devils, 
and that the former easily outwitted the latter by bartering their immortal but 
unmerchantable souls for fabulous sums of silver and gold, prepared true 
believers to credit the wildest tales of witchcraft and magic. In the above note, 
Dean Milman has indicated the sacred origin of this degrading belief, and shown 
that this execrable fanaticism — born of credulity and ignorance — was used 
by the elect in the warfare of Christianity against the Pagan religion. Philoso- 
phers were forced to conceal their knowledge and burn their libraries, to escape 



486 BELIEF IN MAGIC. 

indulge a liberal pride, that, in the present age, the enlight- 
ened part of Europe has abolished 12 a cruel and odious 
prejudice, which reigned in every climate of the globe, and 
adhered to every system of religious opinions. 13 The na- 
tions, and the sects, of the Roman world, admitted with 
equal credulity and similar abhorrence, the reality of that 
infernal art, 14 which was able to control the eternal order of 
the planets, and the voluntary operations of the human 
mind. They dreaded the mysterious power of spells and 
incantations, of potent herbs, and execrable rites ; which 
could extinguish or recall life, inflame the passions of the 
soul, blast the works of creation, and extort from the reluc- 
tant daemons the secrets of futurity. They believed, with 
the wildest inconsistency, that this preternatural dominion 
of the air, of earth, and of hell, was exercised, from the vilest 
motives of malice or gain, by some wrinkled hags and itine- 
rant sorcerers, who passed their obscure lives in penury and 
contempt. 15 The arts of magic were equally condemned by 
the public opinion, and by the laws of Rome ; but as they 
tended to gratify the most imperious passions of the heart 
of man, 16 they were continually proscribed, and continually 

12 The French and English lawyers of the present age, allow the theory, and 
deny the practice, of witchcraft, (Denisart, Recueil de Decisions de Jurisprudence, 
au mot Sorciers, torn. iv. p. 553. Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 60). As 
private reason always prevents, or outstrips, public wisdom, the president 
Montesquieu, (Esprit des Loix, I. xii. c. 5, 6), rejects the existence of magic. 

'3 See CEuvres de Bayle. torn. iii. pp. 567-589. The skeptic of Rotterdam exhibits 
according to his custom, a strange medley of loose knowledge and lively wit. 

U The Pagans distinguished between good and bad magic, the Theurgic and 
the Goetic, {Hist, de V Academie, &c, torn. vii. p. 25). But they could not have 
defended this obscure distinction against the acute logic of Bayle. In the Jewish 
and Christian system, all daemons are infernal spirits; and all commerce with 
them is idolatry, apostasy, &c, which deserves death and damnation. 

15 The Canidia of Horace, (Carm. 1. v. Od. 5, with Dacier's and Sanadon's 
illustrations), is a vulgar witch. The Erictho of Lucan, (Pharsal. vi. 430-830), is 
tedious, disgusting, but sometimes sublime. She chides the delay of the Furies, 
and threatens, with tremendous obscurity, to pronounce their real names ; to 
reveal the true infernal countenance of Hecate; to invoke the secret powers that 
lie below hell, &c. 

is Genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus fallax, quod in civitate 
nostra et vetabitur semper et retinebitur. Tacit. Hist. i. 22. See Aug. de Civitate 
Dei, 1. viii. c. 19, and the Theodosian Code, 1. ix. tit. xvi., with Godefroy's Com. 



the ridiculous but fatal charge of witchcraft. The standard-bearer of Pagan phi- 
losophy, as represented by the eloquent and virtuous daughter of Theon — the 
beautiful Hypatia — was torn from her carriage in the streets of Alexandria and 
murdered by Christian monks and zealots. Religion has systematically opposed 
the progress of knowledge, and has not hesitated to employ the dungeon, the 
rack, the gibbet, and the stake, in her holy crusade. Astronomy, geology, chem- 
istry, and, indeed, all the sciences, have each in turn been forced to run the 
gauntlet of Christian bigotry. The first printers were believed to be in league 
with the prince of darkness, and Faust and Guttenberg were fortunate in escaping 
the fury of pious but misguided bigots. The modern history of the Salem witch- 
craft shows that the lapse of eighteen centuries has not dissipated this medieval ig- 
norance, and that the spirit of fanaticism and superstition, born in ancient Rome, 
still enthrals the minds of the credulous, and contaminates the air of freedom— E. 



LAWS AGAINST MAGIC. 487 

practiced. An imaginary cause is capable of producing 
the most serious and mischievous effects. The dark pre- 
dictions of the death of an emperor, or the success of a 
conspiracy, were calculated only to stimulate the hopes of 
ambition, and to dissolve the ties of fidelity ; and the inten- 
tional guilt of magic was aggravated by the actual crimes 
of treason and sacrilege. 17 Such vain terrors disturbed the 
peace of society, and the happiness of individuals ; and the 
harmless flame which insensibly melted a waxed image, 
might derive a powerful and pernicious energy from the 
affrighted fancy of the person whom it was maliciously 
designed to represent. 18 From the infusion of those herbs, 
which were supposed to possess a supernatural influence, it 
was an easy step to the use of more substantial poison ; and 
the folly of mankind sometimes became the instrument, and 
the mask, of the most atrocious crimes. As soon as the 
zeal of informers was encouraged by the ministers of Valens 
and Valentinian, they could not refuse to listen to another 
charge, too frequently mingled in the scenes of domestic 
guilt ; a charge of a softer and less malignant nature, for 
which the pious, though excessive, rigor of Constantine had 
recently decreed the punishment of death. 19 This deadly 
and incoherent mixture of treason and magic, of poison and 
adultery afforded infinite gradations of guilt and innocence, 
of excuse and aggravation, which in these proceedings appear 
to have been confounded by the angry or corrupt passions 
of the judges. They easily discovered, that the degree of 
their industry and discernment was estimated, by the im- 
perial court, according to the number of executions that 
were furnished from their respective tribunals. It was not 
without extreme reluctance that they pronounced a sentence 
of acquittal ; but they eagerly admitted such evidence as 
was stained with perjury, or procured by torture, to prove 

it The persecution of Antioch was occasioned by a criminal consultation. The 
twenty-four letters of the alphabet were ranged round a magic tripod ; and a 
dancing ring, which had been placed in the centre, pointed to the first four letters 
in the name of the future emperor, 0. E. O. A. Theodorus, (perhaps with many 
others, who owned the fatal syllables), was executed. Theodosius succeeded. 
Lardner, {Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. pp. 353-372), has copiously and fairly 
examined this dark transaction of the reign of Valens. 
is Limus ut hie durescit et haec ut cera liquescit 

Uno eodemque igni 

Virgil. Bucolic, viii. 80. 
Devovet absentes, simulacraque cerea figit. 

Ovid, in Epist. Hypsil. ad Jason. 91. 
Such vain incantations could affect the mind, and increase the disease, of Ger- 
manicus. Tacit. Annul, ii. 69. 

is See Heineccius, Antiquitat. Juris Roman, torn. ii. p. 353, &c. Cod. TTieodosian, 
1. ix. tit. 7, with Godefroy's Commentary. 



4S8 CRUELTY OF VALENTINIAN AND VALENS. 

the most improbable charges against the most respectable 
characters. The progress of the inquiry continually opened 
new subjects of criminal prosecution; the audacious informer, 
whose falsehood was detected, retired with impunity ; but 
the wretched victim, who discovered his real or pretended 
accomplices, was seldom permitted to receive the price of his 
infamy. From the extremity of Italy and Asia, the young, 
and the aged, were dragged in chains to the tribunals of 
Rome and Antioch. Senators, matrons, and philosophers, 
expired in ignominious and cruel tortures. The soldiers, 
who were appointed to guard the prisons, declared, with a 
murmur of pity and indignation, that their numbers were 
insufficient to oppose the flight, or resistance, of the multi- 
tude of captives. The wealthiest families were ruined by 
fines^and confiscations ; the most innocent citizens trembled 
for their safety ; and we may form some notion of the mag- 
nitude of the evil, from the extravagant assertion of an 
ancient writer, that, in the obnoxious provinces, the pris- 
oners, the exiles, and the fugitives, formed the greatest part 
of the inhabitants. 20 

( When Tacitus describes the deaths of the 
Vaientinian innocent and illustrious Romans, who were 
A. U D.^6i-375. sacrificed to the cruelty of the first Caesars, 
the art of the historian, or the merit of the suf- 
ferers, excites in our breasts most lively sensations of terror, 
of admiration, and of pity. The coarse and undistinguishing 
pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with 
tedious and disgusting acccuracy. But as our attention is 

20 The cruel persecution of Rome and Antioch is described, and most probably 
exaggerated, by Ammianus, (xxvii. i, xxix. i, 2), and Zosimus, (I. iv\ pp. 216-218). 
The philosopher Maximus, with some justice, was involved in the charge of 
magic, lEunapius in Vit. Sophist, pp. 83, 89): and young Chrysostom, who had 
accidentally found one of the proscribed books, gave himself up for lost ( Tille- 
mont, Hist, des Empereurs, torn. v. p. 340).* 

* These proceedings were an indirect persecution of Paganism, and certainly 
hastened its final extinction. The Neo-Platonic extravagances had made the 
popular belief in magic subservient to the purposes of the ancient superstition; 
and had thus given rise to abuses which demanded the magistrate's correcting 
hand. But while repressing those excesses, the emperors involved in one common 
ruin with them, the philosophical influence to which, during Julian's short reign, 
the vigor of reanimated hope had been imparted, and which might still trouble 
the tranquillity of the throne. Its books were destroyed, and its professors pro- 
scribed. Aimed ostensibly only at these miserable delusions, the blow had a wider 
range, and fell with indiscriminating force on more legitimate studies. Philosophy, 
from that time, declined more rapidly ; and even when its choicest Eclecticism 
found almost a last refuge in the lovely form and sheltering mind of Hypatia, the 
sanctuary was destroyed by the violence of hierarchial malice. — Eng. Ch. 

The Church, founded upon a rock, gradually extinguished the light of reason 
and philosophy, and the nations groveled in an abyss of ignorance and faith. 
After centuries of gloom, fitly named the " dark ages," the power of Catholicism 
was opposed by the earnest struggles of Protestantism, and reason again ven- 
tured to question the credibility of creeds and dogmas. — E. 



EXECUTIONS AT ROME AND ANTIOCH. 489 

no longer engaged by the contrast of freedom and servitude, 
of recent greatness and of actual misery, we should turn 
with horror from the frequent executions, which disgraced, 
both at Rome and Antioch, the reign of the two brothers, 21 
Valens was of a timid, 22 and Valentinian of a choleric, dis- 
position. 23 An anxious regard to his personal safety was 
the ruling principle of the administration of Valens. In the 
condition of a subject, he had kissed, with trembling awe, 
the hand of the oppressor ; and when he ascended the 
throne, he reasonably expected, that the same fears, which 
had subdued his own mind, would secure the patient sub- 
mission of his people. The favorites of Valens obtained, 
by the privilege of rapine and confiscation, the wealth 
which his economy would have refused. 21 They urged, 
with persuasive eloquence, that, in all cases of treason, 
suspicion is equivalent to proof; that the power, supposes 
the intention, of mischief; that the intention is not less 
criminal than the act ; and that a subject no longer deserves 
to live, if his life may threaten the safety, or disturb the 
repose, of his sovereign. The judgment of Valentinian was 
sometimes deceived, and his confidence abused ; but he 
would have silenced the informers with a contemptuous 
smile, had they presumed to alarm his fortitude by the 
sound of danger. They praised his inflexible love of justice ; 
and, in the pursuit of justice, the emperor was easily tempted 
to consider clemency as a weakness, and passion as a virtue. 
As long as he wrestled with his equals, in the bold compe- 
tition of an active and ambitious life, Valentinian was seldom 
injured, and never insulted, with impunity : if his prudence 
was arraigned, his spirit was applauded ; and the proudest 
and most powerful generals were apprehensive of provok- 
ing the resentment of a fearless soldier. After he became 
master of the world, he unfortunately forgot, that where no 
resistance can be made, no courage can be exerted ; and 
instead of consulting the dictates of reason and magna- 

21 Consult the last six books of Ammianus, and more particularly the portraits 
of the two royal brothers, (xxx. 8, 9, xxxi. 14). Tillemont has collected, (torn. v. 
pp. 12-18, pp. 127-133), from all antiquity their virtues and vices. 

22 The younger Victor asserts that he was valde timidus : yet he behaved, as 
almost every man would do, with decent resolution at the head of an army. The 
same historian attempts to prove that his anger was harmless. Ammianus 
observes, with more candor and judgment, incidentia crimina ad contemptam 
vel laesam principis amplitudinem trahens, in sanguinem saeviebat. 

23 Cum esset ad acerbitatem naturae calore propensior * * * pcenas per ignes 
augebat et gladios. Ammian. xxx. 8. See xxvii. 7. 

2i I have transferred the reproach of avarice from Valens to his servants. 
Avarice more properly belongs'to ministers than to kings ; in whom that passion 
is commonly extinguished by absolute possession. 



490 BRUTALITY OF VALENTINIAN. 

nimity, he indulged the furious emotions of his temper, at a 
time when they were disgraceful to himself, and fatal to the 
defenceless objects of his displeasure. In the government 
of his household, or of his empire, slight, or even imaginary, 
offences — a hasty word, a casual omission, an involuntary 
delay — were chastised by a sentence of immediate death. 
The expressions which issued the most readily from the 
mouth of the emperor of the west were, " Strike off his 
" head ; " " Burn him alive ; " " Let him be beaten with 
" clubs till he expires ; " 25 and his most favored ministers 
soon understood, that, by a rash attempt to dispute, or 
suspend, the execution of his sanguinary commands, they 
might involve themselves in the guilt and punishment of 
disobedience. The repeated gratification of this savage 
justice hardened the mind of Valentinian against pity and 
remorse ; and the sallies of passion were confirmed by the 
habits of cruelty. 26 He could behold with calm satisfaction 
the convulsive agonies of torture and death ; he reserved 
his friendship for those faithful servants whose temper was 
the most congenial to his own. The merit of Maximin, 
who had slaughtered the noblest families of Rome, was 
rewarded with the royal approbation, and the prefecture of 
Gaul. Two fierce and enormous bears, distinguished by 
the appellations of Innocence and Mica Aurea, could alone 
deserve to share the favor of Maximin. The cages of those 
trusty guards were always placed near the bed-chamber of 
Valentinian, who frequently amused his eyes with the grate- 
ful spectacle of seeing them tear and devour the bleeding 
limbs of the malefactors who were abandoned to their rage.f 

25He sometimes expressed a sentence of death in a tone of pleasantry, "Abi, Comes, 
" et muta ei caput, qui sibi mutari provinciam cupit." A boy, who had slipped 
too hastily a Spartan hound; an armorer, who had made a polished cuirass that 
wanted some grains of the legitimate weight, &c, were the victims of his fury. 

26 The innocents of Milan were an agent and three apparitors, whom Valen- 
tinian condemned for signifying a legal summons. Ammianus, (xxvii. 7), strangely 
supposes, that all who had been unjustly executed were worshiped as martyrs by 
the Christians. His impartial silence does not allow us to believe, that the great 
chamberlain Rhodanus was burnt alive for an act of oppression, Chro. Pas. p.302.* 

* Ammianus does not say that they were worshiped as martyrs. Quorum 
memoriam apud Mediolanum colentes nunc usque Christiani, loculos ubi sepulti 
sunt, adinnocentes appellant. Wagner's note in loco. Yet if the next paragraph 
refers to that transaction, which is not quite clear, Gibbon is right. — Milman. 

-r Compare the cruel amusements of the Christian Valentinian, with the virtue 
and humanity of the Pagan Julian. By publicly expressing, during the preceding 
reign, his contempt for Paganism, the master of Innocence won the applause 
of Christians. By practicing justice and morality, the Pagan emperor has won 
the gratitude of posterity. " Laying aside for a moment revealed truths," says 
the Christian Montesquieu, (Spirit of Laws, book xxiv, chap, x, vol. ii, p. 147), 
" let us search through all nature, and we shall not find a nobler object than the 
" Antoninus's: even Julian himself, Julian, (a commendation thus wrested from 
" me will not render me an accomplice of his apostasy , no, there has not been a 
" prince since his reign more worthy to govern mankind." — E. 



RELIGIOUS TOLERATION. 49 1 

Their diet and exercises were carefully inspected by the Ro- 
man emperor, and when Innocence had earned her discharge 
by a long course of meritorious service, the faithful animal 
was again restored to the freedom of her native woods. 27 

The most honorable circumstance of the char- Vaientinian 
acter of Vaientinian, is the firm and temperate m3 reii|iou S the 
impartiality which he uniformly preserved in an A to ^ ) era 6 ti ° n - 
age of religious contention. His strong sense, * ' 3 4 3 J 5 ' 
unenlightened, but uncorrupted, by study, declined, with 
respectful indifference, the subtle questions of theological 
debate. The government of the earth claimed his vigilance, 
and satisfied his ambition ; and while he remembered that 
he was the disciple of the church, he never forgot that he 
was the sovereign of the clergy. Under the reign of an 
apostate, he had signalized his zeal for the honor of Chris- 
tianity ; he allowed to his subjects the privilege which he 
had assumed for himself; and they might accept, with 
gratitude and confidence, the general toleration which was 
granted by a prince, addicted to passion, but incapable of 
fear or of disguise. 28 The Pagans, the Jews, and all the 
various sects which acknowledged the divine authority of 
Christ, were protected by the laws from arbitrary power or 
popular insult ; nor was any mode of worship prohibited 
by Vaientinian, except those secret and criminal practices, 
which abused the name of religion for the dark purposes of 
vice and disorder. The art of magic, as it was more cruelly 
punished, was more strictly proscribed ; but the emperor 
admitted a formal distinction to protect the ancient methods 
of divination, which were approved by the senate, and ex- 
ercised by the Tuscan haruspices. He had condemned, 
with the consent of the most rational Pagans, the license 
of nocturnal sacrifices ; but he immediately admitted the 
petition of Prsetextatus, proconsul of Achaia, who repre- 
sented, that the life of the Greeks would become dreary 
and comfortless, if they were deprived of the invaluable 
blessing of the Eleusinian mysteries. Philosophy alone can 

27 Ut bene meritam in sylvas jussit abire Innoxiam. Ammian. xxix. 3, and 

Valerius ad locum. 

23 Testes sunt leges a me in exordio imperii mei data? ; quibus unicuique quod 
snimo imbibisset colendi libera facultas tributa est. Cod. Theodos. 1. ix. tit. xvi. 
leg. 9. To this declaration of Vaientinian, we may add the various testimonies 
of Ammianus, (xxxix. 9), Zosimus, (1. iv. p. 204), and Sozomen, (1. vi. c. 7, 21). 
Baronius would naturally blame such rational toleration, {Annal. Eccles. A. D. 370. 
Nos. 129-132, A. D. 376, Nos. 3, 4).* 

*Comme il s'etait prescrit pour regie de ne point se meler de disputes de 
religion, son histoire est presque entit-rement degagee des affaires ecclesias- 
tiques. Le Beaic, iii. 214.— Milman. 



492 VALENS PROFESSES ARIANISM. 

boast (and perhaps it is no more than the boast of philoso- 
phy), that her gentle hand is able to eradicate from the hu- 
man mind the latent and deadly principle of fanaticism. But 
this truce of twelve years, which was enforced by the wise 
and vigorous government of Valentinian, by suspending the 
repetition of mutual injuries, contributed to soften the man- 
ners, and abate the prejudices, of the religious factions. 
,. , The friend of toleration was unfortunately 

Valens pro- r t r 

fesses Arian- placed at a distance irom the scene of the fiercest 
'scciues the" controversies. As soon as the Christians of the 
Catholics. West had extricated themselves from the snares 
• 3 7-37 • Q £ t ^ e creec i f Riming they happily relapsed 
into the slumber of orthodoxy ; and the small remains of 
the Arian party that still subsisted at Sirmium or Milan, 
might be considered rather as objects of contempt than of 
resentment. But in the provinces of the East, from the 
Euxine to the extremity of Thebais, the strength and num- 
bers of the hostile factions were more equally balanced ; 
and this equality, instead of recommending the councils of 
peace, served only to perpetuate the horrors of religious 
war. The monks and bishops supported their arguments 
by invectives ; and their invectives were sometimes followed 
by blows. Athanasius still reigned at Alexandria ; the 
thrones of Constantinople and Antioch were occupied by 
Arian prelates, and every episcopal vacancy was the occa- 
sion of a popular tumult. The Homoousians were fortified 
by the reconciliation of fifty-nine Macedonian, or Semi- 
Arian, bishops ; but their secret reluctance to embrace the 
divinity of the Holy Ghost, clouded the splendor of the 
triumph ; and the declaration of Valens, who, in the first 
years of his reign, had imitated the impartial conduct of his 
brother, was an important victory on the side of Arianism. 
The two brothers had passed their private life in the con- 
dition of catechumens ; but the piety of Valens prompted 
him to solicit the sacrement of baptism, before he exposed 
his person to the dangers of a Gothic war. He naturally 
addressed himself to Eudoxus, 29 f bishop of the imperial city, 

29 Eudoxus was of a mild and timid disposition. When he baptized Valens 
(A. D. 367), he must have been extremely old ; since he had studied theology 
fifty-five years before, under Lucian, a learned and pious martyr. Pkilostorg. 
1. ii. c. 14-16, 1. iv. c. 4, with Godefroy, pp. 82, 206, and Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. 
torn. v. pp. 474-480, &c* 

* Eudoxus was bishop of Germanica, A. D. 341 ; of Antioch. 358; and translated 
to Constantinople, 360. He was a diligent attendant on all the Arian synods. 
Clin. F. R. ii.,550, 559.— Eng. Ch. 

f Through the influence of his wife, say the ecclesiastical writers. — Milman. 



THE CATHOLICS PESECUTED. 493 

and if the ignorant monarch was instructed by that Arian 
pastor in the principles of heterodox theology, his misfor- 
tune, rather than his guilt, was the inevitable consequence 
of his erroneous choice. Whatever had been the determin- 
ation of the emperor, he must have offended a numerous 
party of his Christian subjects; as the leaders both of the 
Homoousians and of the Arians believed, that, if they were 
not suffered to reign, they were most cruelly injured and 
oppressed. After he had taken this decisive step, it was 
extremely difficult for him to preserve either the virtue, or 
the reputation, of impartiality. He never aspired, like Con- 
stantius, to the fame of a profound theologian ; but, as he 
had received with simplicity and respect the tenets of 
Eudoxus, Valens resigned his conscience to the direction 
of his ecclesiastical guides, and promoted, by the influence 
of his authority, the reunion of the Athanasian heretics to 
the body of the Catholic church. At first he pitied their 
blindness ; by degrees he was provoked at their obstinacy ; 
and he insensibly hated those sectaries to whom he was an 
object of hatred. 30 The feeble mind of Valens was always 
swayed by the persons with whom he familiarly conversed ; 
and the exile or imprisonment of a private citizen are the 
favors the most readily granted in a despotic court. Such 
punishments were frequently inflicted on the leaders of the 
Homoousian party; and the misfortune of fourscore ecclesi- 
astics of Constantinople, who, perhaps, accidentally, were 
burnt on shipboard, was imputed to the cruel and premedi- 
tated malice of the emperor, and his Arian ministers. In 
every contest the Catholics (if we may anticipate that name) 
were obliged to pay the penalty of their own faults, and of 
those of their adversaries. In every election the claims of 
the Arian candidate obtained the preference ; and if they 
were opposed by the majority of the people, he was usually 
supported by the authority of the civil magistrate, or even 
by the terrors of a military force. The enemies of Atha- 
nasius attempted to disturb the last years of his venerable 
age; and his temporary retreat to his father's sepulchre 
has been celebrated as a fifth exile. But the zeal of a great 
people, who instantly flew to arms, intimidated the prefect; 
and the archbishop was permitted to end his life in peace 
and in glory, after a reign of forty-seven years. The death 

30 Gregory Nazianzen, (Orat. xxv. p. 432), insults the persecuting spirit of the 
Arians, as an infallible symptom of error a-nd heresy. 



494 DEATH OF ATHANASIUS. 

of Athanasius was the signal of the persecution 

Aufanas?us. of Egypt; and the Pagan minister of Valens, 

A m?v 2d 3 ' w ^° lorc ibly seated the worthless Lucius on 

the archiepiscopal throne, purchased the favor 
of the reigning party by the blood and sufferings of their 
Christian brethren. The free toleration of the heathen and 
Jewish worship was bitterly lamented, as a circumstance 
which aggravated the misery of the Catholics, and the guilt 
of the impious tyrant of the East. 31 

just idea of The triumph of the orthodox party has left a 

his deep stain of persecution on the memory of 

persecution. Valens . anc { t j ie character of a prince who de- 
rived his virtues, as well as his vices, from a feeble under- 
standing arrd a pusillanimous temper, scarcely deserves the 
labor of an apology. Yet candor may discover some 
reasons to suspect that the ecclesiastical ministers of Valens 
often exceeded the orders, or even the intentions, of their 
master; and that the real measure of facts has been very 
liberally magnified by the vehement declamation and easy 
credulity of his antagonists." I. The silence of Valen- 
tinian may suggest a probable argument, that the partial 
severities which were exercised in the name and provinces 
of his colleague, amounted only to some obscure and incon- 
siderable deviations from the established system of religious 
toleration; and the judicious historian, who has praised 
the equal temper of the elder brother, has not thought 
himself obliged to contrast the tranquillity of the west with 
the cruel persecution of the east. 33 2. Whatever credit 
maybe allowed to vague and distant reports, the character, 
or at least the behavior, of Valens may be most distinctly 
seen in his personal transactions with the eloquent Basil, 
archbishop of Caesarea, who had succeeded Athanasius in 
the management of the Trinitarian cause. 34 The circum- 

31 This sketch of the ecclesiastical government of Valens is drawn from Socrates, 
(1. iv.), Sozomen, (1. vi.), Theodoret, (1. iv.), and the immense compilations of 
Tillemont, (particularly torn. vi. viii. and ix.). 

32 Dr. Jortin, {Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 78), has already 
conceived and intimated the same suspicion. 

33 This reflection is so obvious and forcible, that Orosins, (1. vii. c. 32,33), delays 
the persecution till after the death of Valentinian. Socrates, on the other hand, 
supposes (1. iii. c 32), that it was appeased by a philosophical oration, which 
Themistius pronounced in the year 374, (Oral. xii. p. 154, in Latin only). Such 
contradictions diminish the evidence, and reduce the term, of the persecution of 
Valens. 

3i Tillemont, whom I folllow and abridge, has extracted, {Man. Eccles. torn, 
viii. pp. 153-167), the most authentic circumstances from the Panegyrics of the 
two Gregories ; the brother, and the friend of Basil. The letters of Ba?il himself, 
(Dupin, Bibliothique Ecclesiastiqne, torn. ii. pp. 155-1S0J, do not present the image 
ul a very lively persecution. 



CONSCRIPTION OF THE NITRIAN MONKS. 



495 



stantial narrative has been composed by the friends and 
admirers of Basil ; and as soon as we have stripped away a 
thick coat of rhetoric and miracle, we shall be astonished 
by the unexpected mildness of the Arian tyrant, who 
admired the firmness of his character, and was appre- 
hensive, if he employed violence, of a general revolt in the 
province of Cappadocia. The archbishop, who asserted, 
with inflexible pride, 35 the truth of his opinions and the 
dignity of his rank, was left in the free possession of his 
conscience and his throne. The emperor devoutly assisted 
at the solemn service of the cathedral ; and, instead of a 
sentence of banishment, subscribed the donation of a valu- 
able estate for the use of a hospital, which Basil had lately 
founded in the neighborhood of Csesarea. 36 3. I am not 
able to discover, that any law (such as Theodosius after- 
wards enacted against the Arians) was published by Valens 
against the Athanasian sectaries ; and the edict which 
excited the most violent clamors, may not appear so ex- 
tremely reprehensible. The emperor had observed, that 
several of his subjects, gratifying their lazy -disposition 
under the pretence of religion, had associated themselves 
with the monks of Egypt ; and he directed the count of 
the east to drag them from their solitude ; and to compel 
those deserters of society to accept the fair alternative, of 
renouncing their temporal possessions, or of discharging 
the public duties of men and citizens. 37 The ministers of 
Valens seem to have extended the sense of this penal 
statute, since they claimed a right of enlisting the young 
and able-bodied monks in the imperial armies. A detach- 
ment of cavalry and infantry, consisting of three thousand 
men, marched from Alexandria into the adjacent desert of 
Nitria, 38 which was peopled by five thousand monks. 39 The 

SoBasilius Caesariensis episcopus Cappadociae clarus habetur * * * qui multa 
continentise et ingenii bona uno superbise malo perdidit. Tins irreverent passage 
is perfectly in the style and character of St. Jerom. It does not appear in 
Scaliger's edition of his Chronicle • but Isaac Vossius found it in some old MSS. 
which had not been reformed by the monks. 

36 This noble and charitable foundation, (almost a new city), surpassed in merit, 
if not in greatness, the pyramids, or the walls of Babylon. It was principally 
intended for the reception of lepers, (Greg. Nazianzen, 'Orat. xx. p. 439). 

37 Cod. Theodos. 1. xii. tit. i. leg. 63. Godefroy, (torn. iv. pp. 409-413), performs 
the duty of a commentator and advocate. Tiflemont, {Mem. Eccles. torn. viii. 
p. 808), supposes a second law to excuse his orthodox friends, who had misrepre- 
sented the edict of Valens, and suppressed the liberty of choice. 

ss See D'Anville, Description de V Egypt e, p. 74. Hereafter, I shall consider 
the monastic institutions. 

39 Socrates, 1. iv. c. 24, 25. Orosius, 1. vii. c. 33. Jerom in Chron. p. 1S9, and 
torn. ii. p. 212. The monks of Egypt performed many miracles, which prove the 
truth of their faith. Right, says Jortin, {Remarks, vol. iv. p. 79), but what proves 
the truth of those miracles? 



496 AVARICE OF THE CLERGY. 

soldiers were conducted by Arian priests ; and it is reported, 
that a considerable slaughter was made in the monasteries 
which disobeyed the commands of their sovereign. 

The strict regulations which have been framed 

^rahis'the ^y the wisdom of modern legislators to restrain 
avarice of the the wealth and avarice of the clergy, may be 

A d D. g j7o. originally deduced from the example of the em- 
peror Valentinian. His edict, 40 addressed to 
Damasus, bishop of Rome, was publicly read in the churches 
of the city. He admonished the ecclesiastics and monks 
not to frequent the houses of widows and virgins; and 
menaced their disobedience with the animadversion of the 
civil judge. The director was no longer permitted to re- 
ceive any gift, or legacy, or inheritance, from the liberality 
of his spiritual daughter: every testament contrary to this 
edict was declared null and void ; and the illegal donation 
was confiscated for the use of the treasury. By a subse- 
quent regulation, it should seem, that the same provisions 
were extended to nuns and bishops ; and that all persons of 
the ecclesiastical order were rendered incapable of receiving 
any testamentary gifts, and strictly confined to the natural 
and legal rights of inheritance. As the guardian of domestic 
happiness and virtue, Valentinian applied this severe remedy 
to the growing evil. In the capital of the empire, the 
females of noble and opulent houses possessed a very ample 
share of independent property: and many of those devout 
females had embraced the doctrines of Christianity, not 
only with the cold assent of the understanding, but with 
the warmth of affection, and perhaps with the eagerness of 
fashion. They sacrificed the pleasures of dress and luxury; 
and renounced for the praise of chastity, the soft endear- 
ments of conjugal society. f Some ecclesiastic, of real or 

40 Cod. Ttieodos. I. xvi. tit. ii. leg. 20. Godefroy, (torn. vi. p. 49), after the 
example of Baronius, impartially collects all that the fathers have said 011 the 
subject of this important law j whose spirit was long afterwards revived by the 
emperor Frederic II., Edward I. of England, and other Christian princes who 
reigned after the twelfth century.* 

* When readers will search for truth, and not merely to support preconceived 
opinion, they will discern, that from the second to the sixteenth century, almost 
the whole sum of history is made up of efforts to amass, to share, to engross, to 
despoil, or to defend the wealth of the church, or of struggles consequent 
thereon.— Eng. Ch. 

The reader will observe that this grave charge, and significant admission, is 
made by a Protestant clergyman. Had the reverend gentleman asserted that the 
struggle for church aggrandizement is continued to the present day, he would 
not have greatly erred, for the avarice of the clergy is still insatiable. — E. 

t <; To enrich God," says Feuerbach, (Essence of Religion, p. 25), " man must 
" become poor : that God may be all, man must be nothing. But he desires to be 
" nothing in himself, because what he takes from himself is not lost to him, since 



LUXURY OF THE MONKS AT ROME. 497 

apparent sanctity, was chosen to direct their timorous con- 
science, and to amuse the vacant tenderness of their heart; 
and the unbounded confidence, which they hastily bestowed, 
was often abused by knaves and enthusiasts ; who hastened 
from the extremities of the east, to enjoy, on a splendid 
theatre, the privileges of the monastic profession. By their 
contempt of the world, they insensibly acquired its most 
desirable advantages; the lively attachment, perhaps, of a 
young and beautiful woman, the delicate plenty of an opulent 
household, and the respectful homage of the slaves, the 
freedmen, and the clients of a senatorial family. The im- 
mense fortunes of the Roman ladies were gradually con- 
sumed in lavish alms and expensive pilgrimages; and the 
artful monk, who had assigned himself the first, or possibly 

' it is preserved in God. Man has his being in God ; why then should he have 
' it in himself? Where is the necessity of positing- the same thing twice, of having 
' it twice? What man withdraws from himself, what he renounces in himself, 
' he only enjoys in an incomparably higher and fuller measure in God. 

" The monks made a vow of chastity to God ; they mortified the sexual passion 
' in themselves, but therefore they had in Heaven, in the Virgin Mary, the image 
' of woman — an image of love. They could the more readily dispense with real 
' woman, in proportion as an ideal woman was an object of love to them. The 
' greater the importance they attached to the denial of sensuality, the greater 
' the importance of the Heavenly Virgin for them : she was to them in the place 
' of Christ, in the stead of God. The more the sensual tendencies are renounced, 
' the more sensual is the God to whom they are sacrificed. For whatever is 
made an offering to God has an especial value attached to it ; in it God is sup- 
posed to have especial pleasure. That which is the highest in the estimation 
of man, is naturally the highest in the estimation of his God— what pleases 
man, pleases God also. The Hebrews did not offer to Jehovah unclean, ill- 
conditioned animals; on the contrary, those which they most highly prized, 
which they themselves ate, were also the food of God (ctdus Dei, Levit. iii. 2). 
Wherever, therefore, the denial of the sensual delights is made a special 
offering, a sacrifice well-pleasing to God, there the highest value is attached 
to the senses, and the sensuality which has been renounced is unconsciously 
restored, in the fact that God takes the place of the material delights which 
have been renounced. The nun weds herself to God ; she has a heavenly 
bridegroom, the monk a heavenly bride. But the heavenly virgin is only a 
sensible presentation of a general truth, having relation to the essence of religion. 
Man denies as to himself only what he attributes to God. Religion abstracts 
from man, from the world ; but it can only abstract from the limitations, from 
1 the phenomena, in short, from the negative, not from the essence, the positive 
[ of the world and humanity : hence, in the very abstraction and negation it 
1 must recover that from which it abstracts, or believes itself to abstract. And 
' thus, in reality, whatever religion consciously denies — always supposing that 
' what is denied by it is something essential, true, and consequently incapable 
' of being ultimately denied — it unconsciously restores in God. Thus, in religion 
' man denies his reason ; of himself he knows nothing of God, his thoughts are 
' only worldly, earthly ; he can only believe what God reveals to him. But on 
' this account the thoughts of God are human, earthly thoughts : like man, He 
' has plans in His mind, he accommodates himself to circumstances and grades 
' of intelligence, like a tutor with his pupils ; he calculates closely the effect of 
' his gifts and revelations ; he observes man in all his doings ; he knows all 
' things, even the most earthly, the commonest, the most trivial. In brief, man 
' in relation to God denies his own knowledge, his own thoughts, that he may 
'place them in God. Man gives up his personality- but in return, God, the 
' Almighty, infinite, unlimited being, is a person ; he denies human dignity, the 
' human ego ; but in return God is to him a selfish, egoistical being, who in all 
1 things seeks only Himself, his own honor, his own ends ; he represents God as 
' simply seeking the satisfaction of his own selfishness, while yet He frowns on 
1 that of every other being; his God is the very luxury of egoism." — E. 



498 DAMASUS, BISHOP OF ROME. 

the sole, place in the testament of his spiritual daughter, 
still presumed to declare, with the smooth face of hypocrisy, 
that he was only the instrument of charity, and the steward 
of the poor. The lucrative, but disgraceful, trade, 41 which 
was exercised by the clergy to defraud the expectations of 
the natural heirs, had provoked the indignation of a super- 
stitious age; and two of the most respectable of the Latin 
fathers very honestly confess, that the ignominious edict of 
Valentinian was just and necessary; and that the Christian 
priests had deserved to lose a privilege which was still en- 
joyed by comedians, charioteers, and the ministers of idols. 
But the wisdom and authority of the legislator are seldom 
victorious in a contest with the vigilant dexterity of private 
interest ; and Jerome, or Ambrose, might patiently acquiesce 
in the justice of an ineffectual or salutary law. If the eccle- 
siastics were checked in the pursuit of personal emolument, 
they would exert a more laudable industry to increase the 
wealth of the church; and dignify their covetousness with 
the specious names of piety and patriotism. 42 
Ambition and Damasus, bishop of Rome, who was con- 
luxuryof strained to stigmatize the avarice of his clergy 
bishop U o S f Dv tne publication of the law of Valentinian, had 
d OI 66- 8 good sense, or the good fortune, to engage in 

' 3 3 4 ' his service the zeal and abilities of the learned 
Jerome; and the grateful saint has celebrated the merit and 
purity of a very ambiguous character. 43 But the splendid 
vices of the church of Rome, under the reign of Valentinian 
and Damasus, have been curiously observed by the his- 
torian Ammianus, who delivers his impartial sense in these 
expressive words : — " The prefecture of Juventius was ac- 
companied with peace and plenty; but the tranquillity of 

41 The expressions which I have used are temperate and feeble, if compared 
with the vehement invectives of Jerom, (torn. i. pp. 13, 45, 144, &c.) In his turn, 
he was reproached with the guilt which he imputed to his brother monks ; and 
the Sceleratus, the Versipellis, was publicly accused as the lover of the widow 
Paula, (torn. ii. p. 363). He undoubtedly possessed the affections, both of the 
mother and the daughter; but he declares that he never abused his influence to 
any selfish or sensual purpose.* 

*s Pudet dicere, sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurigae, et scorta, haereditates 
capiunt : solis clericis ac monachis hac lege prohibetur. Et non prohibetur a 
persecutoribus, sed a priucipibus Christianis. Nee de lege queror; sed doleo cur 
merueri?nus hanc legem. Jerom., (torn. i. p. 13), discreetly insinuates the secret 
policy of his patron Damasus. 

« Three words of Jerom, sanctce memories Damasus, (torn. ii. p. 109), wash 
away all his stains, and blind .the devout eyes of Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. torn, 
viii.'pp. 386-424). 

* These monks frequently denounced in public, the vices they practiced in 
private. Each could see and condemn the mote in his brother's eye, but could 
not discern the beam in his own. " Follow my preaching, but do not imitate 
" my practice," should have been inscribed over every pulpit. — E. 



VICES OF THE CHURCH OF ROME. 499 

"his government was soon disturbed by a bloody sedition 
"of the distracted people. The ardor of Damasus and 
" Ursinus, to seize the episcopal seat, surpassed the ordinary 
"measure of human ambition. They contended with the 
"rage of party; the quarrel was maintained by the wounds 
"and death of their followers; and the prefect, unable to 
"resist or to appease the tumult, was constrained, by 
"superior violence, to retire into the suburbs. Damasus 
"prevailed: the well-disputed victory remained on the side 
"of his faction: one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies 44 
" were found in the Basilica of Sicininus, 45 where the Chris- 
" tians hold their religious assemblies ; and it was long 
" before the angry minds of the people resumed their accus- 
" tomed tranquillity. When I consider the splendor of the 
"capital, I am not astonished that so valuable a prize 
"should inflame the desires of ambitious men, and produce 
" the fiercest and most obstinate contests. The successful 
" candidate is secure that he will be enriched by the offer- 
"ings of matrons; 46 that, as soon as his dress is composed 
"with becoming care and elegance, he may proceed in his 
"chariot through the streets of Rome; 47 and that the 
"sumptuousness of the imperial table will not equal the 
"profuse and delicate entertainments provided by the taste, 
"and at the expense, of the Roman pontiffs. How much 
"more rationally," continues the honest Pagan, "would 
"those pontiffs consult their true happiness, if, instead of 
" alleging the greatness of the city as an excuse for their 
" manners, they would imitate the exemplary life of some 
" provincial bishops, whose temperance and sobriety, whose 
"mean apparel and downcast looks, recommend their pure 

44Jerom himself is forced to allow, crudelissimae interfectiones diversi sexus 
perpetratas, (in Chron. p. 180). But an original libel, or petition of two presbyters 
of the adverse party, has unaccountably escaped. They affirm that the doors of 
the Basilica were burnt, and that the roof was untiled ; that Damasus marched at 
the head of his own clergy, grave-diggers, charioteers, and hired gladiators ; that 
none of his party were killed, but that one hundred and sixty dead bodies were 
found. This petition is published by the P. Sirmond, in the first volume of his 
works. 

45 The Basilica of Sicininus, or Liberius, is probably the church of Sancta 
Maria Maggiore, on the Esquiline hill. Baronius, A. D. 367, No. 3; and Donatus, 
Roma Antigua et Nova, 1. iv. c. 3, p. 462.* 

46 The enemies of Damasus styled him Auriscalpius Matronarum, the ladies' 
ear-scratch er. 

-" Gregory Nazianzen, {Oral, xxxii. p. 526), describes the pride and luxury of 
the prelates who re ; gned in the imperial cities ; their gilt car, fiery steeds, 
numerous train, &c. The crowd gave way as to a wild beast. 

* Neander, {Hist. vol. iii. p. 314), says, that the opponent of Damasus was called 
Urs-inus or Urscinus. The scene of this furious onslaught was probably the church, 
in which he officiated and named after him, so that the Basilica Sicinmi may be a 
mistake or abbreviation of Ursinini, — Eng. Ch. 



500 WEALTH OF THE POPES. 

"and modest virtue to the Deity, and his true worship- 
pers.'' 4 ' The schism of Damasus and Ursinus was ex- 
tinguished by the exile of the latter; and the wisdom of the 
prefect Praetextatus 49 restored the tranquillity of the city. 
Praetextatus was a philosophic Pagan, a man of learning, 
of taste, and politeness ; who disguised a reproach in the 
form of a jest, when he assured Damasus, that if he could 
obtain the bishopric of Rome, he himself would immediately 
embrace the Christian religion. 50 This lively picture of the 
wealth and luxury of the popes in the fourth century, be- 
comes the more curious as it represents the intermediate 
degree between the humble poverty of the apostolic fisher- 
man, and the royal state of a temporal prince, whose 
dominions extend from the confines of Naples to the banks 
of the Po. 

48 Ammian. xxvii. 3. Perpetuo Numini, verisque ejus cultoribus. The incom- 
parable pliancy of a polytheist ! * 

49 Ammianus. who makes a fair report of his prefecture, (xxvii. 9), styles him 
praeclarae indolis, gravitatisque, senator, (xxii. 7, and Vales, ad loc). A curious 
inscription, (Gruter MCII. No. 2), records, in two columns, his religious and civil 
honors. In one line, he was pontiff of the Sun, and of Vesta, Augur, Quinde- 
cemvir, Hierophant, &c, &c. In the other, 1. Quaestor candidatus. more 
probably titular. 2. Praetor. 3. Corrector of Tuscany and Umbria. 4. Consular 
ofLusitania. 5. Proconsul of Achaia. 6. Praefect of Rome. 7. Praetorian praefect 
of Italy. 8. Of Illyricum. 9. Consul elect; but he died before the beginning of 
the year 365. See Tillemont. Hist, des Empereiirs, torn. v. pp. 241, 736. 

so Facite'me Romanae urbis episcopum ; et ero protinus Christianus, (¥erom. 
torn. ii. p. 165). It is more than probable, that Damasus would not have pur- 
chased his conversion at such a price.f 



• This passage in Ammianus was referred to in a former note, as exhib- 
iting some of the traits, by which the Christian hierarchy excited Julian's hatred. 
The schism of Damasus and Ursinus was a continuation of that which originated 
in the banishment of Liberius, related by Gibbon before, when he refers to other 
ancient writers, who describe this disgraceful contest for episcopal power. — E. C. 

f " The dissensions of the Christian Churches," says the Rev. James White, in 
his work, The Eighteen Christian Centuries, p. 114, "had added only a fresh 
'" element of weakness to the empire of Rome. There were heretics everywhere, 
" supporting their opinions with bigotry and violence — Arians, Sabellians, Mon- 
'" tanists, and fifty names besides. Torn by these parties, dishonored by pretended 
'" conversions, the result of flattery and ambition, the Christian Church was 
'" further weakened by the effect of wealth and luxury upon its chiefs. While 
" contending with rival sects upon some point of discipline or doctrine, they 
•' made themselves so notorious for the desire of riches, and the infamous art's 
" they practiced to get themselves appointed heirs of the rich members of 
" their congregations, that a law was passed making a conveyance in favor of a 
" priest invalid. And it is not from Pagan enemies or heretical rivals we learn 
" this— it is from the letters still extant of the most honored Fathers of the 
" Church. One of them tells us that the Prefect Pretextatus, alluding to the 
" luxury of the Pontiffs, and to the magnificence of their apparel, said to Pope 
" Damasus, ' Make me Bishop of Rome, and I will turn Christian.' ' Far, then,' 
" says a Roman Catholic historian of our own day, ' from strengthening the 
" ' Roman world with its virtues, the Christian society seemed to have adopted 
" ' the vices it was its office to overcome.' " — E. 




SATURN, RHEA, AND THE GOLDEN AGE. 

In Grecian mythology Saturn or Cronos was regarded as the symbol of time — 
the all-destroying power that spares not its own creations — and therefore it was 
said that he devoured even his own offspring. From this fate Jupiter, Juno and 
others were preserved by the artifice of their mother Rhea, who deceived Saturn 
by giving him a stone placed in swaddling-clothes instead of her new-born child. 
After his dethronement by Jupiter, Saturn went to Italy, then called Latium, — 
" The name Saturnia thence this land did bear, 
" And Latium too, because he sheltered here." — Ovid. 
Assisted by king Janus, Saturn civilized the Latini.or Latin race, taught the 
liberal and useful arts, and established the golden age of justice and equality. 
" The men dispers'd on hills to town he brought, 
" The laws ordain'd and civil customs taught. 
" With his wild empire, peace and plenty came, 
" And hence the golden times deriv'd their name." — Virgil. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE GODS. 
" Thou shalt not revile the gods."— Exodus xxii : 28. 

IN the beginning, says Moritz, Chaos and sable-vested Night were the 
ancestors of Nature. From them arose the vast Earth, and gloomy 
Erebus, and Cupid also, — the fairest of the immortals. Thus, form and 
beauty arise out of shapelessness and deformity — light springs from darkness. 
\ox marries Erebus, the old seat of gloom, and the offspring of their union are 
.Ether and Day. Earth produces Uranos or the Sky, and the Mountains, 
and Pontus or the Sea ; who weds Uranos, from which union come the 
hundred-armed Giants, the monstrous Cyclops, and the ambitious Titans ; the 
youngest of whom is known as Saturn or Chronos, the venerable father of 
Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto. 

' Thus," says William Burder, B. A., in The History of All Religions of the 
World, p. 639, " the obscure fiction of the poets agrees with the inspired account 
" given us by Moses : ' And the earth was without form and void, and darkness 
" ' was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of 
" ' the waters. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.' " 
The resemblance between these myths is apparent, and suggests a common origin. 
" Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians ; " and the Jews, when 
they decamped from Egypt, borrowed not only the jewelry of their masters, but 
also a knowledge of the arts, science, philosophy and religion of the Egyptians. 

" These ancient gods," continues Moritz, " have retreated behind mysterious 
" clouds and mist, through which they appear but dimly, while the modern 
" deities maintain their place in the dominion of fancy; and, by means of the 
" plastic art, gain distinct forms, by which their embodied power and majesty 
" becomes to mortals an object of veneration in temples and sacred groves." 

The god Saturn, robbed of his power and authority by his warlike children, 
" Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields." 
and, in the quiet plains of Latium, inaugurated the golden age, "that happy 
period," says Moritz, " when mankind lived in a state of perfect equality, and 
'all things were in common." {Acts ii : 44-46.) "The reign of Saturn was 
" called the golden age," says Burder, " The earth produced subsistance for its 
" inhabitants without culture; war was unknown; all things were in common; 
" and Astrea, the goddess of Justice, ruled over the actions of men." 

" They at their own sweet will 
" Pursued in peace the tasks that seemed them good, 
" Laden with blessings, rich in flocks, and dear 
" To the great gods." Hesiod. 

" At that happy time," says Moritz, "when liberty and equality, justice and 
" virtue, still were reigning, men lived, like the gods, in perfect security, without 
" pains or cares, and exempt from the burden of old age. The soil of the earth gave 
" them fruits, without being painfully cultivated ; unacquainted with sickness, 
" they died away as if overtaken by a sweet slumber ; and, when the lap of the 
" earth received their dust, the souls of the deceased, enveloped in light air, 
" remained as genii with the survivors. The whole religion of the ancients, 

was a religion of the imagination, and not of reason. Their Mythology is a 
" beautiful dream, which certainly has much signification and connexion in 
" it; giving also, from time to time, some sublime views, in which, however, the 
" accuracy and certainty of the ideas of a waking state ought not to be expected." 

Saturn is pictured as an old man holding in his hand the scythe of time which 
ultimately destroys all things. His feasts, called Saturnalia, began on Dec. 19. and 
were seasons of joy and festivity, the distinction between master and servant being 
abolished in memory of that liberty which all enjoyed during Saturn's reign when 
there was mo servitude. His priests were clothed in scarlet garments, and placed 
on his altars lighted tapers, because says Andrew Tooke, (Pantheon of the Gods.) 
"by Saturn men were brought from the darkness of error to the light of truth."— E. 




The Great Red Dragon.* 



VIII. 



DEATH OF GRATIAN. — RUIN OF ARIANISM. — ST. AMBROSE. 
— CHARACTER, ADMINISTRATION, AND PENANCE, OF 
THEODOSIUS.| 



Baptism and 

orthodox 

edicts of 

Theodosius. 

A. D. 380. 

Feb. 28. 



THE contempt of Gratian for the Roman 
soldiers had exposed him to the fatal 
effects of their resentment. His profound 
veneration for the Christian clergy was rewarded 
by the applause and gratitude of a powerful 
order, which has claimed, in every age, the privilege of 
dispensing honors, both on earth and in heaven. 1 The 
orthodox bishops bewailed his death, and their own 
irreparable loss ; but they were soon comforted by the dis- 
covery that Gratian had committed the sceptre of the east 
to the hands of a prince, whose humble faith and fervent 
zeal were supported by the spirit and abilities of a more 
vigorous character. Among the benefactors of the church, 

1 Their oracle, the archbishop of Milan, assigns to his pupil Gratian a high and 
respectable place in heaven, (torn. ii. de obit. Val. Consol. p. 1193). 

*This fabled monster is described by St. John, (Rev. xn : 3, 4,) as "having seven 
" heads and ten horns ; and his tail [being quite elastic, prehensile, and muscular,] 
'' drew the third part of the stars from heaven, and did cast them to the earth. "_ 

This extraordinary performance far transcends the puerile inventions of Grecian 
mythology, and demands for credence the exercise of a most vigorous and robust 
faith. Novelists have remarked that "truth seems stranger than fiction," and it 
cannot be denied that the greatest fiction would seem plausible in comparison with 
this "truth." Let us therefore exhibit proper respect for the prowess of this 
heavenly visitant, and remain devoutly thankful that but one of these "great red 
dragons " was permitted to vex the solar system, and that we have still two-thirds 
of the stars, a few comets, the sun, the moon, and all the planets remaining iuUict 
in our firmament. — li. 

f From Ch. xxvii. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

(501) 



502 BAPTISM AND FAITH OF THEODOSIUS. 

the fame of Constantine has been rivalled by the glory of 
Theodosius. If Constantine had the advantage of erecting 
the standard of the cross, the emulation of his successor 
assumed the merit of subduing the Arian heresy, and of 
abolishing the worship of idols in the Roman world. Theo- 
dosius was the. first of the emperors baptized in the true 
faith of the Trinity. Although he was born of a Christian 
family, the maxims, or at least the practice, of the age, 
encouraged him to delay the ceremony of his initiation, till 
he was admonished of the danger of delay, by the serious 
illness which threatened his life, towards the end of the first 
year of his reign. Before he again took the field against 
the Goths, he received the sacrament of baptism 2 from 
Acholius, the orthodox bishop of Thessalonica ; 3 and, as the 
emperor ascended from the holy font, still glowing with the 
warm feelings of regeneration, he dictated a solemn edict, 
which proclaimed his own faith, and prescribed the religion 
of his subjects. " It is our pleasure " (such is the imperial 
style) " that all the nations which are governed by our 
" clemency and moderation, should steadfastly adhere to 
" the religion which was taught by St. Peter to the Romans; 
" which faithful tradition has preserved, and which is now 
" professed by the pontiff Damasus, and by Peter, bishop 
" of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According 
" to the discipline of the apostles and the doctrine of the 
" gospel, let us believe the sole deity of the Father, the Son, 
" and the Holy Ghost ; under an equal majesty and a pious 
" Trinity. We authorize the followers of this doctrine to 
" assume the title of Catholic Christians ; and as we judge 
" that all others are extravagant madmen, we brand them 
" with the infamous name of heretics ; and declare, that 
" their conventicles shall no longer usurp the respectable 
" appellation of churches. Besides the condemnation of 
" Divine justice, they must expect to suffer the severe pen- 
" alties, which our authority, guided by heavenly wisdom, 
" shall think proper to inflict upon them." 4 The faith of a 
soldier is commonly the fruit of instruction, rather than of 

2 For the baptism of Theodosius, see Sozomen, (1. vii. c. 4), Socrates, (1. v. c. 6), 
and Tillemont, {Hist, des Empereurs, torn. v. p. 728). 

3 Ascolius, or Acholius, was honored by the friendship, and the praises of 
Ambrose; who styles him murus fidei atque sanctitatis, (torn. ii. Epist. xv. p. 820); 
and afterwards celebrates his speed and diligence in running to Constantinople, 
Italy, &c, {Epist. xvi. p. 822) : a virtue which does not appertain either to a wall, 
or a bishop. 

4 Codex Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. i. leg. 2, with Godefroy's Commentary, torn. vi. 
pp. 5-9. Such an edict deserved the warmest praises of Baronins, auream 
sanctionem, edictum pium et salutare.— Sic itur ad astra. 



ORTHODOXY OF THEODOSIUS. 503 

inquiry ; but as the emperor always fixed his eyes on the 
visible land-marks of orthodoxy, which he had so prudently 
constituted, his religious opinions were never affected by 
the specious texts, the subtle arguments, and the ambiguous 
creeds, of the Arian doctors. Once indeed he expressed a 
faint inclination to converse with the eloquent and learned 
Eunomius, w r ho lived in retirement at a small distance from 
Constantinople. But the dangerous interview was prevented 
by the prayers of the empress Flaccilla, who trembled for 
the salvation of her husband, and the mind of Theodosius 
was confirmed by a theological argument, adapted to the 
rudest capacity. He had lately bestowed on his eldest son, 
Arcadius, the name and honors of Augustus ; and the two 
princes were seated on a stately throne to receive the homage 
of their subjects. A bishop, Amphilochius of Iconium, ap- 
proached the throne, and after saluting, with due reverence, 
the person of his sovereign, he accosted the royal youth 
with the same familiar tenderness, which he might have 
used towards a plebian child. Provoked by this insolent 
behavior, the monarch gave orders that the rustic priest 
should be instantly driven from his presence. But while 
the guards were forcing him to the door, the dexterous 
polemic had time to execute his design, by exclaiming, with 
a loud voice, — " Such is the treatment, O emperor ! which 
" the King of heaven has prepared for those impious men, 
" who affect to worship the Father, but refuse to acknowl- 
" edge the equal majesty of his divine Son." Theodosius 
immediately embraced the bishop of Iconium ; and never 
forgot the important lesson, which he had received from 
this dramatic parable. 5 

Constantinople was the principal seat and ... 
fortress of Arianism ; and, in a long interval of "ST ° 
forty years, 6 the faith of the princes and prelates /^jjjfijg 
who reigned in the capital of the East, was re- 
jected in the purer schools of Rome and Alexandria. The 

s So z omen, 1. vii. c. 6. Theodoyet, 1. v. c. 16. Tillemont is displeased, {Mint. 
Eccles. torn. vi. pp. 627, 62S), with the terms of ''rustic bishop," " obscure city." 
Yet I must take leave to think, that both Amphilochius and Iconium were objects 
of inconsiderable magnitude in the Roman empire.* 

6 Sozomerx, 1. vii. c. v. Socrates, 1. v. c. 7. Marcellin. in Chron. The account 
of forty years must be dated from the election or intrusion of Eusebius, who 
wisely exchanged the bishopric ol Nicomedia for the throne of Constantinople. 

* Amphilochius set a higher value on himself as a pillar of the church. Among 
the busy bishops of that age. he distinguished himself as a foe to heretics; attended 
sedulously the synods held against them, and presided, in 3S3, at that of Sida. to 
condemn a foolish fraternity of itinerant monks, known by the now almost for- 
gotten name of Messalians. — Eng. Ch. 



504 ARIANISM AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 

archiepiscopal throne of Macedonius, which had been 
polluted with so much Christian blood, was successively 
filled by Eudoxus and Damophilus. Their diocese en- 
joyed a free importation of vice and error from every 
province of the empire; the eager pursuit of religious con- 
troversy afforded a new occupation to the busy idleness of 
the metropolis : and we may credit the assertion of an in- 
telligent observer, who describes, with some pleasantry, the 
effects of their loquacious zeal. " This city," says he, " is 
" full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound 
" theologians ; and preach in the shops, and in the streets. 
" If you desire a man to change a piece of silver, he in- 
" forms you wherein the Son differs from the Father ; if 
" you ask the price of a loaf, you are told, by way of reply, 
" that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you inquire 
" whether the bath is ready, the answer is, that the Son 
11 was made out of nothing." 7 The heretics, of various de- 
nominations, subsisted in peace under the protection of the 
Arians of Constantinople ; who endeavored to secure the 
attachment of those obscure sectaries ; while they abused, 
with unrelenting severity, the victory which they had 
obtained over the followers of the council of Nice. During 
the partial reigns of Constantius and Valens, the feeble 
remnant of the Homoousians was deprived of the public 
and private exercise of their religion : and it has been 
observed, in pathetic language, that the scattered flock was 
without a shepherd to wander on the mountains, or to be 
devoured by rapacious wolves. 8 But, as their zeal, instead 
of being subdued, derived strength and vigor from oppres- 
sion, they seized the first moments of imperfect freedom, 
which they had acquired by the death of Valens, to form 
themselves into a regular congregation, under the conduct 

of an episcopal pastor. Two natives of Cappa- 
NaSfnzen. docia, Basil, and Gregory Nazianzen, 9 were 

distinguished above all their contemporaries, 10 

? See Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 71. The thirty- 
third Oration of Gregory Nazianzen affords indeed some similar ideas, even 
some still more ridiculous; but I have not yet found the words of this remarkable 
passage, which I allege on the faith of a correct and liberal scholar. 

8 See the thirty-second Oration of Gregory Nazianzen, and the account of his 
own life, which he has composed in 1800 iambics. Yet every physician is prone 
to exaggerate the inveterate nature of the disease which he has cured. 

9 I confess myself deeply indebted to the two lives of Gregory Nazianzen, 
composed, with very different views, by Tillemont. (Mem. Eccles'. torn. ix. pp. 
3°5 _ 56o, 692-731), and Le Clerc, (Bibliothequc Universelle, torn xviii. pp. 1-12S). 

10 Unless Gregory Nazianzen mistook thirty years in his own age, he was born, 
as well as his friend Basil, about the year 329. ' The preposterous chronology of 
Suidas has been graciously received, because it removes the scandal of Gregory's 



GREGORY AND BASIL. 505 

by the rare union of profane eloquence and of orthodox 
piety. These orators, who might sometimes be compared, 
by themselves, and by the public, to the most celebrated 
of the ancient Greeks, were united by the ties of the strictest 
friendship. They had cultivated, with equal ardor, the 
same liberal studies in the schools of Athens ; they had 
retired, with equal devotion, to the same solitude in the 
deserts of Pontus ; and every spark of emulation, or envy, 
appeared to be totally extinguished in the holy and ingen- 
uous breasts of Gregory and Basil. But the exaltation of 
Basil from a private life to the archiepiscopal throne of 
Caesarea, discovered to the world, and perhaps to himself, 
the pride of his character ; and the first favor which he 
condescended to bestow on his friend was received, and 
perhaps was intended, as a cruel insult. 11 Instead of em- 
ploying the superior talents of Gregory in some useful and 
conspicuous station, the haughty prelate selected, among 
the fifty bishoprics of his extensive province, the wretched 
village of Sasima, 12 without water, without verdure, without 
society, situate at the junction of three highways, and 
frequented only by the incessant passage of rude and 
clamorous wagoners. Gregory submitted with reluctance 
to this humiliating exile ; he was ordained bishop of Sasima; 
but he solemnly protests, that he never consummated his 
spiritual marriage with this disgusting bride. He afterwards 
consented to undertake the government of his native church 
of Nazianzus, 13 of which his father had been bishop above 

father, a saint likewise, begetting children after he became a bishop. (Tillemont, 
Mem. Eccles. torn. ix. pp. 693-697). 

11 Gregory's Poem on his own life contains some beautiful lines, (torn. ii. p. 8), 
which burst from the heart, and speak the pangs of injured and lost friendship ; — 

* * * ttovol Koivoi Xoyuv, 

'OaooTEyng re Kal ovveoTioc fiiog y 

Noff &Q & dfMJtolv * * * 

Kieanedaarai 7rdvra, Kappiirrat xa\iai,, 

Avpac (pepovac rug rcaAaiar eXirtdac. 
In the Midsummer Nigh? s Dream, Helena addresses the same pathetic complaint 
to her friend Hermia : — 

Is all the counsel that we two have shared, 
The sister's vows, &c. 
Shakespeare had never read the poems of Gregory Nazianzen ; he was ignorant 
of the Greek language ; but his mother tongue, the language of Nature, is the 
same in Cappadocia and in Britain. 

12 This unfavorable portrait of Sasimse is drawn by Gregory Nazianzen, (torn. 
ii. de Vita sua, pp. 7, 8). Its precise situation, forty-nine miles from Archelais, 
and thirty-two from Tyana, is fixed in the Itinerary of Antoninus, (p. 144, edit. 
Wesseling). 

is The name of Nazianzus has been immortalized by Gregory ; but his native 
town, under the Greek or Roman title of Diocaesarea, (Tillemont, Mini. Eccles. 
torn. ix. p. 692), is mentioned by Pliny, (vi. 3). Ptolemv, and Hierocles, (Itinerar 
Wesseling. p. 709). It appears to have been situate on the edge of Isauria. 



506 GREGORY AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 

Accepts the five- and -forty years. But as he was still con- 
mi Con n ° f sc ^ ous tnat ne deserved another audience and 
stantinople. another theatre, he accepted, with no unworthy 
A.D.378.N0V. am bition, the honorable invitation which was 
addressed to him from the orthodox party of Constanti- 
nople. On his arrival in the capital, Gregory was entertained 
in the house of a pious and charitable kinsman ; the most 
spacious room was consecrated to the uses of religious 
worship ; and the name of Anastasia was chosen to express 
the resurrection of the Nicene faith. This private conventicle 
was afterwards converted into a magnificent church ; and 
the credulity of the succeeding age was prepared to believe 
the miracles and visions, which attested the presence, or at 
least the protection, of the mother of God. 14 The pulpit of 
the Anastasia was the'scene of the labors and triumphs of 
Gregory Nazianzen ; and, in the space of two years, he 
experienced all the spiritual adventures which constitute 
the prosperous or adverse fortunes of a missionary. 15 The 
Arians, who were provoked by the boldness of his enter- 
prise, represented his doctrine, as if he had preached three 
distinct and equal deities ; and the devout populace was 
excited to suppress, by violence and tumult, the irregular 
assemblies of the Athanasian heretics. From the cathedral 
of St. Sophia, there issued a motley crowd " of common 
" beggars, who had forfeited their claim to pity; of monks, 
" who had the appearance of goats or satyrs ; and of women, 
" more terrible than so many Jezebels." The doors of the 
Anastasia were broken open ; much mischief was perpetrated, 
or attempted, with sticks, stones, and firebrands ; and as a 
man lost his life in the affray, Gregory, who was summoned 
the next morning before the magistrate, had the satisfaction 
of supposing that he publicly confessed the name of Christ. 
After he was delivered from the fear and danger of a foreign 
enemy, his infant church was disgraced and distracted by 
intestine faction. A stranger, who assumed the name of 
Maximus, 16 and the cloak of a Cynic philosopher, insinuated 
himself into the confidence of Gregory ; deceived and 
abused his favorable opinion ; and, forming a secret con- 

U See Ducange, Constant. Christiana, 1. iv. pp. 141, 142. The Qela dvva/iir 
of Sozomen, (1. vii. c. 5), is interpreted to mean the Virgin Mary. 

15 Tiilemont, {Mem. Eccles. torn. ix. p. 432, &c), diligently'collects, enlarges, 
and explains, the oratorical and poetical hints of Gregory himself. 

16 He pronounced an oration, (torn. i. Orat. xxiii. p. 409), in his praise ; but. after 
their quarrel, the name of Maximus was changed into that of Heron, (see Jerom. 
torn. i. in Catalog. Script. Eccles. p. 301). I touch lightly on these obscure and 
personal squabbles. 



RUIN OF ARIANISM. 507 

nexion with some bishops of Egypt, attempted, by a 
clandestine ordination, to supplant his patron in the epis- 
copal seat of Constantinople. These mortifications might 
sometimes tempt the Cappadocian missionary to regret his 
obscure solitude. But his fatigues were rewarded by the 
daily incre ise of his fame and his congregation ; and he 
enjoyed the pleasure of observing, that the greater part of 
his numerous audience retired from his sermons satisfied 
with the eloquence of the preacher, 17 or dissatisfied with 
the manifold imperfections of their faith and practice. 18 

The Catholics of Constantinople were animated R U i n of Arian- 
with joyful confidence by the baptism and edict ls t m f. 1 c ° n - 

r r^, J J , 1 1 ■ - • 1 -ji stantinople, 

01 1 neodosms ; and they impatiently waited the a. d. 380. 
effects of his gracious promise. Their hopes Nov " 26- 
were speedily accomplished ; and the emperor, as soon as 
he had finished the operations of the campaign, made his 
public entry into the capital at the head of a victorious 
army. The next day after his arrival, he summoned 
Damophilus to his presence ; and offered that Arian prelate 
the hard alternative of subscribing the Nicene creed, or of 
instantly resigning, to the orthodox believers, the use and 
possession of the episcopal palace, the cathedral of St. 
Sophia, and all the churches of Constantinople. The zeal 
of Damophilus, which in a Catholic saint would have been 
justly applauded, embraced without hesitation a life of 
poverty and exile, 19 and his removal was immediately 
followed by the purification of the imperial city. The 
Arians might complain with some appearance of justice, 
that an inconsiderable congregation of sectaries should 
usurp the hundred churches, which they were insufficient 
to fill ; whilst the far greater part of the people was cruelly 
excluded from every place of religious worship. Theodosius 
was still inexorable ; but as the angels who protected the 
Catholic cause were only visible to the eyes of faith, he 
prudently reinforced those heavenly legions with the more 
effectual aid of temporal and carnal weapons ; and the 
church of St. Sophia was occupied by a large body of the 

i" Under the modest emblem of a dream, Gregory, (torn. ii. Carmen ix. p. 78), 
describes his own success with some human complacency. Yet it should seem, 
from his familiar conversation with his auditor, St. Jerom, (torn. i. Epist. ad 
iVepotian, p. 14), that the preacher understood the true value of popular applause. 

is LachrymEe auditorum laudes tuse sint, is the lively and judicious advice of 
St Jerom. 

19 Socrates, (1. v. c. 7), and Sozomen, (1. vii. c. 5), relate the evangelical words 
and actions of Damophilus without a word of approbation. He considered, says 
Socrates, that it is difficult to resist the powerful, but it was easy, and would 
have been profitable, to submit. 



508 FORCIBLE INSTALLATION OF GREGORY. 

imperial guards. If the mind of Gregory was susceptible 
of pride, he must have felt a very lively satisfaction when 
the emperor conducted him through the streets in solemn 
triumph ; and, with his own hand, respectfully placed him 
on the archiepiscopal throne of Constantinople. But the 
saint (who had not subdued the imperfections of human 
virtue ) was deeply affected by the mortifying consideration, 
that his entrance into the fold was that of a wolf, rather 
than of a shepherd ; that the glittering arms which sur- 
rounded his person were necessary for his safety ; and that 
he alone was the object of the imprecations of a great party, 
whom, as men and citizens, it was impossible for him to 
despise. He beheld the innumerable multitude of either 
sex, and of every age, who crowded the streets, the windows, 
and the roofs of the houses ; he heard the tumultuous voice 
of rage, grief, astonishment, and despair ; and Gregory 
fairly confesses, that on the memorable day of his installa- 
tion, the capital of the east wore the appearance of a city 
taken by storm, and in the hands of a barbarian conqueror. 20 
About six weeks afterwards, Theodosius declared his 
resolution of expelling from all the churches of his dominions, 
the bishops and their clergy, who should obstinately refuse 
to believe, or at least to profess, the doctrine of the council 
in the East °^ Nice. His lieutenant Sapor was armed with 
a. d. 381. the ample powers of a general law, a special 
commission, and a military force ; 21 and this 
ecclesiastical revolution was conducted with so much disv 
cretion and vigor, that the religion of the emperor was 
established, without tumult or bloodshed, in all the provinces 
of the east. The writings of the Arians, if they had been 
permitted to exist, 22 would perhaps contain the lamentable 
story of the persecution, which afflicted the church under 
the reign of the impious Theodosius ; and the sufferings 
of their holy confessors might claim the pity of the dis- 
interested reader. Yet there is reason to imagine, that the 
violence of zeal and revenge was, in some measure, eluded 

20 See Gregory Nazianzen, torn. ii. de Vita sua, pp. 21, 22. For the sake of 
posterity, the bishop of Constantinople records a stupendous prodigy. In the 
month of November, it was a cloudy morning, but the sun broke forth when the 
procession entered the church. 

21 Of the three ecclesiastical historians, Theodoret alone, (1. v. c . 2), has 
mentioned this important commission of Sapor, which Tillemont, {Hist, des 
Empereurs, torn. v. p. 728), judiciously removes from the reign of Gratian to 
that of Theodosius. 

22 I do not reckon Philostorgius, though he mentions, (1. ix. c. 19), the expulsion 
of Damophilus. The Eunomian historian has been carefully strained through an 
orthodox sieve. 



COUNCIL AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 509 

by the want of resistance ; and that, in their adversity, the 
Arians displayed much less firmness than had been exerted 
by the orthodox party under the reigns of Constantius 
and Valens. The moral character and conduct of the hostile 
sects appear to have been governed by the same common 
principles of nature and religion ; but a very material 
circumstance maybe discovered, which tended to distinguish 
the degrees of their theological faith. Both parties in the 
schools, as well as in the temples, acknowledged and 
worshipped the divine majesty of Christ ; and, as we are 
always prone to impute our own sentiments and passions 
to the Deity, it would be deemed more prudent and re- 
spectful to exaggerate, than to circumscribe, the adorable 
perfections of the Son of God. The disciple of Athanasius 
exulted in the proud confidence, that he had entitled him- 
self to the divine favor ; while the follower of Arius must 
have been tormented by the secret apprehension, that he 
was guilty, perhaps of an unpardonable offence, by the 
scanty praise, and parsimonious honors, which he bestowed 
on the Judge of the world. The opinions of Arianism 
might satisfy a cold and speculative mind ; but the doctrine 
of the Nicene creed, most powerfully recommended by the 
merits of faith and devotion, was much better adapted to 
become popular and successful in a believing age. 

The hope that truth and wisdom would be 
found in the assemblies of the orthodox clergy, of con"- 01 
induced the emperor to convene, at Constanti- A D an s\ m Ma e ' 
nople, a synod of one hundred and fifty bishops, 
who proceeded, without much difficulty or delay, to com- 
plete the theological system which had been established in 
the council of Nice. The vehement disputes of the fourth 
century had been chiefly employed on the nature of the 
Son of God ; and the various opinions which were embraced 
concerning the Second, were extended and transferred, by 
a natural analogy, to &Third, person of the Trinity. 23 Yet 
it was found, or it was thought, necessary, by the victorious 
adversaries of Arianism, to explain the ambiguous language 
of some respectable doctors ; to confirm the faith of the 
Catholics, and to condemn an unpopular and inconsistent 

23 Le Clerc has given a curious extract, (Bibliotheque Universelle, torn, xviii. 
pp. 91-105), of the theological sermons which Gregory Nazianzen pronounced at 
Constantinople against the Arians, Eunomians, Macedonians, &c. He tells the 
Macedonians, who deified the Father and the Son without the Holy Ghost, that 
they might as well be styled Tritheists as Dithcists. Gregory himself was almost 
a Tritheist ; and his monarchy of heaven resembles a well-regulated aristocracy. 



5 TO DEGENERACY OF THE ECCLESIASTICS. 

sect of Macedonians, who freely admitted that the Son was 
consubstantial to the Father, while they were fearful of 
seeming to acknowledge the existence of Three Gods. A 
final and unanimous sentence was pronounced to ratify the 
equal Deity of the Holy Ghost ; the mysterious doctrine 
has been received by all the nations, and all the churches 
of the Christian world ; and their grateful reverence has 
assigned to the bishops of Theodosius, the second rank 
among the general councils. 21 Their knowledge of religious 
truth may have been preserved by tradition, or it may have 
been communicated by inspiration ; but the sober evidence 
of history will not allow much weight to the personal 
authority of the fathers of Constantinople. In an age when 
the ecclesiastics had scandalously degenerated from the 
model of apostolical purity, the most worthless and corrupt 
were always -the most eager to frequent, and disturb, the 
episcopal assemblies. The conflict and fermentation of so 
many opposite interests and tempers inflamed the passions 
of the bishops ; and their ruling passions were the love of 
gold, and the love of dispute. Many of the same prelates, 
who now applauded the orthodox piety of Theodosius, had 
repeatedly changed, with prudent flexibility, their creeds 
and opinions ; and in the various revolutions of the church 
and state, the religion of their sovereign was the rule of 
their obsequious faith. When the emperor suspended his 
prevailing influence, the turbulent synod was blindly 
impelled by the absurd or selfish motives of pride, hatred, 
and resentment. The death of Meletius, which happened at 
the council of Constantinople, presented the most favorable 
opportunity of terminating the schism of Antioch, by suffer- 
ing his aged rival, Paulinus, peaceably to end his days in the 
episcopal chair. The faith and virtues of Paulinus were 
unblemished. But his cause was supported by the western 
churches ; and the bishops of the synod resolved to perpet- 
uate the mischiefs of discord, by the hasty ordination of a 
perjured candidate, 25 rather than to betray the imagined dig- 
nity of the East, which had been illustrated by the birth and 

21 The first general council of Constantinople now triumphs in the Vatican ; 
but the popes had long hesitated, and their hesitation perplexes, and almost 
staggers, the humble Tillemont, {Mem. Eccles. torn. ix. pp. 499, 500). 

2"' Before the death of Meletius, six or eight of his most popular ecclesiastics, 
among whom was Flavian, had abjured, for the sake of peace, the bishopric of 
Antioch, {Sozomen, 1. vii. c 3, it. Socrates, 1. v. c. v.). Tillemont thinks it his 
duty to disbelieve the story ; but he owns that there are many circumstances in the 
life of Flavian which seem inconsistent with the praises of Chrysostom, and the 
character of a saint, (Mem. Eccles. torn. x. p. 541). 



GREGORYS DESCRIPTION OF THE SYNOD. 51 1 

death of the Son of God. Such unjust and disorderly proceed- 
ings forced the gravest members of the assembly to dissent 
and to secede ; and the clamorous majority, which remained 
masters of the field of battle, could be compared only to 
wasps or magpies, to a flight of cranes, or to a flock of geese. 2 ' 

A suspicion may possibly arise, that so un- 
favorable a picture of ecclesiastical synods has Gregory 
been drawn by the partial hand of some obstinate Nazianzeu. 

1 • 1 • ■ • ' r 1 i' t% 1 A. JJ. 3S1. 

heretic, or some malicious infidel. But the 
name of the sincere historian, who has conveyed this in- 
structive lesson to the knowledge of posterity, must silence 
the impotent murmurs of superstition and bigotry. He was 
one of the most pious and eloquent bishops of the age ; a 
saint and a doctor of the church ; the scourge of Arianism, 
and the pillar of the orthodox faith ; a distinguished member 
of the council of Constantinople, ifl which, after the death 
of Meletius, he exercised the functions of president ; in a 
word — Gregory Nazianzen himself. The harsh 27 and un- 

26 Consult Gregory Nazianzen, de Vita sua, torn. ii. pp. 25-28. His general and 
particular opinion of the clergy and their assemblies may be seen in verse and 
prose, (torn. i. Oral. i. p. 33. Epist. lv. p. 814, torn. ii. Carmen, x. p. Si). Such 
passages are faintly marked by Tillemont, and fairly produced by Le Clerc* 

27 See Gregory, torn. ii. de Vita sua, p. 28-31. The fourteenth, twenty-seventh, 
and thirty-second orations were pronounced in the several stages of this business. 
The peroration of the last, (torn. i. p. 528), iu which he takes a solemn leave of 
men and angels, the city and the emperor, the east and the west, is pathetic, and 
almost sublime.f 

* The following passage in the Epist. 55, ad Procop. was, no doubt, looked at 
askance by Tillemont, and might appropriately have been adduced by Gibbon. 
".I am so constituted," these are Gregory's words, "that to speak the truth, I 
" dread every assembly of bishops ; for I have never yet seen a good result from 
" any one of them— never have been at a synod which did more for the suppres- 
" sion than it did for the increase of evils. An indescribable thirst for contention 
" and for rule prevails in them." So wrote a bishop of his own order, in the yet 
not half-developed luxuriance of its vices. — Eng. Ch. 

f Rare instances of moderation and virtue are often paraded before us, as 
evidence of the general conduct of a class and claims on our respect for all its 
members, while a discreet veil is thrown over the thousand examples of opposite 
extremes in which its true character is displayed. The quiet retirement of 
Damophilus from the archiepiscopal throne of Constantinople, and the dignified 
resignation of Gregory, are like transient gleams of sunshine amid the gloom of 
November, cheering to the eye, but no proof of summer. It is in the universal 
eagerness with which episcopates were sought, in the turbulent violence with 
which they were contended for, in the sometimes pliant, sometimes defiant 
tenacity with which they were clung to, and in the cunning, or audacious arro- 
gance with which they were exercised, that we recognize the true spirit of the 
ancient hierarchy. This they infused into their subordinate ranks, and so 
directed every movement of the social s}-stem. In like manner, special cases are 
selected, to show how the same power occasionally interfered to protect the 
oppressed, to restrain licentious tyranny, or favor learning ; and we are told to 
measure its influence by this standard. It is not so that a sterling or profitable 
and practical knowledge can be acquired. Look at the whole course of time ; 
understand its current ; see how it was impelled, guided, diverted, or obstructed] 
and then explore the cause of ascertained effects. To study the events that vou 
are here surveying, mark the ruling agency of the times, however concealed 
within its own dark folds, and then you will find the workers of weal or woe. 
Particular deviations and individual exceptions must not be allowed to draw our 
attention from observing predominant tendencies.— Eng. Ch. 



512 BAPTISM AND CONSECRATION OF NECTARIUS. 

generous treatment which he experienced, instead of 
derogating from the truth of his evidence, affords an 
additional proof of the spirit which actuated the deliberations 
of the synod. Their unanimous suffrage had confirmed 
the pretensions which the bishop of Constantinople derived 
from the choice of the people, and the approbation of the 
emperor. But Gregory soon became the victim of malice 
and envy. The bishops of the east, his strenuous adherents, 
provoked by his moderation in the affairs of Antioch, 
abandoned him, without support, to the adverse faction of 
the Egyptians ; who disputed the validity of his election, 
and rigorously asserted the obsolete canon, that prohibited 
the licentious practice of episcopal translations. The pride, 
or the humility, of Gregory prompted him to decline a con- 
test which might have been imputed to ambition and 
avarice ; and he publiclv*offered, not without some mixture 
of indignation, to renounce the government of a church 
which had been restored, and almost created by his labors. 
His resignation was accepted by the synod, and by the 
emperor, with more readiness than he seems to have expected. 
At the time when he might have hoped to enjoy the fruits 
of his victory, his episcopal throne was filled by the senator 
Nectariu*; and the new archbishop, accidentally recom- 
mended by his easy temper and venerable aspect, was 
obliged to delay the ceremony of his consecration, till he 
had previously dispatched the rites of his baptism. 28 After 
this remarkable experience of the ingratitude of princes 
and prelates, Gregory retired once more to his obscure 
solitude of Cappadocia ; where he employed the remainder 
of his life, about eight years, in the exercise of poetry and 
devotion. The title of saint has been added to his name ; 
but the tenderness of his heart, 29 and the elegance of his 
genius, reflect a more pleasing lustre on the memory of 
Gregory Nazianzen. 
Edicts of It was not enough that Theodosius had sup- 

T ~ e in d tth S P resse d the insolent reign of Arianism, or that 
heretics. he had abundantly revenged the injuries which 
A. d. ssc^394- the Catholics sustained from the zeal of Con- 

28 The whimsical ordination of Nectarius is attested by Sozomen, (1. vii. c. 8) ; 
but Tillemont observes, {Mem. Eccles. torn. ix. p. 719), Apres tout, ce narre de 
Sozomene est si honteux pour tous ceux qu'il y mele, et surtout pour Theodose, 
qu'il vaut mieux travailler a le detruire, qu'a le soutenir ; an admirable canon of 
criticism ! 

2J I can only be understood to mean, that such was his natural temper, when it 
was not hardened, or inflamed, by religious zeal. From his retirement, he exhorts 
Nectarius to prosecute the heretics of Constantinople. 



EDICTS AGAINST HERETICS. 513 

stantius and Valens. The orthodox emperor considered 
every heretic as a rebel against the supreme powers of 
heaven and of earth ; and each of those powers might 
exercise their peculiar jurisdiction over the soul and body 
of the guilty. The decrees of the council of Constantinople 
had ascertained the true standard of the faith ; and the 
ecclesiastics who governed the conscience of Theodosius, 
suggested the most effectual methods of persecution. In 
the space of fifteen years, he promulgated at least fifteen 
severe edicts against the heretics ; 30 more especially against 
those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; and, to 
deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted, 
that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their favor, 
the judges should consider them as the illegal productions 
either of fraud or forgery. The penal statutes were directed 
against the ministers, the assemblies, and the persons of the 
heretics ; and the passions of the legislator were expressed 
in the language of declamation and invective. I. The 
heretical teachers, who usurped the sacred titles of bishops 
or presbyters, were not only excluded from the privileges 
and emoluments so liberally granted to the orthodox clergy, 
but they were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and 
confiscation, if they presumed to preach the doctrine, or to 
practice the rites, of their accursed sects. A fine of ten 
pounds of gold (above four hundred pounds sterling) was 
imposed on every person who should dare to confer, or re- 
ceive, or promote, an heretical ordination : and it was 
reasonably expected, that if the race of pastors could be 
extinguished, their helpless flocks would be compelled, by 
ignorance and hunger, to return within the pale of the 
Catholic church. II. The rigorous prohibition of conventi- 
cles was carefully extended to every possible circumstance, 
in which the heretics could assemble with the intention of 
worshiping God and Christ according to the dictates of 
their conscience. Their religious meetings, whether public 
or secret, by day or by night, in cities or in the country, 
were equally proscribed by the edicts of Theodosius ; and 
the building, or ground, which had been used for that 
illegal purpose, was forfeited to the imperial domain. III. 
It was supposed, that the error of the heretics could pro- 
ceed only from the obstinate temper of their minds ; and 
that such a temper was a fit object of censure and punish- 

30 See the TJieodosian Code, 1. xvi. tit. v. leg. 6-23, with Godefroy's commentary 
on each law, and his general summary, or Paratition, torn. vi. pp. 104-110. 



514 EXECUTION OF PRISCILLIAN, 

ment. The anathemas of the church were fortified by a 
sort of civil excommunication ; which separated them from 
their fellow-citizens, by a peculiar brand of infamy; and 
this declaration of the supreme magistrate tended to justify, 
or at least to excuse, the insults of a frantic populace. The 
sectaries were gradually disqualified for the possession of 
honorable or lucrative employments ; and Theodosius was 
satisfied with his own justice when he decreed that as the 
Eunomians distinguished the nature of the Son from that 
of the Father, they should be incapable of making their 
wills, or of receiving any advantage from testamentary 
donations. The guilt of the Manichaean heresy was esteemed 
of such magnitude, that it could be expiated only by the 
death of the offender; and the same capital punishment 
was inflicted on the Audians, or Quartodecima7is^ x who 
should dare to perpetrate the atrocious crime of celebrating, 
on an improper day, the festival of Easter. Every Roman 
might exercise the right of public accusation; but the office 
of Inquisitor of the Faith, a name so deservedly abhorred, 
was first instituted under the reign of Theodosius. Yet we 
are assured that the execution of his penal edicts was 
seldom egforced; and that the pious emperor appeared 
less desirous to punish, than to reclaim or terrify, his 
refractory subjects. 02 

Execution of The theory of persecution was established by 

p ^ciiijan Theodosius, whose justice and piety have been 

associates, applauded by the saints ; but the practice of it, 

a. d. 385. - n t k e f u u est extent, was reserved for his rival 

and colleague, Maximus,* the first, among the Christian 

princes, who shed the blood of his Christian subjects on 

account of their religious opinions. The cause of the 

Priscillianists, 33 a recent sect of heretics, who disturbed the 

provinces of Spain, was transferred, by appeal, from the 

synod of Bordeaux to the imperial consistory of Treves ; 

and by the sentence of the Praetorian praefect, seven persons 

si They always kept their Easter, like the Jewish Passover, on the fourteenth 
day of the first moon after the vernal equinox ; and thus pertinaciously opposed 
the Roman Church and Nicene synod, which had fixed Easter to a Sunday. 
Bingham's Antiquities, 1. xx. c. 5, vol. ii. p. 309, fol. edit. 

32 Sozomen, 1. vii. c. 12. 

33 See the Sacred History of Sulpicius Severus, (1. ii. PP- 437-452, edit. Lugd. 
Bat. 1647), a correct and original writer. Dr. Lardner, {Credibility, &c, part ii. 
vol. ix. pp. 256-350), has labored this article with pure learning, good sense, and 
moderation. Tillemont, {Mem. Eccles. torn. viii. pp. 491-527), has raked together 
all the dirt of the fathers ; a useful scavenger ! 



* The theory of persecution was established by Theodosius— the practice, by 
Maximus — neither of whom were Pagans. — E. 



HERESY OF THE PRISCILLIANISTS. 515 

were tortured, condemned, and executed. The first of these 
was Priscillian 34 himself, bishop of Avila, 35 in Spain ; who 
adorned the advantages of birth and fortune, by the ac- 
complishments of eloquence and learning. Two presbyters, 
and two deacons, accompanied their beloved master in his 
death, which they esteemed as a glorious martyrdom ; and 
the number of religious victims was completed by the 
execution of Latronian, a poet, who rivalled the fame of 
the ancients ; and of Euchrocia, a noble matron of Bordeaux, 
the widow of the orator Delphidius. 36 Two bishops, who 
had embraced the sentiments of Priscillian, were condemned 
to a distant and dreary exile ; 3T and some indulgence was 
shown to the meaner criminals, who assumed the merit of 
an early repentance. If any credit could be allowed to 
confessions extorted by fear or pain, and to vague reports, 
the offspring of malice and credulity, the heresy of the 
Priscillianists would be found to include the various 
abominations of magic, of impiety, and of lewdness. ss Pris- 
cillian, who wandered about the world in the company of 
his spiritual sisters, was accused of praying stark-naked in 
the midst of the congregation; and it was confidently 
asserted, that the effects of his criminal intercourse with the 
daughter of Euchrocia, had been suppressed by means still 
more odious and criminal. But an accurate, or rather a 
candid, inquiry, will discover, that if the Priscillianists 
violated the laws of nature, it was not by the licentiousness, 
but by the austerity, of their lives. They absolutely con- 
demned the use of the marriage-bed; and the peace of 
families was often disturbed by indiscreet separations. They 
enjoyed, or recommended, a total abstinence from all animal 
food ; and their continual prayers, fasts, and vigils, incul- 
cated a rule of strict and perfect devotion. The speculative 
tenets of the sect, concerning the person of Christ, and the 

3i Severus Sulpicius mentions the arch-heretic with esteem and pity. Faelix 
profecto, si non pravo studio corrupisset optimum ingenium : prorsus multa in 
eo animi et corporis bona cerneres. (Hist. Sacra. 1. ii. p. 439.) Even Jerom, (torn. 
i. in Script. Ec'cles. p. 302), speaks with temper of Priscillian and Latronian. 

35 The bishopric, (in Old Castile), is now worth 20,000 ducats a year, (Busching's 
Geography, vol. ii. p. 308), and is therefore much less likely to produce the author 
of a new heresy. 

36 Exprobrabatur mulieri viduse nimia religio, et diligentius culta divinitas. 
(Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 9). Such was the idea of a humane, though ignorant, 
polytheist. 

37 One of them was sent in Sillinam insulam quae ultra Britanniam est. What 
must have been the ancient condition of the rocks of Scilly ? (Camden's Britannia, 
vol. ii. p. 1519.) " 

33 The scandalous calumnies of Augustin. Pope Leo, &c, which Tillemont 
swallows like a child, and Lardner refutes like a man, may suggest some candid 
suspicions in favor of the older Gnostics. 



516 HUMANITY OF AMBROSE AND MARTIN. 

nature of the human soul, were derived from the Gnostic 
and Manichaean system ; and this vain philosophy, which 
had been transported from Egypt to Spain, was ill adapted 
to the grosser spirits of the west. The obscure disciples of 
Priscillian suffered, languished, and gradually disappeared : 
his tenets were rejected by the clergy and people ; but his 
death was the subject of a long and vehement controversy : 
while some arraigned, and others applauded the justice of 
his sentence. It is with pleasure that we can observe the 
humane inconsistency of the most illustrious saints and 
bishops, Ambrose of Milan, 39 and Martin of Tours ;*° who, 
on this occasion, asserted the cause of toleration. They 
pitied the unhappy men who had been executed at Treves ; 
they refused to hold communion with their episcopal 
murderers ; and if Martin deviated from that generous 
resolution, his motives were laudable, and his repentance 
was exemplary. The bishops of Tours and Milan pro- 
nounced, without hesitation, the eternal damnation of here- 
tics ; but they were surprised and shocked «by the bloody 
image of their temporal death, and the honest feelings of 
nature resisted the artificial prejudices of theology. The 
humanity of Ambrose and Martin was confirmed by the 
scandalous irregularity of the proceedings against Priscillian 
and his adherents. The civil and ecclesiastical ministers 
had transgressed the limits of their respective provinces. 
The secular judge had presumed to receive an appeal, and 
to pronounce a definite sentence, in a matter of faith and 
episcopal jurisdiction. The bishops had disgraced them- 
selves, by exercising the function of accusers in a criminal 
prosecution. The cruelty of Ithacius, 41 who beheld the 
tortures and solicited the death of the heretics, provoked 
the just indignation of mankind; and the vices of that 
profligate bishop were admitted as a proof that his zeal was 
instigated by the sordid motives of interest. Since the 
death of Priscillian, the rude attempts of persecution have 
been refined and methodized in the holy office, which 

39 Ambros. torn. ii. Epist. xxiv. p. 891. 

40 In the Sacred History, and the Life of St. Martin, Sulpicius Severus uses 
some caution ; but he declares himself more freely in the Dialogues, (iii. 15). 
Martin was reproved, however, by his own conscience, and by an angel; nor 
could he afterwards perform miracles with so much ease. 

4i The Catholic presbyter, (Sulp. Sever. I. ii. p. 448), and the Pagan orator, 
(Pacat. in Panegyr. Vet. xii. 29), reprobate, with equal indignation, the character 
and conduct of Ithacius.* 

* The two principal instigators of this persecution, Ithacius or Idacius and 
Ursacius, were five years afterwards degraded from their episcopal dignities and 
expelled from the communion of the church. Clin. F. R. i. p. 519 ; ii. p. 447. — E. C. 



AMBROSE, ARCHBISHOP OF MILAN. 517 

assigns their distinct parts to the ecclesiastical and secular 
powers. The devoted victim is regularly delivered by the 
priest to the magistrate, and by the magistrate to the 
executioner; and the inexorable sentence of the church, 
which declares the spiritual guilt of the offender, is expressed 
in the mild language of pity and intercession. 

Amono- the ecclesiastics who illustrated the . . 

r rr^i 1 • /-■ tvt Ambrose, 

reign 01 Ineodosius, Gregory JNazianzen was archbishop of 
distinguished by the talents of an eloquent A p 11 --?* 7 
preacher; the reputation of miraculous gifts 
added weight and dignity to the monastic virtues of Martin 
of Tours j 42 but the palm of episcopal vigor and ability was 
justly claimed by the intrepid Ambrose. 43 He was descended 
from a noble family of Romans ; his father had exercised 
the important office of praetorian prefect of Gaul ; and the 
son, after passing through the studies of a liberal education, 
attained, in the regular gradation of civil honors, the station 
of consular of Liguria, a province which included the 
imperial residence of Milan. At the age of thirty-four, and 
before he had received the sacrament of baptism, Ambrose, 
to his own surprise, and to that of the world, was suddenly 
transformed from a governor to an archbishop. Without 
the least mixture, as it is said, of art or intrigue, the whole 
body of the people unanimously saluted him with the 
episcopal title : the concord and perseverance of their 
acclamations were ascribed to a preternatural impulse ; and 
the reluctant magistrate was compelled to undertake a 
spiritual office, for which he was not prepared by the habits 
and occupations of his former life. But the active force of 
his genius soon qualified him to exercise, with zeal and 
prudence, the dudes of his ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; and, 
while he cheerfully renounced the vain and splendid 
trappings of temporal greatness, he condescended, for the 
good of the church, to direct the conscience of the emperors, 
and to control the administration of the empire. Gratian 
loved and revered him as a father ; and the elaborate 
treatise on the faith of the Trinity, was designed for the 
instruction of the young prince. After his tragic death, at 

42 The Life of St. Martin, and the Dialogues concerning his miracles, contain 
facts adapted to the grossest barbarism, in a style not unworthy of the Augustan 
age. So natural is the alliance between good taste and good sense, that I am 
alwavs astonished by this contrast. 

« The short and superficial Life of St. Ambrose, by his deacon, Paulinus, 
{Appendix ad edit. Benedict, p. i-xv), has the merit of original evidence. Tiile- 
mont, (Mem. Eccles. torn. x. p. 78-306^, and the Benedictine editors, (p. xxxi.-lxiii.), 
have labored with their usual diligence. 



518 POPULARITY OF AMBROSE. 

a time when the empress Justina trembled for her own 
safety, and for that of her son Valentinian, the archbishop 
of Milan was dispatched, on two different embassies, to the 
court of Treves. He exercised, with equal firmness and 
dexterity, the powers of his spiritual and political characters; 
and perhaps contributed, by his authority and eloquence, 
to check the ambition of Maximus, and to protect the peace 
of Italy. 44 Ambrose had devoted his life and his abilities 
to the service of the church. Wealth was the object of his 
contempt; he had renounced his private patrimony; and 
he sold, without hesitation, the consecrated plate, for the 
redemption of captives. The clergy and people of Milan 
were attached to their archbishop ; and he deserved the 
esteem, without soliciting the favor, or apprehending the 
displeasure, of his feeble sovereigns. . 

The government of Italy and of the young Hissuccess f u i 
emperor naturally devolved to his mother Justina, opposition to 
a woman of beauty and spirit ; but who, in the th j u e s TinaT s 
midst of an orthodox people, had the misfortune a. d. 385. 
of professing the Arian heresy, which she en- pn 
deavored to instil into the mind of her son. Justina was 
persuaded, that a Roman emperor might claim, in his own 
dominions, the public exercise of his religion ; and she 
proposed to the archbishop, as a moderate and reasonable 
concession, that he should resign the use of a single church, 
either in the city or the suburbs of Milan. But the conduct 
of Ambrose was governed by very different principles. 45 
The palaces of the earth might indeed belong to Caesar ; 
but the churches were the houses of God ; and, within the 
limits of his diocese, he himself, as the lawful successor of 
the apostles, was the only minister of God. Tlje privileges 
of Christianity, temporal as well as spiritual, were confined 
to the true believers ; and the mind of Ambrose was satisfied, 
that his own theological opinions were the standard of truth 
and orthodoxy. The archbishop, who refused to hold any 
conference or negotiation with the instruments of Satan, 
declared, with modest firmness, his resolution to die a 
martyr, rather than to yield to the impious sacrilege ; and 
Justina, who resented the refusal as an act of insolence and 

44 Ambrose himself, (torn. ii. Epist. xxiv. pp. 888-891), gives the emperor a very 
Spirited account of his own embassy. 

45 His own representation of his principles and conduct, (torn. ii. Epist. xx. xxi. 
xxii. pp. S52-88o\ is one of the curious monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity. It 
contains two letters to his sister Marcellina, with a petition to Valentinian, and 
the sermon de Basilicis non tradendis. 






OPPOSITION TO JUSTINA. 519 

rebellion, hastily determined to exert the imperial preroga- 
tive of her son. As she desired to perform her public 
devotions on the approaching festival of Easter, Ambrose 
was ordered to appear before the council. He obeyed the 
summons with the respsct of a faithful subject ; but he was 
followed, without his consent, by an innumerable people : 
they pressed, with impetuous zeal, against the gates of the 
palace ; and the affrighted ministers of Valentinian, instead 
of pronouncing a sentence of exile on the archbishop of 
Milan, humbly requested that he would interpose his 
authority, to protect the person of the emperor, and to 
restore the tranquillity of the capital. But the promises 
which Ambrose received and communicated, were soon 
violated by a perfidious court ; and, during six of the most 
solemn days, which Christian piety has set apart for the 
exercise of religion, the city was agitated by the irregular 
convulsions of tumult and fanaticism. The officers of the 
household were directed to prepare, first, the Portian, and 
afterwards, the new, Basilica, for the immediate reception 
of the emperor and his mother. The splendid canopy and 
hangings of the royal seat were arranged in the customary 
manner ; but it was found necessary to defend them, by a 
strong guard, from the insults of the populace. The Arian 
ecclesiastics who ventured to show themselves in the streets, 
were exposed to the most imminent danger of their lives ; 
and Ambrose enjoyed the merit and reputation of rescuing 
his personal enemies from the hands of the enraged 
multitude. 

But while he labored to restrain the effects of their zeal, 
the pathetic vehemence of his sermons continually inflamed 
the angry and seditious temper of the people of Milan. The 
characters of Eve, of the wife of Job, of Jezebel, of Herodias, 
were indecently applied to the mother of the emperor ; 
and her desire to obtain a church for the Arians was com- 
pared to the most cruel persecutions which Christianity had 
endured under the reign of Paganism. The measures of 
the court served only to expose the magnitude of the evil. 
A fine of two hundred pounds of gold was imposed on the 
corporate body of merchants and manufacturers ; an order 
was signified, in the name of the emperor, to all the officers 
and inferior servants of the courts of justice, that, during 
the continuance of the public disorders, they should strictly 
confine themselves to their houses': and the ministers of 



520 THE TRIUMPH OF AMBROSE. 

Valentinian imprudently confessed, that the most respect- 
able part of the citizens of Milan was attached to the cause 
of their archbishop. He was again solicited to restore peace 
to his country, by a timely compliance with the will of his 
sovereign. The reply of Ambrose was couched in the most 
humble and respectful terms, which might, however, be 
interpreted as a serious declaration of civil war. " His life 
" and fortune were in the hands of the emperor; but he 
" would never betray the church of Christ, or degrade the 
" dignity of the episcopal character. In such a cause, he 
" was prepared to suffer whatever the malice of the demon 
" could inflict ; and he only wished to die in the presence 
" of his faithful flock, and at the foot of the altar : he had 
" not contributed to excite, but it was in the power of God 
" alone to appease, the rage of the people : he deprecated 
" the scenes of blood and confusion which were likely to 
" ensue : and it was his fervent prayer, that he might not 
" survive to behold the ruin of a flourishing city, and per- 
'* haps the desolation of all Italy. 46 " The obstinate bigotry 
of Justina would have endangered the empire of her son, 
if, in this contest with the church and people of Milan, she 
could have depended on the active obedience of the troops 
of the palace. A large body of Goths had marched to 
occupy the Basilica, which was the object of the dispute ; 
and it might be expected from the Arian principles, and 
barbarous manners, of these foreign mercenaries, that they 
would not entertain any scruples in the execution of the 
most sanguinary orders. They were encountered, on the 
sacred threshold, by the archbishop, who thundering against 
them a sentence of excommunication, asked them, in the 
tone of a father and a master, whether it was to invade the 
house of God, that they had implored the hospitable pro- 
tection of the republic? The suspense of the barbarians 
allowed some hours for a more effectual negotiation ; and 
the empress was persuaded, by the advice ol her wisest 
counsellors, to leave the Catholics in possession of all the 
churches of Milan ; and to dissemble, till a more convenient 
season, her intentions of revenge. The mother of Valen- 
tinian could never forgive the triumph of Ambrose ; and 

46 Retz had a similar message from the queen, to request that he would appease 
the tumult of Paris. It was no longer in his power, &c. A quoi j'ajoutai tout ce 
que vous pouvez vous imaginer de respect, de douleur, de regret, et de soumis- 
sion, &c. {Metnoires, torn. i. p. 140.) Certainly I do not compare either the 
causes or the men ; yet the coadjutor himself had some idea, (p. 84), of imitating 
St. Ambrose. 



EDICT OF TOLERATION. 521 

the royal youth uttered a passionate exclamation, that his 
own servants were ready to betray him into the hands of an 
insolent priest. 

The laws of the empire, some of which were A D 86 
inscribed with the name of Valentinian, still con- ' ' 3 
demned the Arian heresy, and seemed to excuse the resist- 
ance of the Catholics. By the influence of Justina, an edict 
of toleration was promulgated in all the provinces which 
were subject to the court of Milan : the free exercise of 
their religion was granted to those who professed the faith 
of Rimini ; and the emperor declared, that all persons who 
should infringe this sacred and salutary constitution, should 
be capitally punished, as the enemies of the public peace. 4 ' 
The character and language of the archbishop of Milan 
may justify the suspicion, that his conduct soon afforded a 
reasonable ground, or at least a specious pretence, to the 
Arian ministers, who watched the opportunity of surprising 
him in some act of disobedience to a law, which he strangely 
represents as a law of blood and tyranny. A sentence of 
easy and honorable banishment was pronounced, which 
enjoined Ambrose to depart from Milan without delay; 
whilst it permitted him to choose the place of his exile, and 
the number of his companions. But the authority of the 
saints who have preached and practiced the maxims of 
passive loyalty, appeared to Ambrose of less moment than 
the extreme and pressing danger of the church. He boldly 
refused to obey; and his refusal was supported by the 
unanimous consent of his faithful people. 48 They guarded 
by turns the person of their archbishop ; the gates of the 
cathedral and the episcopal palace were strongly secured ; 
and the imperial troops, who had formed the blockade, 
were unwilling to risk the attack of that impregnable 
fortress. The numerous poor, who had been relieved by 
the liberality of Ambrose, embraced the fair occasion of 
signalizing their zeal and gratitude ; and as the patience of 
the multitude might have been exhausted by the length 
and uniformity of nocturnal vigils, he prudently introduced 
into the church of Milan the useful institution of a loud and 
regular psalmody, while he maintained this arduous con- 
test, he was instructed, by a dream, to open the earth in a 

47 Sozomen alone, (1. vii. c. 13), throws this luminous fact into a dark and per' 
plexed narrative. 

a Excubabat pia plebs in ecclesia, mori parata cum episcopo suo * * * Nos, 
adhuc frigidi, excitabamur tamen civitate attonit atquea turbata. Augustin. 
Confession, 1. ix. c 7. 



522 DISCOVERY OF RELICS. 

place where the remains of two martyrs, Gervasius and 
Protasius, 49 had been deposited above three hundred years. 
Immediately under the pavement of the church two perfect 
skeletons were found, 50 with the heads separated from their 
bodies, and a plentiful effusion of blood. The holy relics 
were presented, in solemn pomp, to the veneration of the 
people : and every circumstance of this fortunate discovery 
was admirably adapted to promote the designs of Ambrose. 
The bones of the martyrs, their blood, their garments, were 
supposed to contain a healing power ; and their preter- 
natural influence was communicated to the most distant 
objects, without losing any part of its original virtue. The 
extraordinary cure of a blind man, 51 and the reluctant con- 
fessions of several demoniacs, appeared to justify the faith 
and sanctity of Ambrose ; and the truth of those miracles 
is attested by Ambrose himself, by his secretary Paulinus, 
and by his proselyte, the celebrated Augustin, who, at that 
time, professed the art of rhetoric in Milan. The reason of 
the present age may possibly approve the incredulity of 
Justina and her Arian court : who derided the theatrical 
representations which were exhibited by the contrivance 
and at the expense of the archbishop. 52 Their effect, how- 
ever, on the minds of the people, was rapid and irresistible ; 
and the feeble sovereign of Italy found himself unable to 
contend with the favorite of heaven. The powers likewise 
of the earth interposed in the defence of Ambrose ; the dis- 
interested advice of Theodosius was the genuine result of 
piety and friendship ; and the mask of religious zeal con- 
cealed the hostile and ambitious designs of the tyrant of 
Gaul. 53 



49 Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. ii. pp. 78, 49S. Many churches in Italy, Gaul, 
&c, were dedicated to these unknown martyrs, of whom St. Gervaise seems to 
have been more fortunate than his companion. 

50 Invenimus mirae magnitudinis viros duos, ut prisca setas ferebat, torn. ii. 
Epist. xxii. p. 875. The size of these skeletons was fortunately, or skillfully, 
suited to the popular prejudice of the gradual decrease of the human stature, 
which has prevailed in every age since the time of Homer. 

Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulchris. 
si Ambros. torn. ii. Epist. xxii. p. 875. Augustin. Confes. 1. ix. c 7, de Civitat. 
Dei, 1. xxii. c. 8. Paulin, in Vita St. Ambros. c. 14, Append. Benedict, p. 4. 
The blind man's name was Severus ; he touched the holy garment, recovered his 
sight, and devoted the rest of his life, (at least twenty-five years), to the service 
of the church. I should recommend this miracle to our divines, if it did not 
prove the worship of relics, as well as the Nicene creed. 

52 Paulin. in Tit. St. Ambros. c. 5, in Append. Benedict, p. 5. 

53 Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. x. pp. 190, 750. He partially allows the media- 
tion of Theodosius, and capriciously rejects that of Maximus, though it is attested 
by Prosper. Sozomen, and Theodoret. 






INFLUENCE OF AMBROSE. 523 

The respectful attachment of the emperor influence and 
[Theodosius] for the orthodox clergy, had dis- T*£££? 
posed him to love and admire the character of A - D - 3§s. 
Ambrose ; who united all the episcopal virtues in the most 
eminent degree. The friends and ministers of Theodosius 
imitated the example of their sovereign ; and he observed, 
with more surprise than displeasure, that all his secret 
counsels were immediately communicated to the archbishop ; 
who acted from the laudable persuasion that every measure 
of civil government may have some connexion with the 
glory of God and the interests of the true religion. The 
monks and populace of Callinicum,* an obscure town on the 
frontier of Persia, excited by their own fanaticism, and by 
that of their bishop, had tumultuously burnt a conventicle 
of the Valentinians, and a synagogue of the Jews. The 
seditious prelate was condemned, by the magistrate of the 
province, either to rebuild the synagogue or to repay the 
damage ; and this moderate sentence was confirmed by the 
emperor. But it was not confirmed by the archbishop of 
Milan. 54 He dictated an epistle of censure and reproach, 
more suitable, perhaps, if the emperor had received the 
mark of circumcision, and renounced the faith of his 
baptism. Ambrose considers the toleration of the Jewish, 
as the persecution of the Christian, religion ; boldly declares, 
that he himself, and every true believer, would eagerly dis- 
pute with the bishop of Callinicum the merit of the deed, 
and the crown of martyrdom ; and laments in the most 
pathetic terms, that the execution of the sentence would be 
fatal to the fame and salvation of Theodosius. As this 
private admonition did not produce an immediate effect, 
the archbishop, from his pulpit, 55 publicly addressed the 
emperor on his throne ; 56 nor would he consent to offer the 
oblation of the altar, till he had obtained from Theodosius 
a solemn and positive declaration, which secured the 
impunity of the bishop and monks of Callinicum. The 

64 See the whole transaction in Ambrose, (torn. ii. Epist. xl. xli. pp. 946-956), and 
his biographer, Paulinus, (c. 23). Bayle and Barbeyrac, {Morale des Peres, c. xvii. 
p. 325, &c), have justly condemned the archbishop. 

55 His sermon is a strange allegory of Jeremiah's rod, of an almond tree, of the 
woman who washed and anointed the feet of Christ. But the peroration is direct 
and personal. 

56 Hodie, Episcope, de me proposuisti. Ambrose modestly confessed it; but he 
sternly reprimanded Timasius, general of the horse and foot, who had presumed 
to say that the monks of Callinicum deserved punishment. 

* Racca, on the Euphrates.— Milman. 



524 PENANCE OF THEODOSIUS. 

recantation of Theodosius was sincere; 57 and, during the 
term of his residence at Milan, his affection for Ambrose 
was continually increased by the habits of pious and familiar 
conversation. 

Penance of When Ambrose was informed of the massacre 
Theodosius. of Thessalonica, [by the order of Theodosius], 
his mind was filled with horror and anguish. 
He retired into the country to indulge his grief, and 
to avoid the presence of Theodosius. But as the arch- 
bishop was satisfied that a timid silence would render 
him the accomplice of his guilt, he represented, in a 
private letter, the enormity of the crime ; which could 
only be effaced by the tears of penitence. The epis- 
copal vigor of Ambrose was tempered by prudence ; and he 
contented himself with signifying 58 an indirect sort of ex- 
communication, by the assurance, that he had been warned 
in a vision not to offer the oblation in the name, or in the 
presence, of Theodosius ; and by the advice, that he would 
confine himself to the use of prayer, without presuming to 
approach the altar of Christ, or to receive the holy eucharist 
with those hands that were still polluted with the blood of 
an innocent people. The emperor was deeply affected by 
his own reproaches, and by those of his spiritual father ; 
and, after he had bewailed the mischievous and irreparable 
consequences of his rash fury, he proceeded, in the ac- 
customed manner, to perform his devotions in the great 
church of Milan. He was stopped in the porch by the 
archbishop ; who, in the tone and language of an ambassador 
of Heaven, declared to his sovereign, that private contrition 
was not sufficient to atone for a public fault, or to appease 
the justice of the offended Deity. Theodosius humbly 
represented, that if he had contracted the guilt of homicide, 
David, the man after God's own heart, had been guilty, 
not only of murder, but of adultery. " You have imitated 
" David in his crime, imitate then his repentance," was the 
reply of the undaunted Ambrose. The rigorous conditions 
of peace and pardon were accepted ; and the public penance 
of the emperor Theodosius has been recorded as one of the 

57 Vet, five years afterwards, when Theodosius was absent from his spiritual 
guide, he tolerated the Jews, and condemned the destruction of their synagogues. 
Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. viii. leg. 9. with Godefroy's Commentary, torn. vi. p. 225. 

56 Ambros. torn. ii. Epist. li. pp. 997-ioor. His epistle is a miserable rhapsody 
on a noble subject. Ambrose could act better than he could write. His compo- 
sitions are destitute of taste, or genius ; without the spirit of Tertullian, the 
copious elegance of Lactantius, the lively wit of Jerom, or the grave energy of 
Augustin. 



AMBROSE PARDONS THEODOSIUS. 525 

most honorable events in the annals of the church. Accord- 
ing" to the mildest rules of ecclesiastical discipline, which 
were established in the fourth century, the crime of homicide 
was expiated by the penitence of twenty years : 69 and as it 
was impossible, in the period of human life, to purge the 
accumulated guilt of the massacre of Thessalonica, the 
murderer should have been excluded from the holy com- 
munion till the hour of his death. But the archbishop, 
consulting the maxims of religious policy, granted some 
indulgence to the rank of his illustrious penitent, w r ho 
humbled in the dust the pride of the diadem ; and the 
public edification might be admitted as a weighty reason to 
abridge the duration of his punishment. It was sufficient 
that the emperor of the Romans, stripped of the ensigns 
of royalty, should appear in a mournful and suppliant 
posture ; and that, in the midst of the church of Milan, he 
should humbly solicit, with sighs and tears, the pardon of 
his sins. 60 In this spiritual cure, Ambrose employed the 
various methods of mildness and severity. After a delay 
of about eight months, Theodosius was restored to the 
communion of the faithful ; and the edict, which interposes 
a salutary interval of thirty days between the sentence and 
the execution, may be accepted as the worthy fruits of his 
repentance. 61 Posterity has applauded the virtuous firmness 
of the archbishop : and the example of Theodosius may 
prove the beneficial influence of those principles which could 
force a monarch, exalted above the apprehension of human 
punishment, to respect the laws and ministers of an invisible 
Judge. " The prince" (says Montesquieu) " who is actuated 
" by the hopes and fears of religion, may be compared to a 
" lion, docile only to the voice, and tractable to the hand, 
" of his keeper." 62 The motions of the royal animal will, 
therefore, depend on the inclination and interest of the man 
who has acquired such dangerous authority over him ; and 

59 According to the discipline of St. Basil, {Canon, lvi.), the voluntary- homicide 
was four years a mourner : five a hearer ; seven in a prostrate state ; and four in 
a standing posture. I have the original, (Beveridge, Pandect, torn. ii. pp. 47-151), 
and a translation, (Chardon, Hist, des Sacremens, torn. iv. pp. 219-277), of the 
Canonical Epistles of St. Basil. 

60 The penance of Theodosius is authenticated by Ambrose, (torn. vi. de Obit. 
Theodos. c. 34, p. 1207), Augustin, {de Civitat. Dei. v. 26), and Paulinus, (in Vit. 
Ambros. c. 24). Socrates ^s ignorant ; Sozomen, 1. vii. c. 25, concise ; and the 
copious narrative of Tfieodoret, (1. v. c. 18), must be used with precaution. 

6J Codex Theodos. 1. ix. tit. xl. leg. 13. The date and circumstances of this law 
are perplexed with difficulties ; but I feel myself inclined to favor the honest 
efforts of Tillemont, {Hist, des Emp. torn. v. p. 721), and Pagi, {Critica, torn. i. 
P- 578). j v , 

62 Un prince qui aime la religion, et qui la craint, est un lion qui cede a la mam 
qui le flatte, ou a la voix qui l'appaise. Esprit des Loix, 1. xxiv. c. 2. 



526 



POWER OF THE ROMAN HIERARCHY. 



the priest who holds in his hand the conscience of a king, 
may inflame, or moderate, his sanguinary passions. The 
cause of humanity, and that of persecution, have been 
asserted by the same Ambrose, with equal energy and with 
equal success.* 

*The whole course of the hierarchy was gradual in its approaches, and bold in 
maintaining its ground. In such manner, Ambrose proceeded with successive 
emperors. Gratian, on ascending the throne, withdrew the usual state allow- 
ances and other privileges from the heathen priesthood. A part of the senate 
of Rome deputed Symmachus to intercede for them, and implore a revocation of 
the harsh decree. Ambrose presented a counter-memorial from Damasus, bishop 
of Rome, and prevailed on the emperor to reject the petition of the profane. On 
the accession of Valentinian II., this petition was repeated. Ambrose then ven- 
tured a stride further. " If you yield," he said to the young prince and his 
advisers, " we, bishops, could not quietly tolerate it. You might come to the 
" church ; but you would find there no priest ; or, if any, one who would forbid 
" your approach." {Symmach. lib. 2, Epist. 7; lib. 10, Epist. 61. Ambros. Epist. 
57.) Gibbon has shown that his subsequent progress was still more daring. From 
his triumph over a weak youth and a woman, he went on to control the manlier 
intellect of Theodosius. Crimes as horrid as the Thessalonian massacre have 
often been passed over in silence by the priesthood, sanctioned by their applause, 
or instigated by their vengeance, as circumstances required. But Ambrose saw 
an opportunity for a proud display of his own power, which would also confirm 
and extend that of his order. The penance of Theodosius, the Roman, prepared 
the future humiliation of Henry, the German. If a mind, like that of the former, 
capable of wielding the sceptre of the world, and arresting for a time the fall of a 
tottering state, could thus bow down from the height of imperial greatness, to 
humble itself before a priest, armed only with the terrors of a corrupt religion, 
we may judge how all inferior classes quailed in abject prostration before the 
same stern authority. The voice which dooms to eternal misery those whom it 
excludes from the rites of the church, quells every energy, and unfits the trem- 
bling devotee for the business of life. Stupefied, enervated, paralyzed, he can 
neither avert calamity nor achieve good ; and if at times roused to action, at the 
bidding and for the purposes of his subduer, all his efforts evaporate in empty 
clamor, or the transient paroxysms of maddened ferocity. Such was the state of 
the Roman world fifteen centuries ago, and such is, even now, the dark picture • 
that presents itself to our view, wherever like hierarchies trample on subdued 
mind.— Eng. Ch. 




Laocoon. Group in the Vatican. 




SERAPIS. 



SERAPIS. 

THIS was one of the Egyptian deities supposed to be identical with Osiris. 
Magnificent temples, called Serapea^ were erected to this god at Memphis, 
Canopus, and Alexandria. The worship of Serapis was introduced at Rome 
by the emperor Antoninus Pius, a. d. 146, and the Mysteries celebrated on the sixth 
of May. The engraving of Serapis shown on the preceding page represents the 
god grasping in his left hand the tail of a huge serpent, which is entwined around 
his body, while the head appears at his feet. Between the folds of the reptile are 
seen figures of men and various animals, the symbolical meaning of which can 
only be conjectured. Like all the images of Seraois, the countenance has the 
stern aspect of Jupiter, and the head is surmounted with the calathus or basket 
peculiar to this Egyptian deity. 

On page 204 of The Diegesis, the Rev. Robt. Taylor quotes from Socrat. Eccl. 
Hist. lib. 5. c. 17, as follows : " In the temple of Serapis, now overthrown and 
" rifled throughout, there were found engraven in the stones certain letters 
" which thev call hieroglyphical ; the manner of their engraving resembled the 
" form of the cross. The which, when both Christians and Ethnics beheld be- 
'• fore them, every one applied them to his proper religion. The Christians 
*' affirmed that the Cross was a sign or token of the passion of Christ, and the 
" proper symbol of their profession. The Ethnics avouched that therein was 
" contained something in common, belonging as well to Serapis as to Christ; and 
" that the sign of the cross signified one thing unto the Ethnics, and another to 
" the Christians. While they contended thus about the meaning of these hiero- 
" glyphical letters, many of the Ethnics became Christians, for they perceived at 
" length the sense and meaning of those letters, and that they prognosticated 
" salvation and life to come." 

" This most important evidence," continues Taylor, " of the utter indifference 
" between Christianity and ancient Paganism, is supplied by a Christian historian ; 
" and independent of its fairness, as taken from such a source, and its inherent 
" verisimilitude, it is corroborated by a parallel passage from the ecclesiastical his- 
" torv of Sozomenes, who, about the year 443, wrote the history of the church from 
" the' reign of Constantine the Great to that of the younger Theodosius. He is 
" speaking of the temple of the god Serapis : — ' It is reported that when this 
" ' temple was destroyed, there appeared some of those characters called hiero- 
" ' glvphics, surrounding the sign of the cross, in engraven stones ; and that, by 
"' the skillful in these matters, these hieroglyphics were held to have signified 
" 'this inscription— the life to come! And this became a pretence for be- 
" ' coming Christians to many of the Grecians, because there were even other 
" ' letters which signified this sacred end when this character appeared.' " 

" The charge of Serapidolatry, or the worship of the god Serapis, was brought 
" against the primitive Christians, by no vulgar accuser, no bigoted intolerant 
" reviler, but by that philosophic and truth-respecting witness, the emperor 
" Adrian. In a certain letter which he writes, while in the course of his travels, 
" to the Consul Servianus, he states, that he found the worshipers of the god 
" Serapis in that country distinguished by the name of Christians. ' Those,' he 
" says, ' who worship Serapis are Christians ; and those who are especially con- 
" " secrated to Serapis, call themselves the bishops of Christ.' In relief of which 
" charge, the learned Kortholt, from whose valuable work, the Paganus Obtrec- 
" tator, I have taken this passage, pleads, and indeed it might be so, that when 
" this emperor was in Egypt, some of the Christians, actuated by fear, concealing 
" their true religion for a season, might have held out an appearance of having 
" embraced the superstition of the Pagans. Thus, in the Ancient Martyrology. 
" in the history 01 Epicharmus, an Egyptian martyr, it is related that all the 
" Christians in Alexandria, upon the coming of a cruel judge, either fled away, 
" or pretended to be still followers of the Pagan impiety : and if the approach of 
" a judge only could produce this effect, it is no wonder that the coming of the 
" emperor himself, and he, as they all knew, being a most strenuous assenor of 
" the Gentile superstitions, should have a similar effect." 

•In the preface to the Mysteries of Adoni, the learned author. S. F. Dunlap, in 
speaking of the Mysteries of Religion and the Religion of the Mysteries, quotes 
from St. Augustin" the following pregnant admission, which is also quoted at 
greater length by Rev. Robert Tavlor, page 42 of The Diegesis, from which 
latter author we have copied : "In our times is the Christian Religion, 
" (says St. Augustin,) which to know and follow is the most sure and certain 
" health, called according to that name, but not according to the thing itself, of 
" which it is the name ; for the thing itself, which is now called the Christian 
" Religion, reallv was known to the ancients, nor was wanting at any time from 
'' the beginning of the human race, until the time when Christ came in the flesh, 
" from whence the true religion, which had previouslv existed, began to be called 
" Christian; and this in our days is the Christian religion, not as having been 

wanting in former times, but as having in later times received this name."— E. 




FINAL DESTRUCTION OF PAGANISM. — INTRODUCTION OF 
THE WORSHIP OF SAINTS AND RELICS, AMONG THE 
CHRISTIAN3.f 

THE ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theo- T h e destruc- 
dosius, is perhaps the only example of tio " °J the 
the total extirpation of any ancient and religion. 
popular superstition ; and may, therefore, de- A " D * 3~s-395- 
serve to be considered as a singular event in the history of the 
human mind. The Christians, more especially the clergy, 
had impatiently supported the prudent delays of Con- 
stantine, and the equal toleration of the elder Valentinian ; 
nor could they deem their conquest perfect or secure, as 
long as their adversaries were permitted to exist. The 
influence which Ambrose and his brethren had acquired 
over the youth of Gratian and the piety of Theodosius, was 
employed to infuse the maxims of persecution into the 
breasts of their imperial proselytes. Two specious principles 
of religious jurisprudence were established, from whence 
they deduced a direct and rigorous conclusion against the 
subjects of the empire who still adhered to the ceremonies 
of their ancestors : that the magistrate is, in some measure, 

* Ixion, son of Phlegyas, and king of Lapithae. He treacherously murdered 
his wife's father, to avoid payment of the bridal gifts he had promised. For this 
murder, he was purified by Zeus, who carried him to Olympus. Ixion, proving 
ungrateful to the father of the gods, attempted to win the love of Hera. As a 
punishment far this ingratitude, Ixion was chained by Mercury to a wheel, which 
revolved perpetually in the air, thus symbolizing the' continuous punishment of 
those who transgress the laws of justice and morality. — E. 

t Chap* XXYIU. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

1527) 



528 DESTRUCTION OF PAGANISM. 

guilty of the crimes which he neglects to prohibit or to 
punish ; and that the idolatrous worship of fabulous deities 
and real demons, is the most abominable crime against the 
supreme majesty of the Creator. The laws of Moses, and 
the examples of Jewish history, 1 were hastily, perhaps erro- 
neously, applied, by the clergy, to the mild and universal 
reign of Christianity. 2 The zeal of the emperors was ex- 
cited to vindicate their own honor and that of the Deity ; 
and the temples of the Roman world were subverted about 
sixty years after the conversion of Constantine. 

state of From the age of Numa to the reign of Gratian, 

Paganism at the Romans preserved the regular succession of 

Rome " the several colleges of the sacerdotal order. 3 
Fifteen Pontiffs exercised their supreme jurisdiction over 
all things and persons, that were consecrated to the service 
of the gods ; and the various questions which perpetually 
arose in a loose and traditionary system, were submitted 
to the judgment of their holy tribunal. Fifteen grave and 
learned Augurs observed the face of the heavens, and 
prescribed the actions of heroes, according to the flight of 
birds. Fifteen keepers of the Sibylline books (their name 
of Quindecemvirs was derived from their number) occa- 
sionally consulted the history of future, and, as it should 

i St. Ambrose, (torn. ii. de Obit. Theodos. p. 1208), expressly praises and recom- 
mends the zeal of Josiah in the destruction of idolatry. The language of Julius 
Firmicus Maternus on the same subject, (de En-ore Pro/an. Relig. p. 467, edit. 
Gronov.), is piously inhuman. Nee riiio jubet, (the Mosaic law;, parci, nee fratri, 
et per ainatam conjugem gladium vindicem ducit, &c. 

2 Bayle, (torn ii. p. 405, in his Commentaire Philosophique), justifies, and limits 
these intolerant laws by the temporal reign of Jehovah over the Jews. The 
attempt is laudable. 

3 See the outlines of the Roman hierarchy in Cicero, (de Legibus, ii. 7. 8), Livy^ 
li. 2oi. Dionysius Halicarnassensis, (1. ii. pp. 119-129, edit. Hudson). Beaufort, 
{Republique Romaine, torn. i. pp. 1-90), and Moyl*, (vol. i. pp. 10-55). The last is 
the work of an English whig, as well as of a Roman antiquary.* 

* These colleges, though regularly kept up, had not uniformly the same number 
of members. In the vicissitudes of the republic, they underwent various changes. 
Numa instituted four Pontifices and four Augures, two of each for the Ramnes, 
or Latin tribe, and as many for the Tities, or Sabine tribe, who constituted, 
together, the first nobility of Rome. By the Ogulnian law, so called from its 
authors, Q. and Cn. Ogulnius, who were Tribunes of the people, A. u. c. 453, 
each of these two colleges was increased to nine members, by the addition of four 
plebes, with a Pontifex Maximus for the priests, and a Magister Collegii for the 
Augures. It was not till about 220 years afterwards, that their numbers were 
raised to 15 by Sylla, during his dictatorship, (a. u. c. 673. JViebuhr's Lectures, 
vol. i.. pp. 124, 130, 523: vol. ii., p. 389.) The vestals were six from the time of 
the second Tarquin, who either, according to Livy, added two to Numa's four, 
or according to Festus, reduced them to that number. The first confraternity 
or college of Salii, appointed by Numa, consisted of twelve, called Palatini, from 
their residence on mount Palatine. Tullus Hostilius added a second college of 
Salii, named Collini or Quirinales, being located on the Quirinal hill. The two 
original confraternities of the Luperci were designated Fabii and Quinctiliani, 
after their two first presidents Julius Caesar added a third, whom he denomi- 
nated Julii, in honor of his own family.— Eng. Ch. 



THE PAGAN RELIGION. 529 

seem, of contingent, events. Six Vestals devoted their 
virginity to the guard of the sacred fire, and of the un- 
known pledges of the duration of Rome; which no mortal 
had been suffered to behold with impunity. 4 Seven Epulos 
prepared the table of the gods, conducted the solemn pro- 
cession, and regulated the ceremonies of the annual festival. 
The three Flamens of Jupiter, of Mars, and of Ouirinus, 
were considered as the peculiar ministers of the three most 
powerful deities, who watched over the fate of Rome and 
of the universe. The King of the Sacrifices represented 
the person of Numa, and of his successors, in the religious 
functions, which could be performed only by royal hands. 
The confraternities of the Salians, the Lupercals, &c., 
practiced such rites as might extort a smile of contempt 
from every reasonable man, with a lively confidence of 
recommending themselves to the favor of the immortal 
gods. The authority, which the Roman priests had 
formerly obtained in the counsels of the republic, was gradu- 
ally abolished by the establishment of monarchy, and the 
removal of the seat of empire. But the dignity of their 
sacred character was still protected by the laws and manners 
of their country ; and they still continued, more especially 
the college of pontiffs, to exercise in the capital, and some- 
times in the provinces, the rights of their ecclesiastical and 
civil jurisdiction. Their robes of purple, chariots of state, 
and sumptuous entertainments, attracted the admiration of 
the people ; and they received, from the consecrated lands, 
and the public revenue, an ample stipend, which liberally 
supported the splendor of the priesthood, and all the ex- 
penses of the religious worship of the state. As the service 
of the altar was not incompatible with the command of 
armies, the Romans, after their consulships and triumphs, 
aspired to the place of pontiff, or of augur ; the seats of 
Cicero 5 and Pompey were filled, in the fourth century, by 

4 These mystic, and perhaps imaginary, symbols have given birth to various 
fables and conjectures. It seems probable, that the Palladium was a small statue, 
(three cubits and a half high), of Minerva, with a lance and distaff; that it was 
usually enclosed in a seria, or barrel ; and that a similar barrel was placed by its 
side to disconcert curiosity, or sacrilege. See Mezeriac, (Comment, szirles Epitres 
d'Ovide, torn. i. pp. 60-66), and Lipsius, (torn. iii. p. 610, de Vesta, &c, c. 10.) 

5 Cicero frankly, (ad Atticum, 1. ii. Epist. 5), or indirectly, (ad Familiar, 1. xv. 
Epist. 4), confesses that the Angnrate is the supreme object of his wishes. Pliny 
is proud to tread in the footsteps of Cicero, (1. iv. Epist. 8), and the chain of tra- 
dition might be continued from history and marbles.* 



* These colleges were the heads only of that establishment, whose motives for 
instigating the persecution of their Christian rivals, have been the subject of 
foregoing notes. Here are seen the endowments and the splendor which they 
strove to protect, and their wide connections with the powerful families whom 



530 THE ALTAR OF VICTORY. 

the most illustrious members of the senate ; and the dignity 
of their birth reflected additional splendor on their sacerdotal 
character. The fifteen priests, who composed the college 
of pontiffs, enjoyed a more distinguished rank as the com- 
panions of their sovereign ; and the Christian emperors 
condescended to accept the robe and ensigns, which were 
appropriated to the office of supreme pontiff. But when 
Gratian ascended the throne, more scrupulous, or more 
enlightened, he sternly rejected those profane symbols ; 6 
applied to the service of the state, or of the church, the 
revenues of the priests and vestals ; * abolished their honors 
and immunities ; and dissolved the ancient fabric of Roman 
superstition, which was supported by the opinions, and 
habits, of eleven hundred years. Paganism was still the 
constitutional religon of the senate. The hall, or temple, 
in which they assembled, was adorned by the statue and 
altar of Victory : 7 a majestic female standing on a globe, 
with flowing garments, expanded wings, and a crown of 
laurel in her outstretched hand. 8 The senators were sworn 
on the altar of the goddess, to observe the laws of the em- 
peror and of the empire ; and a solemn offering of wine and 
incense was the ordinary prelude of their public delibera- 
tions. 9 The removal of this ancient monument was the 
only injury which Constantius had offered to the superstition 
of the Romans. The altar of Victory was again restored 
by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more banished 

c Zosimus, I. iv. pp. 249, 250. I have suppressed the foolish pun about Pontifex 
and Maximus. 

' This statue was transported from Tarentum to Rome, placed in the Curia 
Julia by Caesar, and decorated by Augustus with the spoils of Egypt. 

8 Prudentius, (1. ii. in initio), has drawn a very awkward portrait of Victory; 
but the curious reader will obtain more satisfaction from Montfaucon's Antiqui- 
ties, (torn. i. p. 341.) 

9 See Suetonius, (in August, c. 35), and the Exordium of Pliny's Panegyric. 

they interested in their cause. The reader must add to them, the many similar 
bodies, distributed throughout the empire, their numerous dependents, their 
subordinate functionaries and the multitudes whose gains and livelihood were 
obtained by supplying the materials of a worship, which consumed solid testi- 
monials of piety more largely than any other. If he considers these, he will 
probably arrive at the conclusion, that the Pagan hostility to Christianity was 
attributable to mercenary rather than religious causes. — Eng. Ch. 

Mercenary motives are seldom the cause of religious persecution. It is the 
zeal of bigotry which condemns and tortures its opponents. — E. 

* The arbitrary and oppressive character of these proceedings seems to have 
been in turning adrift the recipients of income, without any provision for com- 
pensation or support. The state has an unquestionable right to deal with 
revenues which it bestows, or which, if bestowed by others, would be invalid 
without its sanction. But it is equally bound to respect and maintain the tenures 
which it creates. It is only when the term of tenure expires, that the property 
and the right to dispose of it, revert to the state. The abstract claim of corpora- 
tions, which exist only by the authority of the state, to a perpetuity of possession, 
beyond the lives of their members, is visionary. The immunity of private, can- 
not be extended to public, property.— Eng. Ch. 



SYMMACHUS DEFENDS PAGANISM. 53I 

from the senate by the zeal of Gratian. 10 But the emperor 
yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed to 
the public veneration : four hundred and twenty-four 
temples, or chapels, still remained to satisfy the devotion 
of the people : and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy 
of the Christians was offended by the fumes of idolatrous 
sacrifice. 11 

But the Christians formed the least numerous 
party in the senate of Rome ; 12 and it was only fenat? fo^the 
by their absence, that they could express their altar of 
dissent from the legal, though profane, acts of a a.' d ^. 
Pagan majority. In that assembly, the dying 
embers of freedom were, for a moment, revived and inflamed 
by the breath of fanaticism. Four respectable deputations 
were successively voted to the imperial court, 13 to represent 
the grievances of the priesthood and the senate ; and to 
solicit the restoration of the altar of Victory. The conduct 
of this important business was intrusted to the eloquent 
Symmachus, 14 a wealthy and noble senator, who united the 
sacred characters of pontiff and augur, with the civil digni- 
ties of proconsul of Africa, and praefect of the city. The 
breast of Symmachus was animated by the warmest zeal 
for the cause of expiring Paganism; and bis religious 
antagonists lamented the abuse of his genius, and the 
inefficacy of his moral virtues. 15 The orator, whose petition 
to the emperor Valentinian is extant, was conscious of the 
difficulty and danger of the office which he had assumed. 
He cautiously avoids every topic which might appear to 
reflect on the religion of his sovereign ; humbly declares, 

io These facts are mutually allowed by the two advocates, Svmmachus and 
Ambrose. 

11 The Notitia Urbis, more recent than Constantine, does not find one Christian 
church worthy to be named among the edifices of the city. Ambrose (torn. ii. 
Epist. xvii. p. 825) deplores the public scandals of Rome, which continually of- 
fended the eyes, the ears, and the nostrils of the faithful. 

12 Ambrose repeatedly affirms, in contradiction to common sense, (Jlfoyte's 
Works, vol. ii. p. 147), that the Christians had a majority in the senate. 

13 The first (a. d. 382) to Gratian, who refused them audience ; the second (a. d. 
384) to Valentinian, when the field was disputed by Symmachus and Ambrose; 
the third (a. d. 388) to Theodosius ; and the fourth (a. d. 392) to Valentinian. 
Lardner {Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. pp. 372-399) fairly represents the whole 
transaction. 

14 Symmachus, who was invested with all the civil and sacerdotal honors repre- 
sented the emperor under the two characters of Pontifex Maximus and Princeps 
Senatus. See the proud inscription at the head of his works.* 

io As if any one, says Prudeutius (in Symmach. i. 639) should dig in the mud 
with an instrument of gold and ivory. Even saints, and polemic saints, treat this 
adversary with respect and civility. 

* M. Beugnot has made it doubtful whether Symmachus was more than Pon- 
tifex Major. Destruction du Paganisme, vol. i. p. 459. — M. 



532 



ROMA S PLEA FOR ANCIENT RITES. 



that prayers and entreaties are his only arms ; and artfully 
draws his arguments from the schools of rhetoric, rather 
than from those of philosophy. Symmachus endeavors to 
seduce the imagination of a young prince, by displaying 
the attributes of the goddess of Victory : he insinuates, that 

the confiscation of the rev- 
enues, which were conse- 
crated to the service of the 
gods, was a measure un- 
worthy of his liberal and 
disinterested character; and 
he maintains, that the Ro- 
man sacrifices would be 
deprived of their force and 
energy, if they were no 
longer celebrated at the ex- 
pense, as well as in the 
name of the republic. Even 
scepticism is made to sup- 
ply an apology for supersti- 
tion. The great and incom- 
prehensible secret of the 
universe eludes the inquiry 
of man. Where reason 
cannot instruct, custom 
may be permitted to guide ; 
Victory, and every nation seems to 

consult the dictates of prudence, by a faithful attachment to 
those rites and opinions which have received the sanction of 
ages. If those ages have been crowned with glory and pros- 
perity, if the devout people have frequently obtained the 
blessings which they have solicited at the altars of the gods, 
it must appear still more advisable to persist in the same 
salutary practice, and not to risk the unknown perils that may 
attend any rash innovations. The test of antiquity and suc- 
cess w r as applied with singular advantage to the religion of 
Numa ; and Rome herself, the celestial genius that presided 
over the fates of the city, is introduced by the orator to 
plead her own cause before the tribunal of the emperors. 
" Most excellent princes," (says the venerable matron), 
" fathers of your country! pity and respect my age, which 
" has hitherto flowed in an uninterrupted course of piety. 
" Since I do not repent, permit me to continue in the 




CONVERSION OF ROME. 533 

" practice of my ancient rites. Since I am born free, allow 
" me to enjoy my domestic institutions. This religion has 
" reduced the world under my laws. These rites have re- 
" pelled Hannibal from the city, and the Gauls from the 
" capitol. Were my grey hairs reserved for such intolerable 
" disgrace ? I am ignorant of the new system, that I am 
" required to adopt ; but I am well assured, that the 
" correction of old age is always an ungrateful and ignomi- 
" nious office." 16 The fears of the people supplied what 
the discretion of the orator had suppressed ; and the 
calamities, which afflicted, or threatened, the declining 
empire, were unanimously imputed, by the Pagans, to the 
new religion of Christ and of Constantine. 

But the hopes of Symmachus were repeatedly conversion of 
baffled by the firm and dexterous opposition of Rome, 
the archbishop of Milan ; who fortified the em- A ' D ' s88, &c ' 
peror against the fallacious eloquence of the advocate of 
Rome. In this controversy, Ambrose condescends to speak 
the language of a philosopher, and to ask, with some con- 
tempt, why it should be thought necessary to introduce an 
imaginary and invisible power, as the cause of those 
victories, which were sufficiently explained by the valor 
and discipline of the legions. He justly derides the absurd 
reverence for antiquity, which could only tend to discourage 
the improvements of art, and to replunge the human race 
into their original barbarism. From thence gradually rising 
to a more lofty and theological tone, he pronounces, that 
Christianity alone is the doctrine of truth and salvation ; and 
that every mode of polytheism conducts its deluded votaries, 
through the paths of error, to the abyss of eternal perdition. 17 
Arguments like these, when they were suggested by a 
favorite bishop, had power to prevent the restoration of the 
altar of Victory ; but the same arguments fell, with much 

is See the fifty-fourth Epistle of the tenth book of Symmachus. In the form 
and disposition of his ten books of Epistles, he imitated the younger Pliny ; whose 
rich and florid style he was supposed, by his friends, to equal or excel (Macrob. 
Saturnal. 1. 5, c. 1), But the luxuriancy of Symmachus consists of barren leaves, 
without fruits and even without flowers. Few facts and few sentiments, can 
be extracted from his verbose correspondence. 

17 See Ambrose (torn ii. Epist. xvii. xviii. pp. 825-833). The former of these 
epistles is a short caution ; the latter is a formal reply to the petition or libel of 
Symmachus. The same ideas are more copiously expressed in the poetry, if it 
may deserve that name, of Prudentius ; who composed his two books against 
Symmachus (A. D. 404) while that senator was still alive. It is whimsical enough 
that Montesquieu {Consideration s, (2fc. c. xix. torn. iii. p. 487) should overlook the 
two professed antagonists of Symmachus, and amuse himself with descanting on 
the more remote and indirect confutations of Orosius, St. Augustine, and Salviau.* 

* Gibbon omits the threat held out to Valentinian, of turning him away at the 
door of the church, and excluding him from the rites of religion. — Eng. Ch. 



534 WORSHIP OF JUPITER OR CHRIST ? 

more energy and effect, from the mouth of a conqueror ; 
and the gods of antiquity were dragged in triumph at the 
chariot-wheels of Theodosius. 18 In a full meeting of the 
senate, the emperor proposed, according to the forms of the 
republic, the important question, Whether the worship of 
Jupiter, or that of Christ, should be the religion of the 
Romans ?* The liberty of suffrages, which he affected to 
allow, was destroyed by the hopes and fears that his presence 
inspired ; and the arbitrary exile of Symmachus was a 
recent admonition, that it might be dangerous to oppose 
the wishes of the monarch. On a regular division of the 
senate, Jupiter was condemned and degraded by the sense 
of a very large majority ; and it is rather surprising, that 
any members should be found bold enough to declare, by 
their speeches and votes, that they were still attached to 
the interest of an abdicated deity. 19 The hasty conversion 

is See Prudentius, (in Symmach. 1. i. 545, &c.) The Christian agrees with the 
Pagan Zosimus, (1. iv. p. 283), in placing this visit of Theodosius after the second 
civil war, gemini bis victor caede Tyranni, (1. i. 410). But the time and circum- 
stances are better suited to his first triumph. 

is Prudentius, after proving that the sense of the senate is declared by a legal 
majority, proceeds to say, (609, &c.) — 

Adspice quam pleno subsellia nostra Senatu 

Discernant infame Jovis pulvinar, et omne 

Idolium longe purgata ex urbe fugandum, 

Qua vocat egregii sententia Principis, illuc 

Libera, cum pedibus, turn corde, frequentia transit. 
Zosimus ascribes to the conscript fathers a heathenish courage, which few of 
them are found to possess. f 

* M. Beugnot, (in his Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme en Occident, \. 
pp. 433-488), questions, altogether, the truth of this statement. It is very remark- 
able that Zosimus and Prudentius concur in asserting the fact of the question 
being solemnly deliberated by the senate, though with directly opposite results. 
Zosimus declares that the majority of the assembly adhered to the ancient religion 
of Rome ; Gibbon has adopted the authority of Prudentius, who, as a Latin writer, 
though a poet, deserves more credit than the Greek historian. Both concur in 
placing the scene after the second triumph of Theodosius ; but it has been almost 
demonstrated, (and Gibbon — see the preceding note — seems to have acknowledged 
this), by Pagi and Tillemont, that Theodosius did not visit Rome after the defeat 
of Eugenius. M. Beugnot urges, with much force, the improbability that the 
Christian emperor would submit such a question to the senate, whose authority 
was nearly obsolete, except on one occasion, which was almost hailed as an 
epoch in the restoration of her ancient privileges. The silence of Ambrose and 
of Jerom on an event so striking, and redounding so much to the honor of Chris- 
tianity, is of considerable weight. M. Beugnot would ascribe the whole scene to 
the poetic imagination of Prudentius ; but I must observe, that, however, Pruden- 
tius is sometimes elevated by the grandeur of his subject, to vivid and eloquent 
language, this flight of invention would be so much bolder and more vigorous 
than usual with this poet, that I cannot but suppose there must have been some 
foundation for the story, though it may have been exaggerated by the poet, and 
misrepresented by the historian. — Milman. 

t In a note on this passage, Dean Milman says, that M. Beugnot "questions 
" altogether the truth of the statement." Neander takes a middle cause (Hist, of 
Chris, vol. Hi., p. in', which is probably the most correct. He says : " When 
" Theodosius marched into Rome, after the death of Eugenius, in the year 394, 
" he made a speech before the assembled senate, in which he called upon ihe 
" Pagans, who, under the short reign of Eugenius, had once more enjoyed the 
" free exercise of their religion, to desist from their idolatry, and to embrace the 



THE PATRICIANS BECOME CHRISTIANS. 535 

of the senate must be attributed either to supernatural or to 
sordid motives ; and many of these reluctant proselytes 
betrayed, on every favorable occasion, their secret disposi- 
tion to throw aside the mask of odious dissimulation. But 
they were gradually fixed in the new religion, as the cause 
of the ancient became more hopeless ; they yielded to the 
authority of the emperor, to the fashion of the times, and to 
the entreaties of their wives and children, 20 who were in- 
stigated and governed by the clergy of Rome and the 
monks of the east. The edifying example of the Anician 
family was soon imitated by the rest of the nobility : the 
Bassi, the Paulini, the Gracchi, embraced the Christian 
religion ; and " the luminaries of the world, the venerable 
" assembly of Catos," (such are the high-flown expressions 
of Prudentius,) " were impatient to strip themselves of their 
" pontifical garment ; to cast the skin of the old serpent ; 
" to assume the snowy robes of baptismal innocence ; and 
" to humble the pride of the consular fasces before the 
" tombs of the martyrs." 21 The citizens, who subsisted by 
their own industry, and the populace, who were supported by 
the public liberality, filled the churches of the Lateran, and 
Vatican, with an incessant throng of devout proselytes. 
The decrees of the senate ; which proscribed the worship of 
idols, were ratified by the general consent of the Romans ; 22 
the splendor of the capitol was defaced, and the solitary 
temples were abandoned to ruin and contempt. 23 Rome 
submitted to the yoke of the gospel ; and the vanquished 

20 Jerora specifies the pontiff Albinus, who was surrounded with such a believing 
family of children and grandchildren, as would have been sufficient to convert 
even Jupiter himself; an extraordinary proselyte ! (torn. i. ad Laetam, p. 54.) 

21 Exultare Patres videas, pulcherrima mundi 
Lumina; Conciliumque senum gestire Catonum 
Candidiore toga niveum pietatis amictum 
Sumere ; et exuvias deponere pontificales. 

The fancy of Prudentius is warmed and elevated by victory. 

22 Prudentius, after he had described the conversion of the senate and people, 
asks, with some truth and confidence, 

Et dubitamus adhuc Roman, tibi, Christe, dicatam 
In leges transisse tuas ? 

23 Jerom exults in the desolation of the Capitol, and the other temples of Rome, 
(torn. i. p. 54, torn. ii. p. 95.) 



" faith in which alone they could find forgiveness of their sins. In spite of all 
" their representations, he withdrew from the Pagans what Eugenius had ac- 
" corded to them." Disregarding the testimony of Prudentius, he accepts that 
ofZosimus, which admits no other construction; but he acknowledges him, at 
the same time, to be "in this case, a suspicious witness," and therefore discredits 
all that he reports respecting the courage of the Pagan senators. Neander sus- 
pects also, that " what the pseudo-Prosper says (de promiss. et predict. Dei, pars 
" 3, 38) of the disgraceful banishment of Symmachus, may be a fable." — Eng. Ch. 



536 DESTRUCTION OF PAGAN TEMPLES. 

provinces had not yet lost their reverence for the name and 
authority of Rome.* 

The filial piety of the emperors themselves 
the temples in engaged them to proceed, with some caution 
a e D P1 '°8i n &c' a tenderness, in the reformation of the eternal 
city. Those absolute monarchs acted with less 
regard to the prejudices of the provincials. The pious labor 
which had been suspended near twenty years since the death 
of Constantius, 24 was vigorously resumed, and finally ac- 
complished, by the zeal of Theodosius. Whilst that warlike 
prince yet struggled with the Goths, not for the glory but 
for the safety of the republic, he ventured to offend a con- 
siderable party of his subjects, by some acts which might 
perhaps secure the protection of heaven, but which must 
seem rash and unseasonable in the eye of human prudence. 
The success of his first experiments against the Pagans, 
encouraged the pious emperor to reiterate and enforce his 
edicts of proscription ; the same laws, which had been 
originally published in the provinces of the east, were ap- 
plied, after the defeat of Maximus, to the whole extent of 
the western empire; and every victory of the orthodox 
Theodosius contributed to the triumph of the Christian and 
Catholic faith. 25 He attacked superstition in her most vital 
part, by prohibiting the use of sacrifices, which he declared 
to be criminal as well as infamous ; and if the terms of his 
edicts more strictly condemned the impious curiosity which 
examined the entrails of the victims, 20 every subsequent ex- 
planation tended to involve, in the same guilt, the general 

24 Libanius (Orat. pro Templis, p. 10, Genev. 1634, published by James Gode- 
froy, and now extremely scarce) accuses Valentinian and Vaiens of prohibiting 
sacrifices. Some partial order may have been issued by the Eastern emperor; 
but the idea of any general law is contradicted by the silence of the Code, and 
the evidence of ecclesiastical history .t 

23 See his laws in the Theodosian Code, 1. xvi. tit. x. leg. 7-11. 

26 Homer's sacrifices are not accompanied with anv inquisition of entrails, 
(see Feithius Antiquitat. Homer. L i. c. 10, 16). The Tuscans, who produced the 
first Haruspices, subdued both the Greeks and the Romans. {Cicero de Devina- 
tione, 2, 23.) 



* M. Beugnot is more correct in his general estimate of the measures enforced 
by Theodosius for the abolition of Paganism. He seized (according to Zosimus) 
the funds bestowed by the public for the expense of sacrifices. The public sacri- 
fices ceased, not because they were positively prohibited, but because the public 
treasury would no longer bear the expense. The public and the private sacrifices 
in the provinces, which were not under the same regulations with those of the 
capital, continued to take place. In Rome itself, many Pagan ceremonies, which 
were without sacrifice, remained in full force. The gods, therefore, were in- 
voked, the temples were frequented, the pontificates inscribed, according to 
ancient usage, among the family titles of honor: and it cannot be asserted that 
idolatry was completely destroyed by Theodosius. See Beugnot, p. 491. — MiLMAH. 

t See in Reiske's edition of Libanius, torn. ii. p. 155. Sacrifice was prohibited 
by Vaiens, but not the offering of incense.— Milman. 



GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE DESTROYED. 537 

practice of immolation, which essentially constituted the 
religion of the Pagans. As the temples had been erected 
for the purpose of sacrifice, it was the duty of a benevolent 
prince to remove from his subjects the dangerous tempta- 
tion, of offending against the laws which he had enacted. 
A special commission was granted to Cynegius, the prae- 
torian prefect of the east, and afterwards to the counts 
Jovius and Gaudentius, two officers of distinguished rank 
in the west; by which they were directed to shut the 
temples, to seize or destroy the instruments of idolatry, to 
abolish the privileges of the priests, and to confiscate the 
consecrated property for the benefit of the emperor, of the 
church, or of the army. 27 Here the desolation might have 
stopped; and the naked edifices, which were no longer 
employed in the services of idolatry, might have been 
protected from the destructive rage of fanaticism. Many 
of those temples were the most splendid and beautiful 
monuments of Grecian architecture ; and the emperor him- 

27 Zosimus, 1. 4, p. 245, 249. Theodoret, 1. 5, c. 21. Idatius in Chron. Prosper. 
Aguitan. 1. 3, c. 38, apud Baronium, Annal. Eccles. A. d. 389, No. 52. Libanius 
{pro Temptis, p. 10) labors to prove, that the commands of Theodosius were not 
direct and positive.* 



* Libanius appears to be the best authority for the East, where, under Theo- 
dosius, the work of devastation was carried on with very different degrees of 
violence, according to the temper of the local authorities and of the clergy ; and 
more especially the neighborhood of the more fanatical monks. Neander well 
observes, that the prohibition of sacrifice would be easily misinterpreted into an 
authority for the destruction of the buildings in which sacrifices were performed. 
{Geschichte der Christlichen Religion, ii. p. 156.) An abuse of this kind led to 
this remarkable oration of Libanius. Neander, however, justly doubts whether 
this bold vindication, or at least exculpation, of Paganism was ever delivered 
before, or ever placed in the hands of, the Christian emperor. — Milman. 

Which of the three parties had the largest share of the spoil and manifested 
the greatest avidity for it ? The ascendant hierarchy considered themselves to 
be defrauded of whatever was bestowed on their Pagan rivals, and therefore not 
only denounced every such act as impious and sacrilegious, but demanded the 
revenues, which they deflected from their previous course. Ecclesiastics were 
the keepers of the imperial conscience ; they dictated the decrees, strained the 
interpretations of them to authorize acts of violence, assumed the power of exe- 
cuting the laws which they so perverted, led tumultuous bands to plunder and 
destroy heathen temples, Jewish synagogues, and heretical churches, and when 
the government was roused to check and punish such enormities, interfered to 
stop the correcting hand of justice. When any such merciful disposition was 
manifested by Theodosius, " his purpose was counteracted by the powerful in- 
" fiuence of the bishops." (Neander, Hist, of Christ, vol. iii., p. 105). Gibbon 
cites as an instance of this, the reversal of the judgment on the " seditious prelate," 
and monks of Callinicum in Mesopotamia, whom the mighty Ambrose of Milan 
successfully defended, against the majesty both of the law, which they had 
broken, and of the emperor who had condemned them. Still the mischief became 
so intolerable, that five years afterwards Theodosius was obliged to enact a law 
{Code, 1. 16, tit. 8, 1. 9), ordering punishment for those who, "in the name of 
"Christianity, committed such illegal spoliations." The worldly spirit, which 
puts on the mask of religion, sometimes found it most profitable in those days, 
not merely to allow Pagan temples to remain, but even to connive at the worship 
practiced in them. There were Christian land- owners, who permitted their 
peasants to offer sacrifices, because there were imposts on the temples, which 
produced a revenue to the landlord. Neander, Hist, of Christ, vol. iii. p. 113.— E. C. 



53^ MARTIN OF TOURS, AND MARCELLUS. 

self was interested not to deface the splendor of his own 
cities, or to diminish the value of his own possessions. 
Those stately edifices might be suffered to remain as so 
many lasting trophies of the victory of Christ. In the de- 
cline of the arts, they might be usefully converted into 
magazines, manufactures, or places of public assembly; 
and perhaps, when the walls of the temple had been suffi- 
ciently purified by holy rites, the worship of the true Deity 
might be allowed to expiate the ancient guilt of idolatry. 
But as long as they subsisted, the Pagans fondly cherished 
the secret hope, that an auspicious revolution, a second 
Julian, might again restore the altars of the gods ; and the 
earnestness with which they addressed their unavailing 
prayers to the throne, 28 increased the zeal of the Christian 
reformers to extirpate, without mercy, the root of super- 
stition. The laws of the emperors exhibit some symptoms 
of a milder disposition ; 29 but their cold and languid efforts 
were insufficient to stem the torrent of enthusiasm and 
rapine, which was conducted, or rather impelled, by the 
spiritual rulers of the church. In Gaul, the holy Martin, 
bishop of Tours, 30 marched at the head of his faithful monks 
to destroy the idols, the temples, and the consecrated trees 
of his extensive diocese ; and, in the execution of this 
arduous task, the prudent reader will judge whether Martin 
was supported by the aid of miraculous powers, or of carnal 
weapons. In Syria, the divine and excellent Marcellus, 31 as 
he is styled by Theodoret, a bishop animated with apostolic 
fervor, resolved to level with the ground the stately 
temples within the diocese of Apamea. His attack was re- 
sisted, by the skill and solidity with which the temple of 
Jupiter had been constructed. The building was seated on 
an eminence : on each of the four sides, the lofty roof was 

28 Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. x. leg. 8, 18. There is room to believe that this 
temple of Edessa, which Theodosius wished to save for civil uses, was soon after- 
wards a heap of ruins. (Libanius pro Templis, pp. 26, 27, and Godefroy's notes, 
P. 59-) 

29 See this curious oration of Libanius pro Templis, pronounced, or rather 
composed about the year 390. I have consulted, with advantage, Dr. Lardner's 
version and remarks. {Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. pp. 135-163).* 

w> See the Life of Martin by Sulpicius Severus, c. 9-14. The saint once mistook 
(as Don Quixote might have done) a harmless funeral for an idolatrous proces- 
sion, and imprudently committed a miracle. 

3i Compare Sozomen (1. vii. c. 15) with Tlieodoret (1. v. c. 21). Between them, 
they relate the crusade and death of Marcellus. 



* Neander thinks, that Libanius " could scarcely have ventured to utter before 
" the emperor " such a discourse, which he conjectures to have been " delivered 
" or written, only as a specimen of rhetorical art." Hist, of Christ, vol. iii, 
p. 107.— Eng. Ch. 



DEATH OF MARCELLUS. 539 

supported by fifteen massy columns, sixteen feet in circum- 
ference ; and the large stones of which they were composed, 
were firmly cemented with lead and iron. The force of the 
strongest and sharpest tools had been tried without effect. 
It was found necessary to undermine the foundations of the 
columns, which fell down as soon as the temporary wooden 
props had been consumed with fire ; and the difficulties of 
the enterprise are described under the allegory of a black 
daemon, who retarded, though he could not defeat, the 
operations of the Christian engineers. Elated with victory, 
Marcellus took the field in person against the powers of 
darkness ; a numerous troop of soldiers and gladiators 
marched under the episcopal banner, and he successively 
attacked the villages and country temples of the diocese of 
Apamea. Whenever any resistance or danger was appre- 
hended, the champion of the faith, whose lameness would 
not allow him either to fight or fly, placed himself at a con- 
venient distance, beyond the reach of darts. But this 
prudence was the occasion of his death : he was surprised 
and slain by a body of exasperated rustics ; and the synod 
of the province pronounced without hesitation, that the 
holy Marcellus had sacrificed his life in the cause of God. 
In the support of this cause, the monks, who rushed, with 
tumultuous fury, from the desert, distinguished themselves 
by their zeal and diligence. They deserved the enmity of 
the Pagans ; and some of them might deserve the reproaches 
of avarice and intemperance ; of avarice, which they gratified 
with holy plunder, and of intemperance, which they indulged 
at the expense of the people, who foolishly admired their 
tattered garments, loud psalmody, and artificial paleness. 32 
A small number of temples were protected by the fears, the 
venality, the taste, or the prudence, of the civil and ecclesias- 
tical governors. The temple of the celestial Venus at Car- 
thage, whose sacred precincts formed a circumference of two 
miles, was judiciously converted into a Christian church ; 33 
and a similar consecration has preserved inviolate the 
majestic dome of the Pantheon at Rome. 34 But in almost 

32 Libanius pro Templis, pp. 10-13. He rails at these black-garbed men, the 
Christian monks, who eat more than elephants. Poor elephants ! they are tem- 
perate animals. 

33 Prosper. Aquitan. 1. iii. c. 38, apud Baronium ; Annal. Eccles. A. D. 389, No. 
58, &c. The temple had been shut some time, and the access to it was over- 
grown with brambles. 

H Donatus, Roma Antigua et Nova. 1. iv. c. 4, p. 468. This consecration was 
performed by Pope Boniface IV. I am ignorant of the favorable circumstances 
which had preserved the Pantheon above two hundred years after the reign of 
Theodosius. 



540 



TEMPLE OF SERAPIS. 



every province of the Roman world an army of fanatics, 
without authority, and without discipline, invaded the 
peaceful inhabitants ; and the ruin of the fairest structures 
of antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians 
who alone had time and inclination to execute such labori- 
ous destruction. 

The temple of * n tms w ^ e anc * various prospect of devasta- 
Serapis at tion, the spectator may distinguish the ruins of 
Alexandria. the temple of Serapis, at Alexandria. 35 Serapis 
does not appear to have been one of the native gods, or 
monsters, who sprung from the fruitful soil of superstitious 
Egypt. 36 The first of the Ptolemies had been commanded, 
by a dream, to import the mysterious stranger from the 
coast of Pontus, where he had been long adored by the 
inhabitants of Sinope; but his attributes and his reign were 
so imperfectly understood, that it became a subject of dis- 
pute, whether he represented the bright orb of day, or the 
gloomy monarch of the subterraneous regions. 37 The 
Egyptians, who were obstinately devoted to the religion of 
their fathers, refused to admit this foreign deity within the 
walls of their cities."* But the obsequious priests, who were 
seduced by the liberality of the Ptolemies, submitted, with- 
out resistance, to the power of the god of Pontus : an 
honorable and domestic genealogy was provided ; and 
this fortunate usurper was introduced into the throne and 
bed of Osiris, 39 the husband of Isis, and the celestial monarch 
of Egypt. Alexandria, which claimed his peculiar pro- 
tection, gloried in the name of the city of Serapis. His 

as Sophronius composed a recent and separate history {yerom. in Script. Ecclet. 
torn. i. p. 303), which has furnished materials to Socrates (I. v, c. 16), Theodoret 
(1. v. c. 221, and Rufinns (1. ii. c. 22). Yet the last, who had been at Alexandria 
before and after the event, may deserve the credit of an original witness. 

36 Gerard Vossius {Opera, torn. v. p. 80, and de Idololatria, 1, i. c. 29) strives to 
support the strange notion of the Fathers; that the patriarch Joseph was adored 
in Egypt, as the bull Apis, and the god SeraDis.* 

3" Origo dei nondum nostris celebrata. ^Egyptorium antistites sic memorant, 
&c, Tacit. Hist. iv. 83. The Greeks who had traveled into Egypt, were alike 
ignorant of this new deity. 

m Macrobius, Saturnal, 1. i. c. 7. Such a living fact decisively proves his 
foreign extraction. 

3J At Rome, Isis and Serapis were united in the same temple. The precedency 
which the queen assumed, may seem to betray her unequal alliance with the 
stranger of Pontus. But the superiority of the female sex was established in 
Egypt as a civil and religious institution (Diodor. Sicul. torn i. 1. i. p. 31, edit. 
We'sseling), and the same order is observed in Plutarch's Treatise of Isis and 
Osiris ; whom he identifies with Serapis. 

* Consult du Dieu Serapis et son Origine, par J. D. Guigniaut (the translator 
of Creuzers Symbolique), Paris, 1828; and in the fifth volume of Bournouf's 
translation of Tacittts.-r Milman. 



TEMPLE OF SERAPIS DESTROYED. 541 

temple, 40 which rivalled the pride and magnificence of the 
Capitol, was erected on the spacious summit of an artificial 
mount, raised one hundred steps above the level of the 
adjacent parts of the city; and the interior cavity was 
strongly supported by arches, and distributed into vaults 
and subterraneous apartments. The consecrated buildings 
were surrounded by a quadrangular portico ; the stately 
halls, and exquisite statues, displayed the triumph of the 
arts ; and the treasures of ancient learning were preserved 
in the famous Alexandrian library, which had arisen with 
new splendor from its ashes. 41 After the edicts of Theo- 
dosius had severely prohibited the sacrifices of the Pagans, 
they were still tolerated in the city and temple of Serapis ; 
and this singular indulgence was imprudently ascribed to 
the superstitious terrors of the Christians themselves : as if 
they had feared to abolish those ancient rites, which could 
alone secure the inundations of the Nile, the harvests of 
Egypt, and the subsistence of Constantinople. 42 

At that time 43 the archiepiscopal throne of d ^^fJ n 
Alexandria was filled by Theophilus, 44 the per- a. d. l 3 s 9 . ' 
petual enemy of peace and virtue ; a bold, bad man, 
whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and 
with blood. His pious indignation was excited by the 
honors of Serapis ; and the insults which he offered to an 
ancient chapel of Bacchus.j convinced the Pagans that he 

40 Ammianus ixxii. 16). The Expositio totius Mundi (p. 8, in Hudson's Geog- 
raph. Minor, torn, iii.), and Rufimis (1. ii. c. 22), celebrate the Serapeum, as one 
of the wonders of the world. 

« See Mimoires de V Acad, des Inscriptions, torn. ix. pp. 397-416. The old 
library- of the Ptolomies was totally consumed in Csesar's Alexandrian war. -Marc 
Antony gave the whole collection of Pergamus (200,000 volumes) to Cleopatra, 
as the foundation of the new library of Alexandria. 

42 Libanius {pro Templis, p. 21) indiscreetly provokes his Christian masters by 
this insulting remark. 

43 We may choose between the date of Marcellinus (a. d. 3S9) or that of Prosper 
(a. d. 391). Tillemont {Hist, des Emp. torn. v. pp. 310, 756,) prefers the former, 
and Pagi the latter.* 

44 Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. xi. pp. 441-500. The ambiguous situation of 
Theophilus — a saint, as the friend of Jerom ; a devil, as the enemy of Chrysostom 
— produces a sort of impartiality ; yet, upon the whole, the balance is justly in- 
clined against him.t - 

* Clinton, {F. R. i. 522), says 390. — Eng. Ch. 

t Some ecclesiastical writers have feared to lower the credit of Jerome, by 
exhibiting Theophilus in his true colors. Even Mosheim was tender of him, and 
gives little more than an account of his crusade with an armed force against a 
troop of itinerant monks, whose admiration of Origen led them to maintain some 
heretical opinions. His English translator, however, says in a note, that Theo- 
philus was "a man of strong, active, courageous mind, but crafty, unscrupulous, 
" artful and ambitious." Neander is the most honest, and describes him {Hist, of 
Chris, vol. iii. p. 10S) as " a man of an altogether worldly spirit, who had little or 
" no hearty interest in the cause of Christ, and whose manner of administering 
" the episcopal ofnce was least of all calculated to exert a good influence, in 
" building up the temple of the Lord in the hearts of men." Such were the 
materials out of which in those da\s one Saint made another. — Eng. Ch. 

J No doubt a temple of Osiris. St. Martin, iv. 53S. — Milma.v. 



542 LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA DESTROYED. 

meditated a more important and dangerous enterprise. In 
the tumultuous capital of Egypt, the slightest provocation 
was sufficient to inflame a civil war. The votaries of Serapis, 
whose strength and numbers were much inferior to those 
of their antagonists, rose in arms at the instigation of the 
philosopher Olympius, 45 who exhorted them to die in the 
defence of the altars of the gods. The Pagan fanatics fortified 
themselves in the temple, or rather fortress, of Serapis ; re- 
pelled the besiegers by daring sallies, and a resolute defence ; 
and, by the inhuman cruelties which they exercised on 
their Christian prisoners, obtained the last consolation of 
despair. The efforts of the prudent magistrate were use- 
fully exerted for the establishment of a truce, till the answer 
of Theodosius should determine the fate of Serapis. The 
two parties assembled, without arms, in the principal 
square ; and the imperial rescript was publicly read. But 
when a sentence of destruction against the idols of Alex- 
andria was pronounced, the Christians sent up a shout of 
joy and exultation, whilst the unfortunate Pagans, whose 
fury had given way to consternation, retired with hasty and 
silent steps, and eluded, by their flight or obscurity, the 
resentment of their enemies. Theophilus proceeded to 
demolish the temple of Serapis, without any other difficulties 
than those which he found in the weight and solidity of the 
materials ; but these obstacles proved so insuperable, that 
he was obliged to leave the foundations ; and to content 
himself with reducing the edifice itself to a heap of rubbish, 
a part of which was soon afterwards cleared away to make 
room for a church erected in honor of the Christian martyrs. 
The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or de- 
stroyed ; and, near twenty years afterwards, the appearance 
of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of 
every spectator, whose mind was not totally darkened by 
religious prejudice. 46 The compositions of ancient genius, 
so many of which have irretrievably perished, might surely 

45 Lardner {Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 411 has alleged a beautiful passage 
from Suidas, or rather from Damasius, which shows the devout and virtuous 
Olympius, not in the light of a warrior, but of a prophet. 

*6 Nos vidimus armaria librorum quibus direptis, exinanita ea a nostris hom- 
inibus, nostris temporibus memorant. Orosius, 1. vi c. 15, p. 421, edit. Haver- 
camp. Though a bigot, and a controversial writer, Orosius seems to blush.* 

* Two hundred and forty years after this event, the literary treasures of Alex- 
andria are said to have been destroyed by another barbarian. But those who 
represent the Saracenic desolation as one of the causes of the "dark ages "that en- 
sued, are silent on the earlier havoc committed by a pseudo-Christian bishop.-E. C. 

The Mahometan fanatics completed the destruction the Christian bigots in- 
augurated ; and both religions, by depriving the world of the accumulated 
knowledge of the past, have proved inimical to the welfare of mankind.— E. 



STATUE OF SERAPIS. 543 

have been excepted from the wreck of idolatry, for the 
amusement and instruction of succeeding ages ; and either 
the zeal or the avarice of the archbishop, 47 might have been 
satiated with the rich spoils which were the reward of his 
victory. While the images and vases of gold and silver 
were carefully melted, and those of a less valuable metal 
were contemptuously broken, and cast into the streets,* 
Theophilus labored to expose the frauds and vices of the 
ministers of the idols ; their dexterity in the management 
of the loadstone : their secret methods of introducing a 
human actor into a hollow statue ;f and their scandalous 
abuse of the confidence of devout husbands and unsuspect- 
ing females. 48 Charges like these may seem to deserve 
some degree of credit, as they are not repugnant to the 
crafty and interested spirit of superstition. But the same 
spirit is equally prone to the base practice of insulting and 
calumniating a fallen enemy ; and our belief is naturally 
checked by the reflection, that it is much less difficult to 
invent a fictitious story, than to support a practical fraud. 
The colossal statue of Serapis 49 was involved in the ruin of 
his temple and religion. A great number of plates of 
different metals, artificially joined together, composed the 
majestic figure of the deity, who touched on either side the 
walls of the sanctuary. The aspect of Serapis, his sitting 

4" Eunapius in the Lives of Antoninus and ALde sins, execrates the sacrilegious 
rapine of Theophilus. Tillemont Mem. Eccles. torn. xiii. p. 453) quotes an epistle 
of Isidor of Pelusium, which reproaches the primate with the idolatrous worship 
of gold, the auri sacra fames. 

48 Rufinus names the priest of Saturn, who, in the character of the god, famil- 
liarly conversed with many pious ladies of quality ; till he betrayed himself, in a 
moment of transport, when he could not disguise the tone of his voice. The au- 
thentic and impartial narrative of ^Eschines (see Bayle. Dictionnaire Critique, 
Scamandre), and the adventures of Mundus (Joseph. Antiquitat. Judaic. 1. xviii. 
£• 3, P- 877. edit. Havercamp) may prove that such amorous frauds have been 
practiced with success. 

49 See the images of Serapis in Montfaucon (torn. ii. p, 297) ; but the description 
of Macrobius {Saturnall. i. c. 20) is much more picturesque and satisfactory. 

*"The early Christians destroyed paintings and statues," savs Ingersoll, in 
Interviews on Talmage, page in. " They were the enemies of all beauty. They 
" hated and detested every expression of art. They looked upon the love of 
" statues as a form of idolatry. They looked upon every painting as a remnant 
" of Paganism. They destroyed all'upon which they could lay their ignorant 
" hands. Hundreds of years afterwards, the world was compelled to search for 
" the fragments that Christian fury had left. The Greeks filled the world with 
" beauty. For every stream and mountain and cataract they had a god or 
" goddess. Their sculptors impersonated every dream and hope, and their 
" mythology feeds, to-day, the imagination of mankind. The Venus de Milo is 
" the impersonation of beauty, in ruin — the sublimest fragment of the ancient 
" world." — E. 

t An English traveler, Mr. Wilkinson, has discovered the secret of the vocal 
Memnon. There was a cavity in which a person was concealed, and struck a 
stone, which gave a ringing sound like brass. The Arabs, who stood below when 
Mr. Wilkinson performed the miracle, described the sound just as the author of 
the epigram, ^ xaknoto TvizevTor.— Milman. 



544 FALL OF SERAPIS. 

posture, and the sceptre which he bore in his left hand, 
were extremely similar to the ordinary representations of 
Jupiter. He was distinguished from Jupiter by the basket 
or bushel which was placed on his head; and by the 
emblematic monster which he held in his right hand : the 
head and body of a serpent branching into three tails, which 
were again terminated by the triple heads of a dog, a lion, 
and a wolf. It was confidently affirmed, that if any impious 
hand should dare to violate the majesty of the god, the 
heavens and the earth would instantly return to their original 
chaos. An intrepid soldier, animated by zeal, and armed 
with a weighty battle axe, ascended the ladder ; and even 
the Christian multitude expected, with some anxiety, the 
event of the combat. 50 He aimed a vigorous stroke against 
the cheek of Serapis ; the cheek fell to the ground ; the 
thunder was still silent, and both the heavens and the earth 
continued to preserve their accustomed order and tranquil- 
lity. The victorious soldier repeated his blows : the huge 
idol was overthrown and broken in pieces ; and the limbs 
of Serapis were ignominiously dragged through the streets 
of Alexandria. His mangled carcass was burnt in the am- 
phitheatre, amidst the shouts of the populace ; and many 
persons attributed their conversion to this discovery of the 
impotence of their tutelar deity. The popular modes of 
religion, that propose any visible and material objects of 
worship, have the advantage of adapting and familiarizing 
themselves to the senses of mankind; but this advantage is 
counterbalanced by the various and inevitable accidents to 
which the faith of the idolater is exposed. It is scarcely 
possible, that, in every disposition of mind, he should pre- 
serve his implicit reverence for the idols, or the relics, 
which the naked eye, and the profane hand, are unable to 
distinguish from the most common productions of art, or 
nature ; and if, in the hour of danger, their secret and 
miraculous virtue does not operate for their own preserva- 
tion, he scorns the vain apologies of his priests, and justly 
derides the object, and the folly, of his superstitious attach- 

50 Sed fortes tremuere manus, motique verenda 

Majestate loci, si robora sacra ferirent 
In sua credebant redituras membra secures. 
{Lucan iii, 429). " Is it true" (said Augustus to a veteran of Italy, at whose house 
he supped), " that the man who gave the first blow to the golden'statue of Anaitis, 
" was instantly deprived of his eyes, and of his life? " — "/was that man," replied the 
clear-sighted veteran, "and you now sup on one of the legs of the goddess." 
(PHn. Hist. Natur. xxxiii. 24.) 



THE PAGAN RELIGION PROHIBITED. 545 

merit 51 After the fall of Serapis, some hopes were still enter- 
tained by the Pagans, that the Nile would refuse his annual 
supply to the impious masters of Egypt ; and the extraor- 
dinary delay of the inundation seemed to announce the 
displeasure of the river-god. But this delay was soon com- 
pensated by the rapid swell of the waters. They suddenly 
rose to such an unusual height, as to comfort the discontented 
party with the pleasing expectation of a deluge ; till the 
peaceful river again subsided to the well-known and fer- 
tilizing level of sixteen cubits, or about thirty English feet. 53 

The temples of the Roman empire were 
deserted r or destroyed ; but the ingenious reHgiof is* 
superstition of the Pagans still attempted to p ^ D bi i e o * 
elude the laws of Theodosius, by which all sacri- 
fices had been severely prohibited. The inhabitants of the 
country, whose conduct was less exposed to the eye of 
malicious curiosity, disguised their religious, under the 
appearance of convivial meetings. On the days of solemn 
festivals, they assembled in great numbers under the 
spreading shade of some consecrated trees ; sheep and oxen 
were slaughtered and roasted ; and this rural entertainment 
was sanctified by the use of incense, and by the hymns, 
which were sung in honor of the gods. But it was alleged, 
that, as no part of the animal was made a burnt-offering, as 
no altar was provided to receive the blood, and as the 
previous oblation of salt cakes, and the concluding ceremony 
of libations, were carefully omitted, these festal meetings 
did not involve the guests in the guilt, or penalty, of an 
illegal sacrifice. 53 Whatever might be the truth of the facts, 

51 The history of the reformation affords frequent examples of the sudden 
change from superstition to contempt.* 

52 Sozomen, 1. vii. c. 20. I have supplied the measure. The same standard, 
of the inundation, and consequently of the cubit, has uniformally subsisted since 
the time of Herodotus. See Freret, in the Mem. de V Academie des Inscriptions, 
torn. xvi. pp. 344-353- Greaves's Miscellaneous Works, vol. 1. p. 233. The Egyptian 
cubit is about twenty-two inches of the English measure-! 

53 Libauius (pro Templis, pp. 15, 16, 17) pleads their cause with gentle and in- 
sinuating rhetoric. From the earliest age. such feasts had enlivened the country ; 
and those of Bacchus (Georgic. ii. 3S0) had produced the theatre of Athens. See 
Godefroy, ad. loc. Liban. and Codex TJieodos. torn. vi. p. 284.! 

* When Boniface cut down the "Thunder-Oak " of the German Pagans, a 
similar scene was witnessed. (Neander, Hist, of Christ, vol. iii. p. 109.) — E. C. 

f Compare Wilkinson's Thebes and Egypt, p. 313. — Milman. 

Dr. Lepsius, in July. 1S43, discovered rock inscriptions near Semneh, which 
prove that the Nile " above four thousand years ago rose more than twenty-four 
" feet higher than now." (Letters from Egypt, Qfc. p. 239, edit. Bohn.) See also 
observations on this discovery by L. Horner, Esq. and the reply of Dr. Lepsius 
(ib. p. 530). The fact is important, and seems to indicate the gradual depression 
of the Mediterranean, the basin into which the floods of the Nile are drained, 
(See note vol. i., of this History, p. 273, and Humboldt's Views of Nature, p. 264, 
edit. Bohn.)— Eng. Ch. 

J Amid all its absurdities, the heathenism of antiquity had one redeeming 



546 



LAST EDICT OF THEODOSIUS. 



or the merit of the distinction, 54 these vain pretences were 
swept away by the last edict of Theodosius ; which inflicted 
a deadly wound on the superstition of the Pagans. 55 * This 

54 Honorius tolerated these rustic festivals, (a. d. 399.) " Absque ullo sacrificio, 
" atque ulla superstitione damnabili." But nine years afterwards, he found it 
necessary to reiterate and enforce the same proviso. {Codex Theodos. 1. xvi. 
tit. x. leg. 17, 19.) 

55 Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. x. leg. 12. Jortin, {Remarks on Eccles. History, 
vol. iv. p. 134,) censures, with becoming asperity, the style and sentiments of 
this intolerant law. 

quality ; it was a cheerful religion. The song, the dance, and the banquet, inter- 
mingled with its rites; and to conduct these was the only duty that devolved on 
some of its priests. "Sacrifices were preludes to well-spread tables and social 
repasts, whether on occasions of public rejoicing, or in the hilarious communions 
of private hospitality. When Horace called upon the Romans to celebrate the 
victory of Actium, {Carm. i, 37,) it was by dancing and feasting in the temples; 
when he invited Maecenas to commemorate with him his escape from the falling 
tree, {Carm. 3, 8,) the altar of green turf was prepared for the incense and the 
white goat ; and again, {Carm. 4, 11,) bound with garlands.it stood ready for 
the lamb, when he called Phillis to share his festivities on his patron's birthday. 
Sacrifices thus contributed to prolong the attachment of the ancients to their 
Pagan worship, after the general discovery of its intrinsic insufficiency for the 
wants of the age. This was more particularly the case with the country popula- 
tion. Neither their proverbial antipathy to a change of habits, nor the impedi- 
ments to instruction opposed by their servile condition, will so well account for 
this, as their desire to retain the " rustic holiday," which nothing but the services 
of the temple allowed them. In their sequestered homes, they could not share 
the amusements of the circus, and the other games and exhibitions by which the 
citizens were so often entertained ; and therefore they prized the more, every 
relaxation of toil and animation of pleasure. By these associated practices, as 
also by the perquisites, which it brought in for interested parties, "the use of 
"sacrifice" helped to keep superstition alive; but it was not "its most vital 
" part." So long as it retained allowances from the state, and consecrated lands, 
it never wanted priests to give it a decent appearance of vigor, and gather 
votaries before its idols. It was by the withdrawal of the first and the confiscation 
of the last, that the fatal blow was given. — Eng. Ch. 

* Paganism maintained its ground for a considerable time in the rural districts. 
Endelechius, a poet who lived at the beginning of the fifth century, speaks of the 
cross as 

Signum quod perhibent esse crucis Dei, 
Magnis qui colitur solus iuurbibus. 
In the middle of the same century, Maximus, bishop of Turin, writes against the 
heathen deities as if their worship was still in full vigor in the neighborhood of 
his city. Augustine complains of the encouragement of the Pagan rites by 
heathen landowners ; and Zeno of Verona, still later, reproves the apathy of the 
Christian proprietors in conniving at this abuse. (Compare Neander, ii. p. 169.) 
M. Beugnot shows that this was the case throughout the north and centre of 
Italy and in Sicily. But neither of these authors has adverted to one fact, which 
must have tended greatly to retard the progress of Christianity in these quarters. 
It was still chiefly a slave population which cultivated the soil ; and however, in 
the towns, the better class of Christians might be eager to communicate " the 
" blessed liberty of the gospel " to this class of mankind ; however their condi- 
tion could not but be silently ameliorated by the humanizing influence of Chris- 
tianity ; yet, on the whole, no doubt the servile class would be the least fitted to 
receive the gospel ; and its general propagation among them would be em- 
barrassed by many peculiar difficulties. The rural population was probably not 
entirely converted before the general establishment of the monastic institutions. 
Compare Quarterly Review of Beugnot, vol. lvii. p. 52. — Milman. 

The English Churchman has shown thab Paganism " was a cheerful religion," 
and increased the sum of human happiness. Orthodox Christianity commends 
penance, prayer, and suffering on earth, while it promises happiness hereafter. 
Dean Milman thinks the "servile class" were "silently ameliorated" by this 
Christian belief; or rather, that they were happier because they were more miser- 
able. The humanizing influence of Christianity on slavery was clearly shown in 
our Southern states prior to the late civil war; and the " servile class " were so 
exquisitely happy in the service of their Christian masters, that they never neg- 
lected an opportunity of escaping into freedom.— E. 






PAGAN RELIGION PROHIBITED. 547 

prohibitory law is expressed in the most absolute and com- 
prehensive terms. " It is our will and pleasure," says the 
emperor, " that none of our subjects, whether magistrates 
" or private citizens, however exalted or however humble 
" may be their rank and condition, shall presume, in any 
" city, or in any place, to worship an inanimate idol, by the 
" sacrifice of a guiltless victim." The art of sacrificing, and 
the practice of divination by the entrails of the victim, are 
declared (without any regard to the object of the inquiry) 
a crime of high treason against the state ; which can be ex- 
piated only by the death of the guilty. The rites of Pagan 
superstition, which might seem less bloody and atrocious, 
are abolished, as highly injurious to the truth and honor 
of religion ; luminaries, garlands, frankincense, and libations 
of wine, are specially enumerated and condemned ; and the 
harmless claims of the domestic genius, of the household 
gods, are included in this rigorous proscription. The use 
of any of these profane and illegal ceremonies, subjects the 
offender to the forfeiture of the house, or estate, where they 
have been performed; and if he has artfully chosen the 
property of another for the scene of his impiety, he is com- 
pelled to discharge, without delay, a heavy fine of twenty- 
five pounds of gold, or more than one thousand pounds 
sterling. A fine, not less considerable, is imposed on the 
connivance of the secret enemies of religion, who shall 
neglect the duty of their respective stations, either to re- 
veal, or to punish, the guilt of idolatry. Such was the 
persecuting spirit of the laws of Theodosius, which were 
repeatedly enforced by his sons and grandsons, with the 
loud and unanimous applause of the Christian world. 56 

In the cruel reigns of Decius and Diocletian, 
Christianity had been proscribed, as a revolt PP resse 

56 Such a charge should not be lightly made; but it may surely be justified by 
the authority of St. Augustine, who thus addresses the Donatists : " Quis nos- 
" trum, quis vestrum non laudat leges ab Imperatoribus datas adversus sacrificia 
" Paganorum? Et certe longe ibi poena severior constituta est; illius quippe im- 
" pietatis capitale supplicium est." Epist. xciii. No. 10, quoted by Le Clerc {Bib- 
liotheque Choisie, torn. viii. p. 277,) who adds some judicious reflections on the 
intolerance of the victorious Christians.* 

* Yet Augustine, with laudable inconsistency, disapproved of the forcible 
demolition of the temples. " Let us first extirpate the idolatry of the hearts of 
" the heathen, and they will either themselves invite us or anticipate us in the 
" execution of this good work," torn. v. s. 62. Compare Neander, ii. 169, and, in 
p. 155, a beautiful passage from Chrysostom against all violent means of propa- 
gating Christianity. — Milman. 

St. Augustine summons his warriors to attack the Pagans, but to spare their 
temples. " Let us first extirpate the idolatry of the hearts of the heathen," is the 
brutal language of this model saint. Dean Milman calls this intolerance a " laud- 
" able inconsistency." He would doubtless style an Auto da fe an " amiable 
" weakness." — E. 






548 PAGAN RELIGION PERSECUTED. 

from the ancient and hereditary religion of the empire ; 
and the unjust suspicions which were entertained of a dark 
and dangerous faction, were, in some measure, countenanced 
by the inseparable union, and rapid conquests, of the 
Catholic church. But the same excuses of fear and ignorance 
cannot be applied to the Christian emperors, who violated 
the precepts of humanity and of the gospel. The experience 
of ages had betrayed the weakness, as well as folly, of 
Paganism ; the light of reason and of faith had already ex- 
posed, to the greatest part of mankind, the vanity of idols ; 
and the declining sect, which still adhered to their worship, 
might have been permitted to enjoy, in peace and obscurity, 
the religious customs of their ancestors. Had the Pagans 
been animated by the undaunted zeal, which possessed the 
minds of the primitive believers, the triumph of the church 
must have been stained with blood; and the martyrs of 
Jupiter and Apollo might have embraced the glorious 
opportunity of devoting their lives and fortunes at the foot 
of their altars. But such obstinate zeal was not congenial 
to the loose and careless temper of polytheism. The violent 
and repeated strokes of the orthodox princes, were broken 
by the soft and yielding substance against which they were 
directed ; and the ready obedience of the Pagans protected 
them from the pains and penalties of the Theodosian code. 57 
Instead of asserting, that the authority of the gods was 
superior to that of the emperor, they desisted, with a 
plaintive murmur, from the use of those sacred rites which 
their sovereign had condemned. If they were sometimes 
tempted, by a sally of passion, or by the hopes of conceal- 
ment, to indulge their favorite superstition; their humble 
repentance disarmed the severity of the Christian magistrate, 
and they seldom refused to atone for their rashness, by 
submitting, with some secret reluctance, to the yoke of the 
gospel. The churches were filled with the increasing multi- 
tude of these unworthy proselytes, who had conformed, 
from temporal motives, to the reigning religion ; and whilst 
they devoutly imitated the postures, and recited the prayers 
of the faithful, they satisfied their conscience by the silent 

57 Orosius, 1. vii. c. 28, p. 537. Augustin (Enarrat. in Psalm cxl. apud Lardner 
Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 458,) insults their cowardice. " Quis eorum 
" comprehensus est in sacrificio (cum his legibus ista prohiberenture) et non 
" negavit ? " * 

* Without the artificial support of the .state, and unsustained by the external 
accessories of wealth and revenue, heathenism had no internal strength to have 
induced, if it could have provoked, persecution. Thrown upon its own resources, 
it is not suprising that its decline was so rapid, its extinction so complete. After- 
traces of it. which some archaeologists have turned up, are but insignificant. — E. C. 



PAGANISM FINALLY EXTINGUISHED. 549 

and sincere invocation of the gods of antiquity. 58 If the 
Pagans wanted patience to suffer, they wanted spirit to re- 
sist ; and the scattered myriads, who deplored the ruin of 
the temples, yielded, without a contest, to the fortune of 
their adversaries.* The disorderly opposition 59 of the 
peasants of Syria, and the populace of Alexandria, to the 
rage of private fanaticism, was silenced by the name and 
authority of the emperor. The Pagans of the west, without 
contributing to the elevation of Eugenius, disgraced, by 
their partial attachment, the cause and character of the 
usurper. The clergy vehemently exclaimed, that he 
aggravated the crime of rebellion by the guilt of apostasy ; 
that, by his permission, the altar of Victory was again re- 
stored; and that the idolatrous symbols of Jupiter and 
Hercules were displayed in the field, against the invincible 
standard of the cross. But the vain hopes of the Pagans 
were soon annihilated by the defeat of Eugenius ; and they 
were left exposed to the resentment of the conqueror, who 
labored to deserve the favor of heaven by the extirpation 
of idolatry. 60 

A nation of slaves is always prepared to paganism 
applaud the clemency of their master, who, in finally 

fr .--.,,-' . , extinguished. 

the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed a. d. 390-420, 
to the last extremes of injustice and oppression. &c * 

Theodosius might undoubtedly have proposed to his Pagan 
subjects the alternative of baptism or of death ; and the 
eloquent Libanius has praised the moderation of a prince, 
who never enacted, bv any positive law, that all his subjects 
should immediately embrace and practice the religion of 
their sovereign. 61 The profession of Christianity was not 

53 Libanius, (pro Temblis, pp. 17, 18) mentions, without censure, the occasional 
conformitv, and as it were theatrical play, of these hypocrites. 

59 Libanius concludes his apology p. 32) by declaring to the emperor^ that 
unless he expressly warrants the destruction of the temples, laBi rove ruv uyptiv 
dea-orag, ndi avrolq nal tlT voftco floTjdrjGOVTas the proprietors will defend 
themselves and the laws. 

60 Paulinus, in Vit. Ambros. c. 26. Augustin de Civitat. Dei, 1. v. c. 26. Theo- 
dore:. 1. v. c. 24. 

6i Libanius suggests the form of a persecuting edict, which Theodosius might 
enact {pro Templis, p. 32) ; a rash joke, and a dangerous experiment. Some 
princes would have taken his advice. 

* It is no disoaragement to Paganism that it was overthrown by Christianity. 
Before the invention of gunpowder, the more civilized nations were not neces- 
sarily the best soldiers. In fact, the savage hordes of barbarians frequently 
overrun the fairest portions of Europe. Among sects, the more ignorant and 
credulous were generally the conquerors. The Arians, who believed in one God, 
though at one tune the most powerful, were ultimately conquered by the Trini- 
tarians, who believed in three^ The tolerating spirit of Paganism, as illustrated 
by Julian, could not cope with the persecuting faith of Theodosius. The Hugue- 
nots of France were at least as intelligent and brave as their Catholic fellow- 
citizens, but these qualities could not avert the horrors of St. Bartholomew.— E. 



550 THEODOSIUS REGARDS VIRTUE AND GENIUS. 

made an essential qualification for the enjoyment of the 
civil rights of society, nor were any peculiar hardships 
imposed on the sectaries, who credulously received the 
fables of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles of the 
gospel. The palace, the schools, the army, and the senate, 
were filled with declared and devout Pagans ; they obtained, 
without distinction, the civil and military honors of the 
empire.* Theodosius distinguished his liberal regard for 
virtue and genius, by the consular dignity, which he be- 
stowed on Symmachus ; 62 and by the personal friendship 
which he expressed to Libanius ; 63 and the two eloquent 
apologists of Paganism were never required either to change, 
or to dissemble, their religious opinions. The Pagans were 
indulged in the most licentious freedom of speech and 
writing ; the historical and philosophical remains of Euna- 
pius, Zosimus, 61 and the fanatic teachers of the school of 

62 Denique pro meritis terrestribus sequa rependens 
Munera, sacricolis summos impertit honores. 
Dux bonus, et certare sink cum laude'suorum, 
Nee pago implicitos per debita cuhnina mundi 
Ire viros prohibet.t 

Ipse magistratum tibi consulis, ipse tribunal 
Contulit. 

Prudent, in Symmach. i 617, Sect 

63 Libanius (pro Templis, p. 32) is proud that Thedosius should thus dis- 
tinguish a man, who even in his presence would swear by Jupiter. Yet this 
presence seems to be no more that a figure of rhetoric. 

a Zosimus who styles himself Count and ex-advocate of the Treasury, reviles, 
with partial and indecent bigotry, the Christian princes, and even the father of 

* The most remarkable instance of this, at a much later period, occurs in the 
person of Merobaudes, a general and a poet, who flourished in the first half of 
the fifth century. A statue in honor of Merobaudes was placed in the Forum of 
Trajan, of which the inscription is still extant. Fragments of his poems have 
been recovered by the industry and sagacity of Niebuhr. In one passage, Mero- 
baudes, in the genuine heathen spirit, attributes the ruin of the empire to the 
abolition of Paganism, and almost renews the old accusation of Atheism against 
Christianity. He impersonates some deity, probably Discord, who summons 
Bellona to take arms for the destruction of Rome ; and in a strain of fierce irony 
recommends to her, among other fatal measures, to extirpate the gods of Rome : — 

Roma, ipsique tremant furialia murmura reges. 

Jam superos terris atque hospita numina pelle: 

Romano s popular e Deos, et nullus in art's 

Vestce exorat&fotus strue palleat ignis. 

His instructa dolis palatia celsa subibo 

Majorum mores, et pectora prisca fugabo 

Funditus; atque simul, nullo discrimiue rerum; 

Spernantur fortes, nee sic reverentia justis. 

Attica neglecto pereat facundia Phcebo 

Indignis contingat honos, et pondera rerum ; 

Non virtus sed casus agat ; tristisque cupido ; 

Pectoribus saevi demens furor aestuet aevi ; 

Omniaque hcec sine mente ?ovis, sine numine summo. 
Merobaudes in NiebuhVs edit, of the Byzantines, p. 14. — Milman. 
t I have inserted some [three] lines omitted by Gibbon. — Milman. 
% The reader may here call to mind Neander's doubts respecting the asserted 
banishment of Symmachus. He was not only consul in 391, but also at different 
periods prefect of the city, corrector of Lucania and Bruttium, proconsul of 
Africa, and held other offices commemorated in an inscription bv his son. (Clin. 
F. E. 1,523.)— Eng. Ch. 



THE RISING GENERATION ADOPT CATHOLICISM. 55 1 

Plato, betray the most furious animosity, and contain the 
sharpest invectives, against the sentiments and conduct of 
their victorious adversaries. If these audacious libels were 
publicly known, we must applaud the good sense of the 
Christian princes, who viewed, with a smile of contempt, 
the last struggles of superstition and despair. 65 But the 
imperial laws, which prohibited the sacrifices and ceremonies 
of Paganism, were rigidly executed ; and every hour con- 
tributed to destroy the influence of a religion, which was 
supported by custom, rather than by argument. The 
devotion of the poet, or the philosopher, may be secretiy 
nourished by prayer, meditation, and study ; but the exercise 
of public worship appears to be the only solid foundation 
of the religious sentiments of the people, which derive their 
force from imitation and habit. The interruption of that 
public exercise may consummate, in the period of a few 
years, the important work of a national revolution. The 
memory of theological opinions cannot long be preserved, 
without the artificial helps of priests, of temples, and of 
books. 66 The ignorant vulgar, whose minds are still agitated 
by the blind hopes and terrors of superstition, will be soon 
persuaded by their superiors, to direct their vows to the 
reigning deities of the age ; and will insensibly imbibe an 
ardent zeal for the support and propagation of the new 
doctrine, which spiritual hunger at first compelled them to 
accept. The generation that arose in the world after the 
promulgation of the imperial laws, was attracted within the 
pale of the Catholic church ; and so rapid, yet so gentle, 
was the fall of Paganism, that only twenty-eight years after 
the death of Theodosius, the faint and minute vestiges were 
no longer visible to the eye of the legislator. 67 

his sovereign. His work must have been privately circulated, since it escaped 
the invectives of the ecclesiastical historians prior to Evagrius, (1. iii. c. 40-42,) 
who lived towards the end of the sixth century.* 

65 Vet the Pagans of Africa complained, that the times would not allow them 
to answer with freedom the City of God ; nor does St. Augustin (v. 26) deny the 
charge. 

66 The Moors of Spain, who secretly preserved the Mahometan religion above 
a century, under the tyranny of the Inquisition, possessed the Koran, with the 
peculiar use of the Arabic tongue. See the curious and honest story of their ex- 
pulsion in Geddes, {Miscellanies, vol. i. pp. 1-19S.) 

6« Paganos qui supersunt, quanquam jam nullos esse credamus, &c. Cod. 
TJieodos. 1. xvi. tit. x. leg. 22. a. d. 423. The younger Theodosius was afterwards 
satisfied that his judgment had been somewhat premature.f 

* Heyne, in his Disquisitio in Zosimum Ejusque Fidem, places Zosimus to- 
wards the close of the fifth century. Zosim. Heynii, p. xvii. — Milman. 

t The statement of Gibbon is much too strongly worded. M. Beugnot has 
traced the vestiges of Paganism in the West, after this period, in monuments 
and inscriptions with curious industry. Compare likewise note on the more 
tardy progress of Christianity in the rural districts.— Milman. 



552 WORSHIP OF CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. 

Tue worship The ruin ? f the Pa £ an religion is described 
of the Chris- by the sophists, as a dreadful and amazing 
tian martyrs, p^igy, which covered the earth with darkness, 
and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night. 
They relate, in solemn and pathetic strains, that the temples 
were converted into sepulchres, and that the holy places, 
which had been adorned by the statues of the gods, were 
basely polluted by the relics of Christian martyrs. " The 
" monks," a race of filthy animals, to whom Eunapius is 
tempted to refuse the name of men, "are the authors of 
" the new worship, which, in the place of those deities who 
u are conceived by the understanding, has substituted the 
" meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads, salted 
" and pickled, of those infamous malefactors, who, for the 
" multitude of their crimes, have suffered a just and ignomin- 
" ious death ; their bodies, still marked by the impression 
" of the lash, and the scars of those tortures which were 
" inflicted by the sentence of the magistrate ; such " con- 
tinues Eunapius " are the gods which the earth produces 
" in our days ; such are the martyrs, the supreme arbitrators 
" of our prayers and petitions to the Deity, whose tombs 
" are now consecrated as the objects of the veneration of 
" the people." 68 Without approving the malice, it is natural 
enough to share the surprise, of the sophist, the spectator 
of a revolution, which raised those obscure victims of the 
laws of Rome, to the rank of celestial and invisible pro- 
tectors of the Roman empire. The grateful respect of the 
Christians for the martyrs of the faith, was exalted, by time 
and victory, into religious adoration ; and the most illustrious 
of the saints and prophets were deservedly associated to the 
honors of the martyrs. One hundred and fifty years after 
the glorious deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Vatican 
and the Ostian road were distinguished by the tombs, or 
rather by the the trophies, of those spiritual heroes. 69 In 
the age which followed the conversion of Constantine, the 
emperors, the consuls, and the generals of armies, devoutly 
visited the sepulchres of a tentmaker and a fisherman ; 70 

68 See Eunapius, in the life of the sophist ^Edesius: in that of Eustathius he 
foretells the ruin of Paganism, K ai ti fivdudeg, nai ueideca Korog Tvpuvvr/aei ru 

hnl y/fe ?T(l?L/.l<7Ta. 

69 Caius, (apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. ii. c. 25), a Roman presbyter, who lived 
in the time of Zephyrinus, (a. d. 202-219,) is an early witness of this superstitious 
practice. 

• o Chrysostom. Quod Christies sit Dens. torn. i. now edit. No. 9. I am in- 
debted for this quotation to Benedict the XlVth's pastoral letter on the Jubilee 
of the year 1750. See the curious and entertaining letters of M. Chais, torn. iii. 



APOSTOLIC RELICS. 553 

and their venerable bones were deposited under the altars 
of Christ, on which the bishops of the royal city continually 
offered the unbloody sacrifice. 71 The new capital of the 
eastern world, unable to produce any ancient and domestic 
trophies, was enriched by the spoils of dependent provinces. 
The bodies of St Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy, had 
reposed, near three hundred years, in the obscure graves, 
from whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the 
church of the apostles, which the magnificence of Con- 
stantine had founded on the banks of the Thracian Bos- 
phorus. 72 About fifty years afterwards, the same banks 
were honored by the presence of Samuel, the judge and 
prophet of the people of Israel. His ashes, deposited in a 
golden vase, and covered with a silken veil, were delivered 
by the bishops into each other's hands. The relics of 
Samuel were received by the people, with the same joy and 
reverence which they would have shown to the living 
prophet; the highways, from Palestine to the gates of Con- 
stantinople, were filled with an uninterrupted procession ; 
and the emperor Arcadius himself, at the head of the most 
illustrious members of the clergy and senate, advanced to 
meet his extraordinary guest, who had always deserved, 
and claimed the homage of kings. 73 The example of Rome 
and Constantinople confirmed the faith and discipline of 
the Catholic world. The honors of the saints and martyrs, 
after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane reason, 74 

ti Male facit ergo Romanus episcopus ? qui super mortuorum hominum, Petri 
et Pauli, secundum nos, ossa veneranda * * * offert Domino sacrificia, et 
tumulos eorum, Christi arbitratur altaria. Jerom. torn. ii. advers. Vigilant, p. 153. 

12 Jerom. (torn. ii. p. 122) bears witness to these translations, which are neg- 
lected by the ecclesiastical historians. The passion of St. Andrew at Patrae 
is described in an epistle from the clergy of Achaia, which Baronius (Annul 
Eccles. A. d. 60, No. 34) wishes to believe, and Tillemont is forced to reject. St. 
Andrew was adopted as the spiritual founder of Constantinople, Mem. Eccles. 
torn. i. pp. 317-323. 588-594-) 

n Jerom. (torn. 11. p. 122) pompously describes the translation of Samuel, which 
is noticed in all the chronicles of the times. 

fi The presbyter Vigilantius, the Protestant of his age, firmly, though ineffec- 
tually, withstood the superstition of monks, relics, saints, fasts, &c, for which 
Jerom compares him to the Hydra, Cerberus, the Centaurs, &c, and considers 
him only as the organ of the Daemon, (torn. ii. pp. 120-126.) Whoever will peruse 
the controversy of St. Jerom and Vigilantius, and St. Augustin's account of the 
miracles of St. Stephen may speedily gain some idea of the spirit of the Fathers.* 

* This controversy attracts more particular notice, since it illustrates the most 
important feature of the age and some other interesting facts. Vigilantius was 
guilty of the deadly sin of not thinking as Jerome did, respecting the celibacy of 
the clergy and other points of church discipline, as well as on the subjects men- 
tioned by Gibbon. The heretic was therefore painted in the darkest colors that 
polemical ingenuity could invent. Although at that time an ecclesiastic of Spain, 
he was a native of Convenae. a Gallic canton at the foot of the Pyrenees, denom- 
inated Cominges by the modern French. There was a tradition, that Pompev, 
returning from his victorious career in Spain, had planted a colony of his pris- 



554 FABULOUS MARTYRS AND RELICS. 

were universally established ; and in the age of Ambrose 
and Jerom, something was still deemed wanting to the 
sanctity of a Christian church, till it had been consecrated 
by some portion of holy relics, which fixed and inflamed 
the devotion of the faithful. 

In the long period of twelve hundred years, 

reflections, which elapsed between the reign of Constantine 
and the reformation of Luther, the worship of 
saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity 
of the Christian model; and some symptoms of degeneracy 
may be observed even in the first generations which 
adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation. 

i. Fabulous *• The satisfactory experience, that the relics 
martyrs and of saints were more valuable than gold or 
precious stones, 75 stimulated the clergy to multiply 
the treasures of the church. Without much regard for 
truth or probability, they invented names for skeletons, and 
actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and of the 
holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by 
religious fiction. To the invincible band of genuine and 
primitive martyrs, they added myriads of imaginary heroes, 
who had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or 

is M de Beausobre, {Hist, du Manicheisme, torn. ii. p. 648), has applied a 
worldly sense to the pious observations of the clergy of Smyrna, who carefully 
preserved the relics of St. Polycarp the martyr. 

oners on this spot and given the community its Latin name. Julius Caesar, {De 
Bell Civ. 1. 3, c. 17,) referred obscurely to a treaty with some lawless banditti 
among the wilds of the Pyrenees. In the bitterness of controversial rancor, 
Jerome availed himself of these grounds, for a furious asault on his adversary. 
" Worthv," he savs, "is Vigilantius of his descent from that rabble of thieves 
" whom Co. Pompey, on his return to celebrate his triumph for the conquest of 
" Spain, collected among the Pvrenean mountains and planted in one town to 
" which he gave the name of Con venae." Hieron. adv. Vig. Op. torn. i. p. 589,) 
This vituperative ebullition of provoked sainthood has since been taken by our 
classical critics, among them Oudendorp and D'Anville, as sound historical 
evidence of a fact unknown to earlier writers. Neither Strabo nor Pliny had 
heard of this origin of Convenae. The former is remarkable for having collected 
and recorded everv current tradition relative to the early history of tribes and 
cities. In this instance he is silent. But he has used an expression, which, as he 
seems to have traveled through the region, probably indicates the true derivation 
of the name. He calls it (lib. 4) t&v Kovovevov cvyn'kvduv, a term which his 
different editors and annotators are at a loss to explain, and for which they have 
proposed to substitute various readings. The meaning of it is, conftuvitim, a 
flowing together of waters. The whole district is full of torrents rushing down 
from the heights of the Pyrenees, and successively uniting to form the head of 
the Garonne. The Aqiice ' Convenarum and streams that are formed in that tract 
of country are mentioned by Cellarius. (torn. i. p. 145.) Instead, therefore, of 
affording the delusive grounds on which Jerome relied, in the gratification of his 
malignity, it is evident that the Latin Convenes and the French Cominges are 
corrupted forms of the Coman or Covan, by which the Celtic inhabitants desig- 
nated the meetings of waters in that region. Their language supplied also the 
name of the river which finally issues from these waters, for the Garonne is their 
Garwun 'see Armstrong's Gaelic Dictionary,) the rough water, so graphically 
and characteristically described by Pompon ius Mela, (lib. 3, c. 2.)— Eng. Ch. 






MIRACLES AND VISIONS. 555 

credulous legendaries ; and there is reason to suspect, that 
Tours might not be the only diocese in which the bones of 
a malefactor were adored instead of those of a saint. 76 A 
superstitious practice, which tended to increase the tempta- 
tions of fraud, and credulity, insensibly extinguished the 
light of history and of reason in the Christian world. 

II. But the -progress of superstition would Miracles 
have been much less rapid and victorious, if the 
faith of the people had not been assisted by the seasonable 
aid of visions and miracles, to ascertain the authenticity 
and virtue of the most suspicious relics. In the reign of 
the younger Theodosius, Lucian, 77 a presbyter of Jerusalem, 
and the ecclesiastical minister of the village of Capharga- 
mala, about twenty miles from the city, related a very sin- 
gular dream, which, to remove his doubts, had been re- 
peated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable figure 
stood before him in the silence of the night, with a long 
beard, a white robe, and a gold rod ; announced himself by 
the name of Gamaliel, and revealed to the astonished 
presbyter, that his own corpse, with the bodies of his son 
Abibafs, his friend Nicodemus, and the illustrious Stephen, 
the first martyr of the Christian faith, were secretly buried 
in the adjacent field. He added, with some impatience, 
that it was time to release himself, and his companions, 
from their obscure prison ; that their appearance would be 
salutary to a distressed world ; and that they had made 
choice of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their 
situation and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties 
which still retarded this important discovery, were success- 
ively removed by new visions ; and the ground was opened 
by the bishop, in the presence of an innumerable multitude. 
The coffins of Gamaliel, of his son, and of his friend, were 
found in regular order ; but when the fourth coffin, which con- 
tained the remains of Stephen, was shown to the light, the 
earth trembled, and an odor, such as that of Paradise, was 
smelt, which instantly cured the various diseases of seventy- 
three of the assistants. The companions of Stephen were 

'6 Martin of Tours, (see his Life, c. 8, by Sulpicius Severus), extorted this con- 
fession from the mouth of the dead man. The error is allowed to be natural ; the 
discovery is supposed to be miraculous. Which of the two was likely to happen 
most frequently? 

i"! Lucian composed in Greek his original narrative, which has been translated 
by Avitus, and published by Baronius. (Annat. Eccles. A. D. 415, No. 7—16.) The 
Benedictine editors of St. Augustin have given (at the end of the work de Civi- 
tate Dei) two several copies, with many various readings. It is the character of 
falsehood to be loose and inconsistent. Ihe most incredible parts of the legend, 
&c M are smoothed and softened by Tillemont Mem. Eccles. torn, ii., p. 9, &c. 



556 REVIVAL OF POLYTHEISM. 

left in their peaceful residence of Caphargamala : but the 
relics of the first martyr were transported, in solemn pro- 
cession, to a church constructed in their honor on mount 
Sion ; and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of 
blood, 78 or the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in 
almost every province of the Roman world, to possess a 
divine and miraculous virtue. The grave and learned 
Augustin, 79 whose understanding scarcely admits the ex- 
cuse of credulity, has attested the innumerable prodigies 
which were performed in Africa by the relics of St. Stephen; 
and this marvellous narrative is inserted in the elaborate 
work of the City of God, which the bishop of Hippo de- 
signed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of 
Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares, that he had 
selected those miracles only which were publicly certified 
by the persons who were either the objects, or the spectators, 
of the power of the martyr.* Many prodigies were omitted, 
or forgotten ; and Hippo had been less favorably treated 
than the other cities of the province. And yet the bishop 
enumerates above seventy miracles, of which three were 
resurrections from the dead, in the space of two years, and 
within the limits of his own diocese. 80 If we enlarge our 
view to all the dioceses, and all the saints, of the Christian 
world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables, and the 
errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source. But 
we may surely be allowed to observe, that a miracle, in that 
age of superstition and credulity, lost its name and its 
merit, since it could scarcely be considererd as a deviation 
from the ordinary, and established, laws of nature, 
in Revival m* The mnumeraD l e miracles, of which the 
of tombs of the martyrs were the perpetual theatre, 

Polytheism. revea } e d to t h e pi 0U s believer, the actual state 

"8 A phial of St. Stephen's blood was annually liquified at Naples, till he was 
superseded by St. Januarius (Ruinart. Hist. Persecut. Vandal, p. 529.) 

19 Augustin composed the two-and-twenty books de Civitate Dei in the space 
of thirteen years, A. D. 413—426 (Tillemont, Mem. Ecles. torn. xiv. p. 608, &c.) 
His learning is too often borrowed, and his arguments are too often his own ; but 
the whole work claims the merit of a magnificent design, vigorously, and not 
unskillfully, executed. t 

so See Augustin de Civitat. Dei, 1. xxii. c. 22, and the Appendix, which contains 
two books of St. Stephen's miracles, by Evodius, bishop of Uzalis. Freculphus 
(apud Basnage, Hist, des puifs, torn. viii. p. 249) has preserved a Gallic or a 
Spanish proverb, '"Whoever pretends to have read all the miracles of St. Stephen, 
" he lies." 

* St. Augustin wished to " extirpate the idolatry of the hearts of the heathen," 
and Dean Milman, in a preceding note, approved this sentiment. And yet St. 
Augustin believed in the miraculous power of the scrapings of a decayed bone, 
and the medical virtue of the dried blood of a Christian martyr.— E. 

t Clinton shows that Augustin was employed on the work seventeen years, 
from a. d. 411 to 428. See F. H. i. p. 291 ; ' F. R. i. p. 464.— Eng. Ch. 






MIRACLES OF THE SAINTS. 



557 



and constitution of the invisible world ; and his religious 
speculations appeared to be founded on the firm basis of 
fact and experience. Whatever might be the condition of 
vulgar souls, in the long interval between the dissolution 
and the resurrection of their bodies, it was evident that the 
superior spirits of the saints and martyrs did not consume 
that portion of their existence in silent and inglorious sleep. 81 
It was evident (without presuming to determine the place 
of their habitation, or the nature of their felicity,) that they 
enjoyed the lively and active consciousness of their happi- 
ness, their virtue, and their powers ; and that they had 
already secured the possession of their eternal reward. The 
enlargement of their intellectual faculties surpassed the 
measure of the human imagination ; since it was proved 
by experience, that they were capable of hearing and 
understanding the various petitions of their numerous 
votaries ; who, in the same moment of time, but in the most 
distant parts of the world, invoked the name and assistance 
of Stephen or of Martin. 82 The confidence of their petitioners 
was founded on the persuasion that the saints, who reigned 
with Christ, cast an eye of pity upon earth ; that they were 
warmly interested in the prosperity of the Catholic church; 
and that the individuals, who imitated the example of their 
faith and piety, were the peculiar and favorite objects of 
their most tender regard. Sometimes, indeed, their friend- 
ship might be influenced by considerations of a less exalted 
kind ; they viewed, with partial affection, the places which 
had been consecrated by their birth, their residence, their 
death, their burial, or the possession of their relics. The 
meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may be 
deemed unworthy of a celestial breast ; yet the saints them- 
selves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of 
the liberality of their votaries : and the sharpest bolts of 
punishment were hurled against those impious wretches, 
who violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their 

si Burnet {de Statu Mortuorum.pp. 56 — 84) collects ihe opinions of the Fathers, 
as far as they assert the sleep, or repose, of human souls till the day of judg- 
ment. He afterward exposes p, 91, &c.,) the inconveniences which must arise, 
if they possessed a more active and sensible existence. 

bs Vigilantius placed the souls of the prophets and martyrs either, in the 
bosom of Abraham (in loco refrigerii), or else under the altar of God. Nee posse 
suis tumulis et ubi voluerunt adesse praesentes. But jferom (torn. ii. p. 122,) 
sternly refuted this blasphemy. Tu Deo leges pones? Tu apostolis vincula in- 
jicies, ut usque ad diem judicii teneantur custodia, nee sint cum Domino suo : de 
quibus scriptum est, Sequuntur Agnum quocunque vadit. Si Agnus ubique, 
ergo, et hi, qui cum Agno sunt, ubique esse credendi sunt. Et cum diabolus et 
daemones, toto vagentur in orbe, &c. 



558 INTRODUCTION OF PAGAN CEREMONIES. 

supernatural power." 5 Atrocious, indeed, must have been 
the guilt, and strange would have been the skepticism, of 
those men, if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a 
divine agency, which the elements, the whole range of the 
animal creation, and even the subtle and invisible operations 
of the human mind, were compelled to obey. 84 The 
immediate, and almost instantaneous, effects, that were 
supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence, satisfied the 
Christians of the ample measure of favor and authority 
which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the supreme 
God ; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire, whether 
they were continually obliged to intercede before the throne 
of grace; or whether they might not be permitted to 
exercise, according to the dictates of their benevolence and 
justice, the delegated powers of their subordinate ministry. 
The imagination, which had been raised by a painful effort 
to the contemplation and worship of the Universal Cause, 
eagerly embraced such inferior objects of adoration as were 
more proportioned to its gross conceptions and imperfect 
faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the primitive 
Christians was gradually corrupted ; and the monarchy 
of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtilities, was 
degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology* 
which tended to restore the reign of polytheism. 55 

IV. As the objects of religion were gradually 
iv. introduc- reduced to the standard of the imagination, the 

tion ot Pagan . , . . . °i * ,V 

ceremonies, rites and ceremonies were introduced that 

seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of 

the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, 86 

83 Fleury, Discours s?ir T Hist. Eccttsiastique, in. p. 80. 

?^ At Minorca, the relics of St. Stephen converted, in eight days, 540 Jews; 
with the help, indeed, of some wholesome severities, such as burning the Syna- 
gogue, driving the obstinate infidels to starve among the rocks, &c. See the 
original letter of Severus, bishop of Minorca (ad calcem St. Augustin. de Civ. 
Dei,} and the judicious remarks of Basnage (torn. viii. pp. 245-251.) 

bj Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. ii. p. 434,) observes, like a philosopher the natural 
flux and reflux of Polytheism and Theism. f 

so D Aubigne (see his own Memoir es, pp. 156 — 160) frankly offered, with the 
consent of the Huguenot ministers, to allow the first 400 years as the rule of faith. 
The Cardinal du Perron haggled for forty years more, which were indiscreetly 
given. Yet neither party would have found their account in this foolish bargain. 

* The popularity of the Christian mythology does not prove its truth. It found 
Rome powerful, prosperous and civilized: and it banished liberty, enthroned 
superstition, and destroyed the Roman empire. Faith, ignorance, and intolerance 
were its weapons, and the Dark Ages of oppression and enthrallruent its unhappy 
results. — E. 

f Such alterations are not the natural movements of the human mind. Its 
course is ever onward, nor does it halt or retrograde save by the pressure of ex- 
ternal forces. Against these, though it may struggle for a time unavailing!}-, it 
finally prevails. — Eng. Ch. 



PAGANISM REESTABLISHED. 559 

Tertullian, or Lactantius, 87 had been suddenly raised from 
the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint, or 
martyr, 88 they would have gazed with astonishment, and 
indignation, on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded 
to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congrega- 
tion. As soon as the doors of the church were thrown 
open, they must have been offended by the smoke of in- 
cense, the perfume of flowers, and the glare of lamps and 
tapers, which diffused, at noon-day, a gaudy, superfluous, 
and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they approached 
the balustrade of the altar, they made their way through 
the prostrate crowd, consisting for the most part of strangers 
and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of the 
feast, and who already felt the strong intoxication of 
fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses were 
imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice ; 
and their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be 
the language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the 
ashes, of the saint, which were usually concealed, by a linen 
or silken veil, from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians 
frequented the tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtain- 
ing, from their powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, 
but more especially of temporal, blessings. They implored 
the preservation of their health, or the cure of their in- 
firmities ; the fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety 
and happiness of their children. Whenever they undertook 
any distant or dangerous journey, they requested, that the 
holy martyrs would be their guides and protectors on the 
roads ; and if they returned without haVing experienced any 
misfortune, they again hastened to the tombs of the martyrs, 
to celebrate, with grateful thanksgivings, their obligations 
to the memory and relics of those heavenly patrons. The 
walls were hung round with symbols of the favors which 
they had received ; eyes, and hands, and feet, of gold and 
silver : and edifying pictures, which could not long escape 
the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion, represented 
the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the tutelar 
saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition 

87 The worship practiced and inculcated by Tertullian, Lactantius, Arnobius, 
&c, is so extremely pure and spiritual, that their declamations against the Pagan, 
sometime glance against the Jewish, ceremonies. 

88 Faustus the Manichaean accuses the Catholics of idolatry. Vertitis idola in 
martyrs * * * quos votis similibus colitis. M. de Beausobre, {Hist. Critique 
du Manicheisme, torn. ii. pp. 629-700,) a Protestant, but a philosopher, has repre- 
sented, with candor and learning, the introduction of Christian idolatry in the 
fourth and fifth centuries. 



560 THE OLD MYTHOLOGY UNDER A NEW NAME. 

might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the 
same method of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the 
senses, of mankind : 89 but it must ingenuously be confessed, 
that the ministers of the Catholic church imitated the pro- 
fane model, which they were impatient to destroy. The 
most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves, that 
the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the 
superstition of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, 
some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The 
religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the 
final conquest of the Roman empire : but the victors them- 
selves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their 
vanquished rivals. 90 * 

89 The resemblance of superstition, which could not be imitated, might be 
traced from Japan to .Mexico. Warburton has seized this idea, which he dis- 
torts, by rendering it too general and absolute (Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 126, &c.) 

90 The imitation of Paganism is the subject of Dr. Middleton's agreeable letter 
from Rome. Warburton's animadversions obliged him to connect (vol. iii. pp. 
120-132) the history of the two religions, and to prove the antiquity of the Chris- 
tian copy.f 

* But there was always this important difference between Christian and 
heathen Polytheism. In Paganism this was the whole religion ; in the darkest 
ages of Christianity, some, however obscure and vague, Christian notions of 
future retribution, of the life after death, lurked at the bottom, and operated to 
a certain extent, on the thoughts and feelings, sometimes on the actions. — M.J 

t That subjugation of mind, which the hierarchy had been for three centuries 
effecting, begins now to develop rapidly its necessary consequences. Delusions 
so gross, impostures so impudent, could only find credit where neglected educa- 
tion and stolid ignorance had prepared weakened intellects to receive them. 
They were the rivets and bolts of the deadly chain by which a worldly priest- 
hood was dragging back enslaved mind into the barbarism whence it had been 
for eighteen centuries emerging. Well might Niebuhr say, when closing his re- 
view of learning and art in the time of Theodosius, (Lectures, vol. iii., p. 327,) 
" Ignorance and indifference to literature increased more and more among the 
" higher classes, whilst the memory of the olden times had been entirely lost." 
Thus was it, that a generation had been trained so submissive to their enslavers, 
so spirit-broken, so helpless, that they were incapable of defending their country 
or themselves, and tamely yfflded to the stern, rough, but manly invaders who 
crowded upon them. All this, be it remembered, had been in progress, long 
before the irruption of those unlettered races, who have been calumniated as the 
authors of the darkness which for the next thousand years overspread mankind. 

* * * Niebuhr has concisely stated this in his Lectures (vol. iii. p. 330). " Not 
" only literature and creative genius," he says, " but the spirit of bravery also had 
" died away ; the Italians were now a mere helpless rabble." Thus had the de- 
scendants of the world's conquerors and instructors degenerated in the space of 
four hundred years. Yet, during all that time, a religion was becoming ascendant 
among them, by which they ought to have been improved ; and by which, in de- 
fiance of these incontestable facts, some strangely maintain and still more blindly 
believe, that they actually were improved. Why it had failed in its sublime vo- 
cation, and why its advancing steps were marked by growing depravity instead 
of maturing virtue, is the problem for history to solve. — English Churchman. 

% The Rev. Robt. Taylor in his Diegesis asserts that during the fifth century, 
" when all there was of religion in the world merged jn the palpable obscurity of 
" the Dark Ages, Christianity, as a religion distinct from Paganism, had gained 
" no extensive footing; that priests, altars, temples, solemn festivals, melancholy 
" grimaces, ridiculous attitudes, trinkets, banners, bells, candles, cushions, holy 
" water, holy wine, holy biscuits, holy oil, holy smoke, holy vestments, holy books, 
" state candlesticks, dim-painted windows, chalices, salvers, pictures, tablets, 
" music, &c, were substantially the same in both religions; and further that, 
" Ammonius Saccus, the teacher of Origen, had taught that 'Christianity and 
" ' Paganism when rightly understood, differed in no essential points, but had a 
" ' common origin, and really were one and the same religion.' " — E. 




Centaur. 



Mercury. 





.-Esculapius. 



Hygeia. 



AESCULAPIUS. 

TH"* SCULAPIUS was the god of Medicine — the benefactor and Savior of 
J^\2^ mankind. He was the son of Apollo and the nymph Coronis, who was 
the daughter of a Thessalian king, and his most celebrated grove and 
temple was at Epidaurus, where the great physician was worshiped under the 
form of a serpent. His daughter Hygeia —identical with the Roman goddess 
of health, Salus — also received divine honors, and her statue at ^Egnum, in 
Achaia, was sacred to the priests. 

In the engraving on the preceeding page .(Esculapius is seen as presented in 
an ancient statue. On his left hand is the trunk of a tree, around which a serpent 
winds, symbolizing renovation, health, prudence, and foresight. His son, Teles- 
phorl'S — the god of convalescents — is on his right hand, and wears the curious 
hood and mantle in which he is always represented. Hygeia is seated on a 
rock. In her right hand she holds a sceptre, and in her left, a bowl, towards 
which a large serpent is advancing. Chiron, the wise Centaur, who taught 
.-Esculapius Botany and the secret efficacy of plants, is shown in the upper left 
hand corner, and in the opposite corner is seen the god Mercury, holding in his 
right hand the caduceus. or wand, with the twined serpents in congress — the 
symbol of strength and virility — which was presented to him by Apollo, and 
which was endowed with miraculous powers. The petasus, or winged cap, and 
the talaria, or winged sandals, were gifts from Zeus. 

Holy prophets foretold the birth of ^sculapius, and joyfully proclaimed to an 
expectant world, the blessings the god would bestow upon mankind. His worship 
was first established in Egvpt, and from thence propagated throughout Greece. 
Within a short time after his death he was deified and received divine honors, 
and his worship continued, with scarcely diminished splendor, for centuries after 
the establishment of Christianity. Taylor has shown the remarkable resemblance 
between the prophecies of Ovid and Isaiah, as follows : 

^CSCULAPIUS. JESUS CHRIST. 

" Mr. Addison's versification of the " Mr. Popes versification of the pro- 
prophecies which foretold the life and phecies which foretold the life and 
actions of vEsculapius, from the Meta- actions of Jesus Christ, from the pro- 
morphoses of Ovid. phecies of Isaiah. 

Once, as the sacred infant she surveyed, Ye nymphs of Solyma, begin the song ! 
The god was kindled in the raving O thou my voice inspire, 

maid ; That touched Isaiah's hallowed lips 

And thus she uttered her prophetic with fire, 

tale, Rapt into future times the bard begun— 

' Hail, great physician of the world ! A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a 

all hail. son. 

Hail mighty infant, who in years to Swift fly the years, and rise th' expected 

come, morn — 

Shalt heal the nations, and defraud the O spring to light, auspicious babe be 

tomb ! born. 

Swift be thy growth, thy triumphs un- He from thick films shall purge the 

confined, visual ray, 

Make kingdoms thicker, and increase And on the sightless eyeball pour the 

mankind. day: 

Thy daring art shall animate the 'Tis he, th' obstructed paths of sound 

dead, shall clear, 

And draw the thunder on thy guilty And bid new music charm th' unfolding 

head ; ear ; 

Then shalt thou die, but from the dark The dumb shall sing, the lame his 

abode crutch forego, 

Shalt rise victorious, and be twice a And leap exulting, like the bounding 

god.' " roe." 

" Among the Greeks it was believed," continues Taylor, " that the god Apollo 
" himself had represented ^sculapius as his son by a voice from the oracle : and 
" it is a striking coincidence of fact, if it be no more than a coincidence, that we 
" find the Christian Father, Eusebius, attempting to prove the divinity of Jesus 
" Christ from an answer given by the same oracle ; while the text of the Gospel 
" of St. Matthew, iii. 17, written certainly much later than those answers, runs, 
" ' Lo. a voice from heaven, saying. This is my beloved son, in whom I am well 
" 'pleased.' It was believed that yEsculapius was so expert in medicine, as not 
" only to cure the sick, but even to raise the dead." Pluto, the destroying 
power, protested against this latter miracle ; and Jupiter in anger hurled his 
lightnings at the benignant god and savior, thus destroying ^Esculapius, the 
second benefactor of mankind, as he had formerly punished Prometheus, the 
creator and preserver of the human race. — E. 




Hector and Andromache.* 

X. 

ORIGIN, PROGRESS, AND EFFECTS OF THE MONASTIC LIFE. 
— CONVERSION OF THE BARBARIANS TO CHRISTIANITY 
AND ARIANISM. — PERSECUTION OF THE VANDALS IN 
AFRICA. — EXTINCTION OF ARIANISM AMONG THE BAR- 
BARIANS, f 

THE indissoluble connection of civil and ecclesiastical 
affairs has compelled and encouraged me to relate 
the progress, the persecutions, the establishment, 
the divisions, the final triumph, and the gradual corruption 
of Christianity. I have purposely delayed the consideration 
of two religious events, interesting in the study of human 
nature, and important in the decline and fall of the Roman 

* The poetry of Homer has immortalized the heroes of the Trojan war, and 
Hector is one "of the noblest conceptions of the Grecian poet. Among- the brave 
defenders of Trov, none were found more valiant than the son of Priam and 
Hecuba, who slew Patroclus, but could not withstand the power of Achilles. He 
anticipated his untimely death, which he bravely met in defence of his country, 
and, fearing the cruelty of the Greeks, thus mournfully addresses his wife : 

" I see thee weeping, trembling, captive led." 
Indeed, the Iliad contains nothing more pathetic than the parting scene between 
Hector and Andromache. — E. 

tChap. xxxvii. Gibbon's Histoiy of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

(561) 



562 ORIGIN OF THE MONKS. 

empire. 1. The institution of the monastic life ;* and, II. 
The conversion of the northern barbarians. 

I. Prosperity and peace introduced the dis- 
nastiTofe. tinction of the vulgar and the ascetic Christians} 
Origin of the The loose and imperfect practice of religion 

monks. . r . . . r r \ . £> 

satisfied the conscience 01 the multitude. The 
prince or magistrate, the soldier or merchant, reconciled 
their fervent zeal, and implicit faith, with the exercise of 
their profession, the pursuit of their interest, and the 
indulgence of their passions ; but the Ascetics, who obeyed 
and abused the rigid precepts of the gospel, were inspired 
by the savage enthusiasm, which represents man as a 
criminal, and God as a tyrant. They seriously renounced 
the business, and the pleasures, of the age ; abjured the use 
of wine, of flesh, and of marriage ; chastised their body, 
mortified their affections, and embraced a life of misery, as 
the price of eternal happiness. In the reign of Constantine, 
the Ascetics fled from a profane and degenerate world, to 
perpetual solitude, or religious society. Like the first 
Christians of Jerusalem, 3 * they resigned the use, or the 

1 The origin of the monastic institution has been laboriously discussed by 
Thomassin (Discipline de T Eglise, torn. i. pp. 1419-1426) and Helyot Hist, des 
Ordres Monastiques, torn. i. pp. 1-66.) These authors are very learned and tolerably 
honest, and their difference of opinion shows the subject in its full extent. Yet 
the cautious Protestant, who distrusts any Popish guides, may consult the seventh 
book of Bingham's Christian Antiquities. 

2 See Euseb. Demonstrat. Evangel. (1. i. pp. 20, 21, edit. Graec. Rob. Stephani, 
Paris, I545.) In his Ecclesiastical History, published twelve years after the 
Demonstration, Eusebius (1. ii. c. 17) asserts the Christianity of the Therapeutae; 
but he appears ignorant that a similar institution was actually revived in Egvpt.f 

s Cassian, (Cotlat. xviii. 5), claims this origin for the institution of the Coenobites, 
which gradually decayed till it was restored by Antony and his disciples. 

* It has been before shown that the first Christian community was not strictly 
Ccenobitic. See vol. ii. — Milman. 

t Neander (Hist, of Chris, vol. Hi., p. 323) justly remarks that "the ascetic 
" tendency cannot, in itself considered, be regarded as a phenomenon peculiar to 
" Christianity and springing simply out of the spirit of this religion. Something 
" like it is to be found in other religions." Not only in other religions, but in 
human nature itself. Amid our endless varities of temper and character, there 
always will be some more or less disposed to seek retirement from the world. 
The studious, the toil-worm, the persecuted, the disappointed, the disgusted, all 
in their own way, withdraw into a solitude where they may escape the cares of 
social life. Christianity undoubtedly favored this tendency, by encouraging in 
its earnest professors a desire to avoid the contamination of licentious manners. 
Mosheim (Institutes, 1. 167) assumes it to be almost coeval with the religion itself, 
and to have originated in the wish of the earliest Greek believers to assimilate 
themselves to the Pythagoreans and Platonists of the day, who affected a rigid 
austerity of manners and a sublime dignity of deportment. Like those, the 
zealous converts desired to elevate themselves to a position where they might 
" live above nature," and prove the moral superiority to which they laid claim. 
The connection between primitive Christianity and philosophy, is generally 
denied by Mosheim ; but this very explanation affords additional evidence of a 
fact so extensively and lucidly indicated by other circumstances. The monastic 
system (.the organized form of asceticism), would not, however, have grown to 
such consistency and importance, had not the hierarchy perceived that these 
devotees might be used, not merely as a defensive, but also as an aggressive 
host, to fortifv and extend their authority.— Eng. Ch. 



HERMITS, MONKS, AND AXACHORETS. 563 

property, of their temporal possessions ; established regular 
communities of the same sex, and a similar disposition ; 
and assumed the names of Hermits, Monks, and Anacho- 
rets, expressive of their lonely retreat in a natural or 
artificial desert. They soon acquired the respect of the 
world, which they despised ; and the loudest applause was 
bestowed on this Divine Philosophy, 4 which surpassed, 
without the aid of science or reason, the laborious virtues 
of the Grecian schools. The monks might indeed contend 

4 'Q&e/AfMjTarov yap ri xriua elq dv&puTrovg Ih&ovaa itapa Qeov 77 
TOiavrr]d)i/.oao(pca. These are the expressive words of Sozomen, who copiously 
and agreeably describes (I. i. c. 12, 13. 14) the origin and progress of this monkish 
philosophy, (see Suicer. Thesau. Eccles. torn. ii. p. 1441.) Some modern writers. 
Lipsius, (torn, iv- p. 448, Manuduct ad Philosoph. Stoic, iii. 13) and La Mothe le 
V^ayer (torn. ix. de la Vertu des Pay ens, pp. 228-262), have compared the Carmel- 
ites to the Pythagoreans,* and the Cynics to the Capuchins. 

* Pythogoras was born 5S6 years before the Christian era, and his birth was 
foretold by Apollo Pythus. Like Jesus, he was credited with a supernatural 
origin, and his soul was believed to have " descended from its primeval state of 
" companionship with the divine Apollo." He taught the doctrine of the Metemp- 
sychosis, or transmigration of souls, from which the Christian doctrine of 
original sin, and the Christian theory of the soul's deuxieme naissance, or 
second birth, is probably derived. The purity of the system of morals taught 
by the Samian sage has been justly commended by all nations, and "no Christian 
"writings," says Taylor, in Diegesis, "even to this day, can compete in sub- 
" limitv and grandeur with what this illustrious philosopher has laid down 
" concerning God, and the end of all our actions. It is likely, says Bayle, that 
" he would have carried his orthodoxy much farther, had he had the courage to 
" expose himself to martyrdom. The strongest type of resemblance or coinc-i- 
" dence with the apostolic story, which the history of the Samian sage presents 
" is, that the Egyptian Therapeuts boasted of his name as a member of their 
" monastic institution; and that Pythagoras certainly made his disciples live in 
" common, and that they renounced their property in their patrimony, and that 'as 
" ' manv as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices 
" ' of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles feet ; and dis- 
" ' tribution was made to every man according as he had need.' — Acts, iv. 34." 

Taylor quotes from Mr. John Adams, the following free poetical version of the 
celebrated Golden Verses of Pythagoras : 

" Let not soft slumber close thine eyes, 

" Before thou recollectest thrice 

" Thy train of actions though the day: 

" ' Where have my feet found out their way? 

" 'What have I learn'd. where'er I've been, 

" ' From all I've heard, from all I've seen? 

" ' What know I more that's worth the knowing? 

" 'What have I done that's worth the doing? 

" ' What have I sought that I should shun ? 

" ' What duty have I left undone? 

" ' Or into what new follies run ? ' 

" These seif-inquiries are the road 

" That leads to virtue and to God." 
In Collyer's Lectures, quoted by G. Higgins, Esq., Celtic Druids, 4to. p. 126, 
the Creed of Pythagoras is given, and his conception of God compares favorably 
with the Hebrew idea of Jehovah : " God is neither the object of sense, nor 
" subject to passion, but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intelligent. 
" In his body he is like the light, and in his soul he resembles truth. He is the 
" universal spirit that pervades and diffuseth itself over all nature. All beings 
" receive their life from him. There is but One only God ! who is not, as some 
" are apt to imagine, seated above the world beyond the orb of the universe ; 
" but being himseif all in all, he sees all the beings that fill his immensity, the 
" only principle, the light of heaven, the Father of all. He produces every- 
" thing, he orders and disposes every thing; he is the reason, the life, and the 
" motion of all beings."— E. 



564 ANTONY AND THE MONKS OF EGYPT. 

with the stoics, in the contempt of fortune, of pain, and of 
death : the Pythagorean silence and submission were re- 
vived in their servile discipline ; and they disdained, as 
firmly as the cynics themselves, all the forms and decencies 
of civil society. But the votaries of this divine philosophy 
aspired to imitate a purer and more perfect model. They 
trod in the footsteps of the prophets, who had retired to 
the desert ; 5 and they restored the devout and contemplative 
life, which had been instituted by the Essenians, in Pales- 
tine and Egypt. The philosophic eye of Pliny had sur- 
veyed with astonishment a solitary people, who dwelt among 
the palm-trees near the Dead sea; who subsisted without 
money, who were propagated without women, and who 
derived from the disgust and repentance of mankind, a 
perpetual supply of voluntary associates. 6 
Antony and Egvpt, the fruitful parent of superstition, 
the monks of a ff orc i e d the first example of the monastic life. 
a. d. 305- Antony, 7 an illiterate 8 youth of the lower parts 

5 The Carmelites derive their pedigree, in regular succession, from the prophet 
Elijah (see the Theses of Beziers, A. D. 16S2, in Bayle's Nouvelles de la Republiqne. 
des Lettres, CEuvres, torn. i. p. 82, &c, and the prolix irony of the Ordres 
Monastiques, an anonymous work, torn. i. pp. 1-433, Berlin, 1751). Rome, and 
the inquisition of Spain, silenced the profane criticism of the Jesuits of Flanders 
(Helyot, Hist, des Ordres Monastiques, torn. i. pp. 282-300), and the statue of 
Elijah, the Carmelite, has been erected in the church of St. Peter. {Voyages du 
P. Labat, torn. iii. p. 87.) 

6 Plin. Hist. Natur. v. 15. Gens sola, et in toto orbe prseter caeteras mira, sine 
ulla femina, omni venere abdicata, sine pecunia, socia palmarum. Ita persecu- 
lorum millia (incredibile dictu) gens aeterna est in qua nemo nascitur. Tarn 
fcecunda illis aliorum vitae pcenitentia est. He places them just beyond the nox- 
ious influence of the lake, and names Engaddi and Massada as the nearest towns. 
The Laura, and monastery of St. Sabas, could not be far distant from this place. 
See Reland. Palestin., torn. i. p. 295; torn. ii. pp. 763, 874, 880, 890. 

' See Athanas. Op. torn. ii. pp. 450-505, and the Vit. Patrum, pp. 26-74, with 
Rosweyde's Annotations. The former is the Greek original, the latter, a very 
ancient Latin version by Evagrius, the friend of St. Jerome. 

€ Tpduaara y.bv fiadeiv ovk rjveaxeTO. Athanas. torn. ii. in Vit. St. Anton, p. 
452, and the assertion of his total ignorance has been received by many of the 
ancient and moderns. But Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. p. 666) shows, by 
some probable arguments, that Antony could read and write in the Coptic, his 
native tongue, and that he was only a stranger to the Greek letters. The phi- 
losopher Synesius (p. 51) acknowledges that the natural genius of Antony did not 
require the aid of learning.* 

* Neander (vol. iii., p. 323) supplies a more correct account of Antony's first 
movements, and the origin of a regular monastic life. '"In the fourth century, 
" men were not agreed on the question as to who was to be considered the 
" founder of monasticism, whether Paul or Antony. If by this was to be under- 
" stood the individual from whom the spread of this mode of life proceeded, the 
" name was unquestionably due to the latter, for if Paul was the first Christian 
" hermit, yet, without the influence of Antony, he must have remained unknown 
" to the rest of the Christian world, and would have found no followers. Before 
" Antony, there may have been many who by inclination or by peculiar circum- 
" stances, were led to adopt this mode of life; but they remained at least 
" unknown. The first, who is named by tradition— which-in this case it must be 
" confessed is entitled to little confidence and much distorted by fable — is the 
" above-mentioned Paul. He is said to have been moved by the Decian perse- 
cution, to withdraw himself, when a young man, to a grotto in a remote 
" mountain. To this mode of life he became attached, and was supplied with 



ANTONY S RESIDENCE ON MOUNT COLZIM. 565 

of Thebais, distributed his patrimony, 9 deserted his fam- 
ily and native home, and executed his monastic penance 
with original and intrepid fanaticism. After a long 
and painful noviciate, among the tombs, and in a ruined 
tower, he boldly advanced into the desert three days' 
journey to the eastward of the Nile ; discovered a lonely 
spot, which possessed the advantages of shade and water, 
and fixed his last residence on mount Colzim, near the Red 
Sea ; where an ancient monastery still preserves the name 
and memory of the saint. 10 The curious devotion of the 
Christians pursued him to the desert ;* and when he was 
obliged to appear at Alexandria, in the face of mankind, he 
supported his fame with discretion and dignity. He en- 
joyed the friendship of Athanasius, whose doctrine he 
approved ; and the Egyptian peasant respectfully declined 
a respectful invitation from the emperor Con- 
stantine. The venerable patriarch (for Antony ' ' 25I ~ 356, 
attained the age of one hundred and five years) beheld the 

9 Antra? autem erant ei trecentse uberes, et valde optimae {Vit. Patr. 1. i. p. 36.) 
If the Arura be a square measure of a hundred Egyptian cubits (Rosweyde, 
Onomasticon ad Vit. Patrum, pp. 1014-1015,) and the Egyptian cubit of all ages 
be equal to twenty-two English inches (Greaves, vol. i. p. 233,) the arura will 
consist of about three quarters of an English acre. 

10 The description of the monastry is given by ¥erom. (torn. i. pp. 248-249,) in 
Vit. Hilarion) and the P. Sicard, (Missions du Levant, torn. ii. pp. 122-200.) Their 
accounts cannot always be reconciled ; the father painted from his fancy, and 
*he Jesuit from his experience. 



" food and raiment by a neighboring palm tree. Antony having heard of him, 
" visited him and made him known to others." After reciting this story, Nean- 
der questions its authenticity. Yet Athanasius, in his Life of Antony , states, that 
the excited youth " heard of a venerable old man, who was living as an ascetic, 
" on the border of a neighboring village. He sought him out and made him his 
" pattern." Whether the old man's name was Paul or not, is quite unimportant ; 
we see how Antony's early propensity for solitude became more decided. He 
first breathed a spirit into the inert mass of asceticism ; and Athanasius, ever 
quick in discerning and improving advantages, accelerated, regulated, and di- 
rected the movement. The patriarch of Alexandria, if not the actual parent, was, 
hy his patronage, the godfather and rearer of monasticism.f — Eng. Ch. 

* The persecutions of Diocletian were one cause of peopling the desert with 
Christians who chose to lead the life of the anchorite rather than remain candi- 
dates for the crown of martyrdom. (Planck. Hist, de la Constit. de VEglise 
Chretieji. vol. i. chap. 14, § 3. — Guizot. 

t Rev. Robt. Taylor has called attention to the fact that Philo Judaeus wrote 
his treatise on The Contemplate Life, or Monkery, when Jesus Christ was not 
above ten years of age, and that the monastic institution was established prior to 
the apostolic age. This agrees with Gibbon's statement in note 162, page 189, 
chapter 2, that the Therapeutae, as early as the time of Augustus, "changed 
" their name, preserved their manners, and gradually became the fathers of the 
" Egyptian Ascetics." Taylor is, therefore, forced to admit that " The epocha 
•' and reign of monkish influence and monkish principles, has been willfully mis- 
" dated ; those who are known, and demonstrated by the clearest evidence of 
" independent history, to have existed for ages before the Christian era, are 
" represented to have sprung up, in the second, third, or fourth century of that 
" era, and in spite of the still remaining awkwardness of the dilemma, that so 
'" pure and holy a religion, should have come so soon to have been so universally 
" misunderstood. The monks who originated, are branded as the monks who 
" corrupted — the makers, for the marrers." — E. 



566 PACHOMIUS AT TABENNE. 

numerous progeny which had been formed by his example 
and his lessons. The proline colonies of monks multiplied 
with rapid increase on the sands of Libya, upon the rocks 
of Thebais, and in the cities of the Nile. To the south of 
Alexandria, the mountain, and adjacent desert, of Nitria, 
were peopled by five thousand anachorets ; and the traveler 
may still investigate the ruins of fifty monasteries, which 
were planted in that barren soil by the disciples of Antony. 11 
In the Upper Thebais, the vacant island of Tabenne 12 was 
occupied by Pachomius and fourteen hundred of his 
brethren. That holy abbot successively founded nine 
monasteries of men, and one of women ; and the festival of 
Easter sometimes collected fifty thousand religious persons, 
who followed his angelic rule of discipline. 13 The stately 
and populous city of Oxyrinchus, the seat of Christian 
orthodoxy, had devoted the temples, the public edifices, 
and even the ramparts, to pious and charitable uses ; and 
the bishop, who might preach in twelve churches, computed 
ten thousand females and twenty thousand males of the 
monastic profession. 14 The Egyptians, who gloried in this 
marvellous revolution, were disposed to hope, and to be- 
lieve, that the number of the monks was equal to the re- 
mainder of the people, 15 and posterity might repeat the 
saying, which had formerly been applied to the sacred 
animals of the same country, that, in Egypt, it was less 
difficult to find a god than a man. 

11 yerom. torn. i. p. 146, ad Eustochium. Hist. Lausiac. d. 7, in Vit. Patrum, 
p. 712. The P. Sicard {Missions du Levant, torn. ii. pp. 29-79) visited, and has 
described this desert which now contains four monasteries, and twenty or thirty 
monks. See D'Anville, Description de FEgypte, p. 74.* 

12 Tabenne is a small island in the Nile, in the diocese of Tentyra or Dendera, 
between the modern town of Girge and the ruins of ancient Thebes. (D'Anville, 
p. 194.) M. de Tillemont doubts whether it was an isle; but I may conclude, 
from his own facts, that the primitive name was afterwards transferred to the 
great monastery of Bau or Pabau {Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. pp. 678, 68S.) 

13 See in the Codes Regularum (published by Lucas Holstenius, Rome, 1661J a 
preface of St. Jerom to his Latin version of the Rule of Pachomius, torn. i. p. 61. 

1* Rufin. c. 5, in Vit. Patrum, p. 459. He calls it civitas ampla valde et popu- 
losa, and reckons twelve churches. Strabo(\. xvii. p. 1166) and Ammianus (xxii. 
16) have made honorable mention of Oxyrinchus, whose inhabitants adored a 
small fish in a magnificent temple. 

is Quanti populi habentur in urbibus, tantse paene habentur in desertis multi- 
tudines monachorum. Rufin. c. 7, in Patrum^ p. 461. He congratulates the 
fortunate change. 

* M. Guizot, quoting Planck, (Hist. Ecc. 1. 14. 3.) says that, " The persecutions 
"of Diocletian contributed largely to fill the desert with Christian fugitives, who 
" preferred safety as anchorites, to glory as martyrs." To which it may be 
added from Neander, that Antony was born in 251, and consequently more than 
fifty years of age when Diocletian's decrees were issued. It is therefore, very 
probable that the example of his security attracted many at that time to seek 
such an asylum. In the year 311, his reputation for sanctity was so great, that 
having occasion to visit Alexandria during the persecution, renewed by Maximin, 
" while other monks who had come into the city concealed themselves, Antony. 
" appeared in public, yet no one dared to touch him."— Eng. Ch. 



MONASTIC LIFE AT ROME. 567 

Athanasius introduced into Rome the knowl- , . 

edge and practice of the monastic life ; and a G f th?Sat 
school of this new philosophy was opened by u £^f e at 
the disciples of Antony, who accompanied their a. d. 341. 
primate to the holy threshold of the Vatican. 
The strange and savage appearance of these Egyptians ex- 
cited, at first, horror and contempt, and, at length, applause 
and zealous imitation. The senators, and more especially 
the matrons, transformed their palaces and villas into re- 
ligious houses ; and the narrow institution of six vestals, 
was eclipsed by the frequent monasteries, which were seated 
on the ruins of ancient temples, and in the midst of the 
Roman forum. 16 Inflamed by the example of Antony, a 
Syrian youth, whose name was Hilarion, 17 fixed Hilarion in 
his dreary abode on a sandy beach, between the J^g 511 "!' 
sea and a morass, about seven miles from Gaza. ' ' 32 ' 
The austere penance in which he persisted forty-eight 
years, diffused a similar enthusiasm ; and the holy man was 
followed by a train of two or three thousand^ anachorets, 
whenever he visited the innumerable monasteries of Pales- 
tine. The fame of Basil is immortal in the Basil in Pontus, 
monastic history of the east. With a mind, that A - D - 3 6 °- 

16 The introduction of the monastic life into Rome and Italy is occasionally 
mentioned bv ?erom, torn. i. pp. 119, 120, 199).* . 

it See the Life of Hilarion, by St. Jerom (torn. i. pp. 241, 252.) The stones of 
Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by the same author, are admirably told: and the 
only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense. 

* Monastic institutions were largely indebted, during their early growth, to the 
vigorous intellect of Athanasius. His biography of Antony proves the interest 
which he took in them, and reveals his guiding hand. In the year 352, he 
ordered the patriarch of asceticism, then a hundred years old, towisit Alexandria, 
that he might assist in putting down Arianism, favored and supported by the 
emperor Constantius. The appearance of the archbishop's celebrated friend 
made so great a sensation, that even Pagans crowded to church that they might 
see '" the man of God," and the diseased pressed round him to touch his gar- 
ments, in the hope of being healed. In the few days of his residence, more were 
converted to Christianity and orthodoxy, than during a year at other times. 
{Neander, 3, p. 231.) The six years of his next exile (356 — 361) were passed by 
Athanasius in the deserts of Thebais. Antony was dead, but the primate of Egypt 
was welcomed and sheltered in the numerous monasteries that had risen there ; 
nor can it be doubted that he employed himself in disciplining their inmates, 
and digesting for them the rules of Pachomius. The monks were, on all occa- 
sions, his faithful guardians, cunning emissaries, and discreet ministers. In the 
West, monachism was altogether introduced and recommended by him. It 
found at first little favor there, but his powerful intervention soon secured for it 
a warm reception. " Athanasius was the first who, during his residence at dif- 
" ferent times, when banished from the East, among the Western people, intro- 
" duced among them a better knowledge of the Oriental monachism. His 
" biographical account of the monk Antony, which was early translated into the 
" Latin, had a great influence in this matter." {Neander, 3. 367.) He made the 
bishops sensible of the advantages to be derived from it, and the most eminent 
leaders of the Western church continued during the next eighty years, to aid its 
progress. Eusebius of Vercelli, Ambrose of Milan, Martin of Tours, Jerome and 
August in, all "contributed still further to awaken and diffuse this tendency of 
" the Christian spirit of Italy, in Gaul, and in Africa."— Eng. Ch. 



5 68 



MARTIN IN GAUL. 



had tasted the learning and eloquence of Athens ; with an 
ambition, scarcely to be satisfied by the archbishopric of 
Csesarea, Basil 18 retired to a savage solitude in Pontus ; and 
deigned, for a while, to give laws to the spiritual colonies 
which he profusely scattered along the coast of the Black 
Martin in Gaul, sea. In the west, Martin of Tours, 19 a soldier, a 
a. d. 370. hermit, a bishop, and a saint, established the 
monasteries of Gaul ; two thousand of his disciples followed 
him to the grave ; and his eloquent historian challenges the 
deserts of Thebais, to produce, in a more favorable climate, 
a champion of equal virtue. The progress of the monks 
was not less rapid, or universal, than that of Christianity 
itself. Every province, and, at last, every city, of the em- 
pire, was filled with their increasing multitudes; and the 
bleak and barren isles, from Lerins to Lipari, that arise out 
of the Tuscan sea, were chosen by the anachorets for the 
place of their voluntary exile. An easy and perpetual 
intercourse by sea and land connected the provinces of the 
Roman world ; and the life of Hilarion displays the facility 
with which an indigent hermit of Palestine might traverse 
Egypt, embark for Sicily, escape to Epirus, and finally 
settle in the island of Cyprus. 20 The Latin Christians em- 
braced the religious institutions of Rome. The pilgrims, 
who visited Jerusalem, eagerly copied, in the most distant 
climates of the earth, the faithful model of the monastic 
life. The disciples of Antony spread themselves beyond 
the tropic, over the Christian empire of Ethiopia. 21 The 
monastery of Banchor, 22 in Flintshire, which contained 
above two thousand brethren, dispersed a numerous colony 
among the barbarians of Ireland : 23 and Iona, one of the 

is His original retreat was in a small village on the banks of the Iris, not far 
from Neo-Caesarea. The ten or twelve years of his monastic life were disturbed 
by long and frequent avocations. Some critics have disputed the authenticity of 
his Ascetic rules ; but the external evidence is weighty, and they can only prove 
that it is the work of a real or affected enthusiast. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. 
torn. ix. pp. 636-644. Helyot, Hist, des Ordres Monastiques, torn. i. pp. 175-181. 

19 See his life, and the three Dialogues by Sulpicius Severus, who asserts 
{Dialog, i, 16) that the booksellers of Rome were delighted with the quick and 
ready sale of his popular work. 

20 When Hilarion sailed from Paraetonium to Cape Pachynus, he offered to pay 
his passage with a book of the Gospels. Posthumian, a Gallic monk, who had 
visited Egypt, found a merchant ship bound from Alexandria to Marseilles, and 
performed the voyage in thirty days {Sulp. Sever. Dialog, i. 1.) Athanasius, who 
addressed his Life of St. Antony to the foreign monks, was obliged to hasten the 
composition, that it might be ready for the sailing of the fleets (torn. ii. p. 451.) 

21 See yerom (torn. i. p. 126), Assemanni, Bibliot. Orient, torn. iv. p. 92. pp. 
857-919, and Geddes, Church History of ^Ethiopia, pp. 29-31. The Abyssinian 
monks adhere very strictly to the primitive institution. 

22 Camden's Britannia, vol. i. pp. 666, 667. 

23 All that learning can extract from the rubbish of the dark ages is copiously 
stated by Archbishop Usher in his Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Antiquitates,, 
cap. xvi. pp. 425-503. 



RAPID PROGRESS OF MONASTICISM. 569 

Hebrides, which was planted by the Irish monks, diffused 
over the northern regions a doubtful ray of science and 
superstition. 24 

These unhappy exiles from social life were causes of its 
impelled by the dark and implacable genius of ra P id progress, 
superstition. Their mutual resolution was supported by 
the example of millions, of either sex, of every age, and of 
every rank ; and each proselyte, who entered the gates of 
a monastery, was persuaded, that he trod the steep and 
thorny path of eternal happiness. 25 But the operation of 
these religious motives was variously determined by the 
temper and situation of mankind. Reason might subdue, 
or passion might suspend, their influence : but they acted 
most forcibly on the infirm minds of children and females ; 
they were strengthened by secret remorse, or accidental 
misfortune; and they might derive some aid from the 
temporal considerations of vanity or interest. It was 
naturally supposed, that the pious and humble monks, who 
had renounced the world, to accomplish the work of their 
salvation, were the best qualified for the spiritual govern- 
ment of the Christians. The reluctant hermit was torn from 
his cell, and seated, amidst the acclamations of the people, 
on the episcopal throne : the monasteries of Egypt, of Gaul, 
and of the east, supplied a regular succession of saints and 
bishops ; and ambition soon discovered the secret road 
which led to the possession of wealth and honors. 26 The 

24 This small, though not barren spot, Iona, Hy, or Columbkill, only two miles 
in length, and one miie in breadth, has been distinguished, 1. By the monastery 
of St. Columba, founded A. d. 566 : whose abbot exercised an extraordinary 
jurisdiction over the bishops of Caledonia, 2. By a classic library, which 
afforded some hopes of an entire Livy ; and, 3. By the tombs of sixty kings, 
Scots, Irish, and Norwegians, who reposed in holy ground. See Usher (pp. 311, 
360-370) and Buchanan {Rer. Scot. 1. ii. p. 15, edit. Ruddiman).* 

25 Chrysostom (in the first tome of the Benedictine edition) has consecrated 
three books to the praise and defence of the monastic life. He is encouraged, by 
the example of the ark, to presume that none but the elect (the monks) can pos- 
sibly be saved (1. i. pp. 55. 56). Elsewhere, indeed, he becomes more merciful 
(1. iii. pp. 83, 84), and allows different degrees of glory, like the sun, moon, and 
stars. In his lively comparison of a king and a monk (\. iii. pp. 116-121), he sup- 
poses (what is hardly fair) that the king will be more sparingly rewarded, and 
more rigorously punished. 

25 Thomassin {Discipline de TEglise, torn. i. pp. 1426-1469) and Mabillon 
CEuvres Posthumes, torn. ii. pp. 115-158). The monks were gradually adopted, 
is a part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy .t 

* The original accounts of Columba and his monastery are to be found in the 
Chron. Sax. A. d. 565, and in Bede's Ecc. Hist. 1. iii. c. 4. (Bonn's edit. p. 113, 
114, 313.) Columbkill was a name, not of the island, but of the saint. {lb. p. 24S.) 
He has by some been confounded with his contemporary Columbanus, who 
founded the monasteries of Luxovium in Gaul, and of Bobium in Lombardy. 
Clinton, F. R. ii. 484.— Eng. Ch. 

_ f This was the regular course of progressive management. Through succes- 
sive ages, cathedral and monastery rose side by side ; bishops, mitred abbots, 
and priors, acted in concert to rivet the chains of ignorance on the passive 
laity.— Eng. Ch. 



570 RAPID INCREASE OF THE MONKS. 

popular monks, whose reputation was connected with the 
fame and success of the order, assiduously labored to 
multiply the number of their fellow-captives. They in- 
sinuated themselves into noble and opulent families ; and 
the specious arts of flattery and seduction were employed 
to secure those proselytes, who might bestow wealth or 
dignity on the monastic profession. The indignant father 
bewailed the loss, perhaps, of an only son ; 27 the credulous 
maid was betrayed by vanity to violate the laws of nature ; 
and the matron aspired to imaginary perfection, by re- 
nouncing the virtues of domestic life.* Paula yielded to the 
persuasive eloquence of Jerom ; 26 and the profane title of 
mother-in-law of God, 29 tempted that illustrious widow to 
consecrate the virginity of her daughter Eustochium. By 
the advice, and in the company, of her spiritual guide, 
Paula abandoned Rome and her infant son ; retired to the 
holy village of Bethlem ; founded an hospital and four 
monasteries ; and acquired, by her alms and penance, an 
eminent and conspicuous station in the Catholic church. 
Such rare and illustrious penitents were celebrated as the 
glory and example of their age ; but the monasteries were 
filled by a crowd of obscure and abject plebeians, 30 who 
gained in the cloister much more than they had sacrificed 
in the world. Peasants, slaves, and mechanics, might escape 
from poverty and contempt, to a safe and honorable pro- 
fession ; whose apparent hardships were mitigated by 
custom, by popular applause, and by the secret relaxation 

2T Dr. Mtddleton (vol. i. p. no) liberally censures the conduct and writings of 
Chrysostom, one of the most eloquent and successful advocates for the monastic 
life. 

wjerom's devout ladies form a very considerable portion of his works; the 
particular treatise, which he styles the Epitaph of Paula (torn, i. pp. 169-192), is 
an elaborate and extravagant panegyric* The exordium is ridiculouslv turgid: 

It all the members ot my body were changed into tongues, and if all my iimbs 
" resounded with a human voice, yet should I be incapable. " &c. 

29 Socrus Dei esse ccepisti (Jerom, torn. i. p. 140, ad Eustochium). Rufinus fin 
Hieronym. Op. torn. iv. p. 223), who was justly scandalized, asks his adversary, 
From what Pagan poet he had stolen an expression so impious and absurd. 

so Nunc autem veniunt plerumque ad hanc professionem servitutis Dei. et ex 
conditione servili, vel etiam liberati, vel propter hoc a Dominis liberati sive 
liberandi ; et ex vita rusticana, et ex opificum exercitatione, et plebeio iabore. 
Augustin, de Oper Monach. c. 22. ap. Thomassin, Discipline de FEglise, torn. iii. 
p. 1094. The Egyptian, who blamed Arsenius, owned 'that he led a more com- 
fortable life as a monk than as a shepherd. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. 

xiv. p. 679. 

Such abuses were prohibited by the first statutes that regulated the organiza- 
tion of monasteries. Of a wedded pair, one could not embrace the monastic life 
without the consent of the other. (Basil. Reg. maj. qu. 12.) A minor was not 
admitted without parental concurrence. (lb. qu. 15. Cone. Gangr. c. 16.) The 
owner's leave must be obtained, before a slave could join the fraternity. But the 
emperor Justinian removed these restraints, and allowed slaves, children, and 
wives, to be received into monasteries even against the will of masters, parents, 
and husbands. (Novell. 5, c. 2. Cod. Just. 1. i, torn, iii., leg. 53, 55.) — Guizot. 



OBEDIENCE OF THE MONKS. 571 

of discipline. 31 The subjects of Rome, whose persons and 
fortunes were made responsible for unequal and exorbitant 
tributes, retired from the oppression of the imperial govern- 
ment ; and the pusillanimous youth preferred the penance 
of a monastic, to the dangers of a military, life.* The 
affrighted provincials of every rank, who fled before the 
barbarians, found shelter and subsistence; whole legions 
were buried in these religious sanctuaries ; and the same 
cause, which relieved the distress of individuals, impaired 
the strength and fortitude of the empire. 32 

The monastic profession of the ancients 33 was obedience of 
an act of voluntary devotion. The inconstant the monks - 
fanatic was threatened with the eternal vengeance of the 
God whom he deserted ; but the doors of the monastery 
were still open for repentance. Those monks, whose con- 
science was fortified by reason or passion, were at liberty 
to resume the character of men and citizens ; and even the 
spouses of Christ might accept the legal embraces of an 
earthly lover. 34 The examples of scandal, and the progress 

si A Dominican friar {Voyages du P. Labat, torn. i. p. 10), who lodged at Cadiz 
in a convent of his brethren, soon understood that their repose was never inter- 
rupted by nocturnal devotion ; "quoiqu'on ne laisre pas de sonner pour l'edin- 
cation du peuple." 

32 See a very sensible preface of Lucas Holstenius to the Codex Regularum. 
The emperors attempted to support the obligation of public and private duties ; 
but the feeble dikes were swept away by the torrent of superstition ; and Justinian 
surpassed the most sanguine wishes of the monks. {TJiomassin . torn. i. p. 1782- 
1799, and Bingham, 1. vii. c. 3. p. 253). f 

33 The monastic institutions, particularly those of Egypt, about the year 400, 
are described by four curious and devout travelers ; Rufinus ( Vit. Patrum, 1. ii. 
iii. pp. 424-536), Posthumian (Sulp. Sever. Dialog. i>, Palladius [Hist. Lausiac. 
in Vit. Patrum, pp. 709-863). and Cassian (see in torn. vii. Bibliothec. Max. Patrum, 
his first four books of Institutes, and the twenty-four Collations or Conferences.) 

34 The example of Malchus {yerom, torn. i. p. 256), and the design of Cassian 
and his friend {Collation, xxiv. 1), are incontestable proofs of their freedom; 
which is elegantly described by Erasmus in his Life of St. Jerom. SeeChardon, 
Hist, des Sacremens, torn. vi. pp. 279-300. 

* " And had vanity," says Voltaire, " never any share in these public mortifica- 
" tions, which attracted the eyes of the multitude? 'I scourge myself, but it is 
" ' to expiate your faults ; I go naked, but it is to reproach you with the richness 
" 'of your garments ; I feed on herbs and snails, but it is to correct in you the 
" ' vice of gluttony ; I wear an iron ring, to make you blush at your lewdness. 
" ' Reverence me as one cherished by the gods, and who will bring down their 
" ' favors on you. When you shall be accustomed to reverence me, you will not 
" ' find it hard to obey me ; I will be your master, in the name of the gods ; and 
" ' then, if any one of you disobey my will, in the smallest particular, I will have 
" 'you impaled to appease the wrath of heaven.' 

" If the first fakirs did not pronounce these words, it is very probable that they 
" had them engraved at the bottom of their hearts."— E. 

f A law of the emperor Valens was particularly directed " Contra ignaviae 
" quosdam sectatores, qui, desertis civitatum muneribus, captant solitudines ac 
" secreta, et specie religionis, ccetibus monochorum congregantur." Cod. 
Theod. 1. 12, tit. 1, leg. 63.— Guizot. 

The laws, canons, and rules to which Guizot, in this and his preceding 
note, refers as palliatives of the evil, were not of long duration ; the influence and 
perseverance of the priesthood, at no distant period, accomplished their abroga- 
tion.— E.NG CH. 



572 MENTAL FREEDOM DESTROYED. 

of superstition, suggested the propriety of more forcible 
restraints. After a sufficient trial, the fidelity of the novice 
was secured by a solemn and perpetual vow; and his 
irrevocable engagement was ratified by the laws of the 
church and state. A guilty fugitive was pursued, arrested, 
and restored to his perpetual prison ; and the interposition 
of the magistrate oppressed the freedom and merit, which 
had alleviated, in some degree, the abject slavery of the 
monastic discipline. 35 The actions of a monk, his words, 
and even his thoughts, were determined by an inflexible 
rule, 36 or a capricious superior : the slightest offences were 
corrected by disgrace or confinement, extraordinary fasts 
or bloody flagellation : and disobedience, murmur, or delay, 
were ranked in the catalogue of the most heinous sins. 37 A 
blind submission to the commands of the abbot, however 
absurd, or even criminal, they might seem, was the ruling 
principle, the first virtue, of the Egyptian monks ; and 
their patience was frequently exercised by the most extra- 
vagant trials. They were directed to remove an enormous 
rock ; assiduously to water a barren staff, that was planted 
in the ground, till, at the end of three years, it should 
vegetate and blossom like a tree; to walk into a fiery 
furnace; or to cast their infant into a deep pond: and 
several saints, or madmen, have been immortalized in 
monastic story, by their thoughtless and fearless obedience. 38 
The freedom of the mind, the source of every generous and 
rational sentiment, was destroyed by the habits of credulity 
and submission ; and the monk, contracting the vices of a 
slave, devoutly followed the faith and passions of his 

35 See the Laws of Justinian (Novel, cxxiii. No. 42.) and of Lewis the Pious in 
the Historians of France, torn. vi. p. 427), and the actual jurisprudence of France, 
in Denissart {Decisions, <2fc, torn. iv. p. 855, &c. 

36 The ancient Codex Regularum, collected by Benedict Anianinus, the re- 
former of the monks in the beginning of the ninth century, and published in the 
seventeenth, by Lucas Holstenius, contains thirty different rules for men and 
women. Of these, seven were composed in Egypt, one in the East, one in Cap- 
padocia, one in Italy, one in Africa, four in Spain, eight in Gaul, or France, and 
one in England. 

3" The rule of Columbanus, so prevalent in the West, inflicts one hundred 
lashes for very slight offences. (Cod. Reg. part ii. p. 174). Before the time of 
Charlemagne, the abbots indulged themselves in mutilating their monks, or 
putting out their eyes ; a punishment much less cruel than the tremendous vade 
in pace, (the subterraneous dungeon or sepulchre), which was afterwards invented. 
See an admirable discourse of the learned Mabillon (CEuvres Posthumes, torn. ii. 
p. 321-3361, who, on this occasion, seems to be inspired by the genius of humanity. 
For such an effort, I can forgive his defence of the holy tear of Vendome 
(p. 361-399.) 

3- Snip. Sever. Dialog, i. 12, 13, p. 533, &c. Cassian, Institnt. 1. iv. c. 26, 27, 
" Praecipua ibi virtus et prima est obediential' Among the Verba seniorum 1 in 
Vit. Patrum, 1. v. p. 617,) the fourteenth libel or discourse is on the subject of 
obedience; and the Jesuit Rosweyde, who published that huge volume for the 
use of convents, has collected all the scattered passages in his two copious 
indexes. 



DRESS AND HABITATIONS OF THE MONKS. 573 

ecclesiastical tyrant. The peace of the eastern church was 
invaded by a swarm of fanatics, incapable of fear, or reason, 
or humanity ; and the imperial troops acknowledged, with- 
out shame, that they were much less apprehensive of an 
encounter with the fiercest barbarians. 39 

Superstition has often framed and consecrated Their dress 
the fantastic garments of the monks : 40 but their and 

apparent singularity sometimes proceeds from a ltatlons - 
their uniform attachment to a simple and primitive model, 
which the revolutions of fashion have made ridiculous in 
the eyes of mankind. The father of the Benedictines ex- 
pressly disclaims all idea of choice or merit ; and soberly 
exhorts his disciples to adopt the coarse and convenient 
dress of the countries which they may inhabit. 41 The 
monastic habits of the ancients varied with the climate, and 
their mode of life ; and they assumed, with the same in- 
difference, the sheep-skin of the Egyptian peasants, or the 
cloak of the Grecian philosophers. They allowed them- 
selves the use of linen in Egypt, where it was a cheap and 
domestic manufacture ; but in the West, they rejected such 
an expensive article of foreign luxury. 43 It was the practice 
of the monks either to cut or shave their hair ; they wrapped 
their heads in a cowl, to escape the sight of profane objects ; 
their legs and feet were naked, except in the extreme cold 
of winter ; and their slow and feeble steps were supported 

39 Dr. Jortin {Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 161) has observed 
the scandalous valor of the Cappadocian monks, which was exemplified in the 
banishment of Chrysostom.* 

40 Cassian has simply, though copiously, described the monastic habit of 
Egypt, (Institut. 1. i.), to which Sozomeu d. iii. c. 14) attributes such allegorical 
meaning and virtue. 

*i Regul. Benedict. No. 55, in Cod. Regul. part. ii. p. 51. 

42 See the Rule of Ferreolus, bishop of Usez, (No. 31, in Cod. Regul part ii. p. 
136), and of Isidore, bishop of Seville, (No. 31, in Cod. Regul. part ii. p. '214.) 

* Not too dark are the colors in which Gibbon has here painted the process of 
destroying " the freedom of the mind, the source of every generous and rational 
" sentiment." To the force of his description nothing can be added ; but it may 
be remarked that the mischievous delusions, which he exposes and condemns, 
were not the offspring of religion, but the arts employed by its faithless and 
treacherous ministers. Before the introduction of the monastic expedient, 
society, as has been shown, had gradually lost its energetic tone. But when this 
engine was brought to bear, the work went on rapidly. The influence of this 
new movement was not confined to the cloister and the cell. The example of 
abandoned duties, the contagion of indolent habits, the soporific atmosphere of 
ignorance, the lessons of abject servility, the warning penalties of refractory in- 
subordination, and the honors paid to' sainted folly, involved all classes in one 
common hallucination, and invested subservient stupidity with the merit of pious 
docility. Under those auspices was achieved that conquest of the state which is 
falsely called the triumph of Christianity. It was the triumph of a power that 
trampled Christianity under foot and scorned every- sacred obligation. In less 
than a hundred and'fifty years after this, it made all weak but itself, subverted 
everything but its own domination, and planting its throne on the wreck, 
reigned for ten centuries in clouds and darkness.— Eng. Ch. 



574 DIET OF THE MONKS. 

by a long staff. The aspect of a genuine anachoret was 
horrid and disgusting : every sensation that is offensive to 
man, was thought acceptable to God ;* and the angelic rule 
of Tabenne condemned the salutary custom of bathing the 
limbs in water, and of anointing them with oil. 43 f The 
austere monks slept on the ground, on a hard mat, or a 
rough blanket ; and the same bundle of palm-leaves served 
them as a seat in the day, and a pillow in the night. Their 
original cells were low narrow huts, built of the slightest 
materials ; which formed, by the regular distribution of the 
streets, a large and populous village, enclosing, within the 
common wall, a church, an hospital, perhaps a library, some 
necessary offices, a garden, and a fountain or reservoir of 
fresh water. Thirty or forty brethren composed a family 
of separate discipline and diet ; and the great monasteries 
of Egypt consisted of thirty or forty families. 

. Pleasure and guilt are synonymous terms in 

the language of the monks ; and they had dis- 
covered, by experience, that rigid fasts and abstemious 
diet, are the most effectual preservatives against the impure 
desires of the flesh. 44 The rules of abstinence, which they 
imposed, or practiced, were not uniform or perpetual : the 
cheerful festival of the Pentecost was balanced by the ex- 
traordinary mortification of Lent ; the fervor of new monas- 
teries was insensibly relaxed; and the voracious appetite 
of the Gauls could not imitate the patient and temperate 
virtue of the Egyptians. 45 The disciples of Antony and 
Pachomius were satisfied with their daily pittance, 46 of 

43 Some partial indulgences were granted for the hands and feet. " Totum autem 
" corpus nemo unguet nisi causa infirmitatis, nee lavabitur aqua nudo corpore, 
" nisi languor perspicuus sit." {Regul. Pachom. xcii. part i p. 78.) 

44 St. Jerom, in strong, but indiscreet, language, expresses the most important 
use of fasting and abstinence: " Xon quod Deus universitatis Creator et Domi- 
" nus, intestinorum nostrorum rugitu, et inanitate ventris, pulmonisque ardore 
" delectetur, sed quod aliter pudicitia tuta esse non possit." {Op. torn. i. p. 137, ad 
Eustochium.) See the twelfth and twenty-second Collations o/Cassian, de Casti- 
tate and de illusion ibus Nocturnis. 

43 Edacitas in Graecis gula est in Gallis natura {Dialog, i. c. 4, p. 521). Cassian 
fairly owns, that the perfect model of abstinence cannot be imitated in Gaul, on 
account of the asrum temperies, and the qualitas nostrae fragilitatis. {Institut. iv. 
11). Among the Western rules, that of Columbanus is the most austere ; he had 
been educated amidst the poverty of Ireland, as rigid, perhaps, and inflexible as 
the abstemious virtue of Egypt. The rule of Isidore of Seville is the mildest ; on 
holidays he allows the use of flesh. 

46 " Those who drink only water, and have no nutritious liquor, ought, at least, 
" to have a pound and a half {twenty-four ounces) of bread every day." State of 
Prisons, p. 40, by Mr. Howard. 

* And all that was pleasing to man, was considered repugnant to Jehovah. 
Great, indeed, "is the mystery of godliness."— E. 

t Athanasius {Vit. Ant. c. 47) boasts of Antony's holy horror of clean water, by 
which his feet were uncontaminated, except under dire necessity. — Milman. 



MANUAL LABOR BY THE MONKS. 575 

twelve ounces of bread, or rather biscuit, 4 ' which they 
divided into two frugal repasts, of the afternoon, and of the 
evening. It was esteemed a merit, and almost a duty, to 
abstain from the boiled vegetables which were provided for 
the refectory ; but the extraordinary bounty of the abbot 
sometimes indulged them with the luxury of cheese, fruit, 
salad, and the small dried fish of the Nile. 48 A more ample 
latitude of sea and river fish was gradually allowed or as- 
sumed ; but the use of flesh was long confined to the sick 
or travelers ; and when it gradually prevailed in the less 
rigid monasteries of Europe, a singular distinction was 
introduced ; as if birds, whether wild or domestic, had been 
less profane than the grosser animals of the field. Water 
was the pure and innocent beverage of the primitive monks ; 
and the founder of the Benedictines regrets the daily 
portion of half a pint of wine, which had been extorted from 
him by the intemperance of the age. 49 Such an allowance 
might be easily supplied by the vineyards of Italy ; and 
his victorious disciples, who passed the Alps, the Rhine, 
and the Baltic, required, in the place of wine, an adequate 
compensation of strong beer or cider. 

The candidate who aspired to the virtue of Their manual 
evangelical poverty, abjured, at his first entrance labon 
into a regular community, the idea, and even the name, of 
all separate or exclusive possession. 50 The brethren were 
supported by their manual labor; and the duty of labor 
was strenuously recommended as a penance, as an exercise, 
and as the most laudable means of securing their daily 
subsistence. 51 The garden, and fields, which the industry 

47 See Cassian. Collat I. ii. 19-21. The small loaves, or biscuit, of six ounces 
each, had obtained the name of Paximacia (Rosweyde, Onomasticon, p. 1045). 
Pachomius, however, allowed his monks some latitude in the quantity of their 
food ; but he made them work in proportion as they ate, {Pallad. in Hist. Lausiac. 
c. 38, 39, in Vit. Patrum, 1. viii. pp. 736, 737).* 

48 See the banquet to which Cassian {Collation viii. 1) was invited by Serenus, 
an Egyptian abbot. 

49 See the Rule of St. Benedict, No. 39, 40, (in Cod. Reg: part ii. pp. 41, 42.) 
Licet legamus vinum omnino monachorum non esse, sed quia nostris temporibus 
id monachis persuaded non potest ; he allows them a Roman hemina. a measure 
which may be ascertained from ArbuthnoV s Tables. 

50 Such expressions as my book, my cloak, my shoes, (Cassian. Tnstitut. 1. iv. c. 
13), were not less severely prohibited among the Western monks, {Cod. Regul. 
part ii. pp. 174, 235, 288) ; and the Rale of Columbanus punished them with six 
lashes. The ironical author of the Ordres Monastiques, who laughs at the foolish 
nicety of modern convents, seems ignorant that the ancients were equally absurd. 

5L Two great masters of ecclesiastical science, the P. Thomassin {Discipline de 
r Eglise, torn. iii. pp. 1090-1139), and the P. Mabillon, {Etudes Monastiques, torn, 
i. pp. n6-t55), have seriously examined the manual labor of the monks, which the 
former considers as a merit, and the latter as a duty. 

* The proper term for one of these six-ounce portions was paximatium. See 
Du Cange, 5. 307. He gives it the meaning of " panis subcinericius vel recoctus." 
Biscuit is therefore its correct designation. Suidas derived the name from one 
Paxamus, by whom it was said to have been invented.— Eng. Ch. 



576 MONASTIC RICHES. 

of the monks had often rescued from the forest or the 
morass, were diligently cultivated by their hands. They 
performed, without reluctance, the menial offices of slaves 
and domestics ; and the several trades that were necessary 
to provide their habits, their utensils, and their lodging, were 
exercised within the precincts of the great monasteries. 
The monastic studies have tended, for the most part, to 
darken, rather than to dispel, the cloud of superstition. 
Yet the curiosity or zeal of some learned solitaries has 
cultivated the ecclesiastical, and even the profane, sciences : 
and posterity must gratefully acknowledge, that the monu- 
ments of Greek and Roman literature have been preserved 
and multiplied by their indefatigable pens. 52 But the more 
humble industry of the monks, especially in Egypt, was 
contented with the silent, sedentary occupation, of making 
wooden sandals, or of twisting the leaves of the palm-tree 
into mats and baskets. The superfluous stock, which was 
not consumed in domestic use, supplied, by trade, the wants 
of the community : the boats of Tabenne, and the other 
monasteries of Thebais, descended the Nile as far as Alex- 
andria; and, in a Christian market, the sanctity of the 
workmen might enhance the intrinsic value of the work. 
_. . . j But the necessity of manual labor was insen- 

sibly superseded. The novice was tempted to 
bestow his fortune on the saints, in whose society he was 
resolved to spend the remainder of his life ; and the per- 
nicious indulgence of the laws permitted him to receive, 
for their use, any future accessions of legacy or inheritance. 53 
Melania contributed her plate, three hundred pounds 
weight of silver ; and Paula contracted an immense debt, 

52 Mabillon, {Etudes Monastiques, torn. i.pp. 47-55), has collected many curious 
facts to justify the literary labors of his predecessors, both in the East and West. 
Books were copied in the ancient monasteries of Egypt, Cassian, Institut. 1. iv. c. 
12), and by the disciples of St, Martin, (Sulp. Sever in Vit. Martin, c. 7, p. 473). 
Cassiodorus has allowed an ample scope for the studies of the monks; and we 
shall not be scandalized, if their pens sometimes wandered from Chrysostom and 
Augustin to Homer and Virgil* 

53 Thomassin, {Discipline de r Eglise, torn. iii. pp. 118, 145. 146, 171,-179) has ex- 
amined the revolution of the civil, canon, and common law. Modern France 
confirms the death which monks have inflicted on themselves, and justly de- 
prives them of all right of inheritance. 

* It would indeed have been strange, if among the millions of monks, in so 
many ages, a few had not relieved by study the monotony of their lives, and 
even betaken themselves by choice to literary pursuits. Yet what is the sum of 
their labors? Gibbon has truly said, that they "tended for the most part rather 
" to darken than dispel the cloud of superstition." That they have preserved for 
us some portions of ancient literature, is but an equivocal merit. How were the 
rest destroyed? The praise of having "led Europe forth from the dark ages," 
has been of late ostentatiously claimed for them by some, and inconsiderately 
accorded by others ; but we must bear in mind, that it is to them we owe those 
dark ages.— Eng. Ch. 



SOLITUDE OF THE MONKS. 577 

for the relief of their favorite monks ; who kindly imparted 
the merits of their prayers and penance to a rich and liberal 
sinner. 54 Time continually increased, and accidents could 
seldom diminish, the estates of the popular monasteries, 
which spread over the adjacent country and cities : and, 
in the first century of their institution, the infidel Zosimus 
has maliciously observed, that, for the benefit of the poor, 
the Christian monks had reduced a great part of mankind 
to a state of beggary. 55 As long as they maintained their 
original fervor, they approved themselves, however, the 
faithful and benevolent stewards of the charity which was 
intrusted to their care. But their discipline was corrupted 
by prosperity : they gradually assumed the pride of wealth, 
and at last indulged the luxury of expense. Their public 
luxury might be excused by the magnificence of religious 
worship, and the decent motive of erecting durable habita- 
tions for an immortal society. But every age of the church 
has accused the licentiousness of the degenerate monks ; 
who no longer remembered the object of their institution, 
embraced the vain and sensual pleasures of the world, 
which they had renounced, 56 and scandalously abused the 
riches which had been acquired by the austere virtues of 
their founders. 57 Their natural descent, from such painful 
and dangerous virtue, to the common vices of humanity, 
will not, perhaps, excite much grief or indignation in the 
mind of a philosopher. 

The lives of the primitive monks were con- Thdrsolitud 
sumed in penance and solitude; undisturbed by 
the various occupations which fill the time, and exercise 
the faculties, of reasonable, active, and social beings. When- 

5^ See Jerom (torn. i. pp. 176, 1S3). The monk Pambo made a sublime answer 
to Melania, who wished to specify the value of her gift : " Do you offer it to me, 
" or to God? If to God, he who suspends the mountains in a balance, need not 
'' be informed of the weight of your plate." (Paiiad. Hist. Lausiac. c. io, in the 
Vit. Patrum, 1. viii. p. 715.) 

55 To irolv [xepoc rfjg -yfjg Gj/cettoGKavTO, irpocpaaec rov fj-eradidovaL ttuvtuv 
irraxole, itdvrag (ug ecTtelv) tttg)xov<; KaTaoTJjaavreg. Zosim. 1. v. p. 325. Yet 
the wealth of the Eastern monks was far surpassed by the princely greatness of 
the Benedictines. 

so The sixth general council, (the Quinisext in Trullo, Canon xlvii. in Bever- 
idge, torn. i. p. 213), restrains women from passing the night in a male, or men in 
a female, monastery. The seventh general council, (the second Nicene, Canon 
xx. in Beveridge, torn. i. p. 325) prohibits the erection of double or promiscuous 
monasteries of both sexes : but it appears from Balsamon, that the prohibition 
was not effectual. On the irregular pleasures and expenses of the clergy and 
monks, see Thomassin, torn. iii. pp. 1334-1368. 

5" I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a Benedictine abbot ; 
" My vow of poverty has given me a hundred thousand crowns a year : my vow 
" of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince." — I forget the 
consequences of his vow of chastity. 



57§ DEVOTION OF THE MONKS. 

ever they were permitted to step beyond the precincts of 
the monastery, two jealous companions were the mutual 
guards and spies of each other's actions ; and, after their 
return, they were condemned to forget, or, at least, to 
suppress, whatever they had seen or heard in the world. 
Strangers, who professed the orthodox faith, were hospitably 
entertained in a separate apartment; but their dangerous 
conversation was restricted to some chosen elders of ap- 
proved discretion and fidelity. Except in their presence, 
the monastic slave might not receive the visits of his friends 
or kindred ; and it was deemed highly meritorious, if he 
afflicted a tender sister, or an aged parent, by the obstinate 
refusal of a word or look. 58 The monks themselves passed 
their lives, without personal attachments, among a crowd, 
which had been formed by accident, and was detained, in 
the same prison, by force or prejudice. Recluse fanatics 
have few ideas or sentiments to communicate ; a special 
license of the abbot regulated the time and duration of their 
familiar visits ; and, at their silent meals, they were en- 
veloped in their cowls, inaccessible, and almost invisible, to 
each other. 59 Study is the resource of solitude : but educa- 
tion had not prepared and qualified for any liberal studies 
the merchanics and peasants, who filled the monastic com- 
munities. They might work: but the vanity of spiritual 
perfection was tempted to disdain the exercise of manual 
labor ; and the industry must be faint and languid, which 
is not excited by the sense of personal interest. 

According to their faith and zeal, they might 
T a h nd r virions " employ the day, which they passed in their cells, 
either in vocal or mental prayer : they assembled 
in the evening, and they were awakened in the night, for 
the public worship of the monastery. The precise moment 
was determined by the stars, which are seldom clouded in 
the serene sky of Egypt ; and a rustic horn, or trumpet, 
the signal of devotion, twice interrupted the vast silence of 
the desert. 60 Even sleep, the last refuge of the unhappy, 
was rigorously measured : the vacant hours of the monk 
heavily rolled along, without business or pleasure ; and, 

58 Prior, an Egyptian monk, allowed his sister to see him,; but he shut his eyes 
during the whole visit. See Vit. Patrum, 1. iii. p. 504. Many such examples 
might be added. 

ss The 7th, 8th, 29th, 30th, 31st, 34th, 57th, 60th. 86th, and 95th articles of the 
Rids of Pachomius, impose most intolerable laws of silence and mortification. 

«o The diurnal and nocturnal prayers of the monks are copiously discussed by 
Cassian, in the third and fourth books of his Institutions, and he constantly prefers 
the liturgy, which an angel had dictated to the monasteries of Tebenne. 



CCENOBITES AND AXACHORET3. 579 

before the close of each day, he had repeatedly accused 
the tedious progress of the sun. 61 In this comfortless state, 
superstition still pursued and tormented her wretched 
votaries. 62 The repose which they had sought in the 
cloister was disturbed by tardy repentance, profane doubts, 
and guilty desires ; and, while they considered each natural 
impulse as an unpardonable sin, they perpetually trembled 
on the edge of a flaming and bottomless abyss. From the 
painful struggles of disease and despair, these unhappy 
victims were sometimes relieved by madness or death ; and, 
in the sixth century, an hospital was founded at Jerusalem 
for a small portion of the austere penitents, who were 
deprived of their senses. 63 Their visions, before they 
attained this extreme and acknowledged term of frenzy, 
have afforded ample materials of supernatural history. It 
was their firm persuasion, that the air, which they breathed, 
was peopled with invisible enemies ; with innumerable 
daemons, who watched every occasion, and assumed every 
form, to terrify, and above all to tempt, their unguarded 
virtue. The imagination, and even the senses, were deceived 
by the illusions of distempered fanaticism ; and the hermit, 
whose midnight prayer was oppressed by involuntary 
slumber, might easily confound the phantoms of horror or 
delight, which had occupied his sleeping, and his waking, 
dreams. 64 

The monks were divided into two classes : ~. n „ 

1 /-* ' 1 he Loeno- 

the Lcenooites, who lived under a common and bites and 
regular discipline; and the Anackorets, who Anachorets - 
indulged their unsocial, independent fanaticism. 65 The 

ci Cassian, from his own experience, describes the acedia, or listlessness of 
mind and body, to which a monk was exposed, when he sighed to find himself 
alone. Ssepiusque egreditur et ingreditur cellam, et Solem velut ad occasum 
tardius properantem crebrius intuetur \Institut. x. 1.) 

62 The temptations and sufferings of Stagirius were communicated by that un- 
fortunate youth to his friend St. Chrysostom. See Middleton's Works, vol. i. pp. 
107-110. Something similar introduces the life of every saint ; and the famous 
Inigo, or Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuits, {vide d Inigo de Guiposcoa, torn. i. 
PP- 29-38), may serve as a memorable example. 

63 Fleury, Hist. EccUsiastique, torn. vii. p. 46. I have read, somewhere, in the 
Vitce Patrum, but I cannot recover the place, that several. I believe many, of the 
monks, who did not reveal their temptations to the abbot, became guilty of 
suicide. 

6i See the seventh and eighth Collations of Cassian, who gravely examines, why 
the demons were grown less active and numerous since the time ot St. Antony. 
Rosweyde's copious index to the Vitcz Patrum will point out a variety of infernal 
scenes. The devils were most formidable in a female shape. 

63 For the distinction ofthe Coenobites and the Hermits, especially in Egypt, see 
yerom, (torn. i. p. 45, ad Rusticum), the first Dialogue of Sulpicius Severus, Ru- 
finus, (c. 22, in Vit. Patrum, 1. ii. p. 47S), Palladius (c. 7, 69, in Vit. Patrum. I. viii. 
pp. 712-758,) and, above all, the eighteenth and nineteenth Collations of Cassian. 
These writers, who compare the common and solitary life, reveal the abuse and 
danger of the latter. 



580 DEGRADATION OF THE MONKS. 

most devout, or the most ambitious, of the spiritual brethren, 
renounced the convent, as they had renounced the world. 
The fervent monasteries of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, 
were surrounded by a Laura™ a distant circle of solitary 
cells ; and the extravagant penance of the hermits was 
stimulated by applause and emulation. 07 They sunk under 
the painful weight of crosses and chains ; and their emaciated 
limbs were confined by collars, bracelets, gauntlets, and 
greaves, of massy and rigid iron. All superfluous en- 
cumbrance of dress they contemptuously cast away ; and 
some savage saints of both sexes have been admired, whose 
naked bodies were only covered by their long hair. They 
aspired to reduce themselves to the rude and miserable 
state in which the human brute is scarcely distinguished 
above his kindred animals : and a numerous sect of Anacho- 
rets derived their name from their humble practice of 
grazing in the fields of Mesopotamia, with the common 
herd. 68 They often usurped the den of some wild beast 
whom they affected to resemble; they buried themselves 
in some gloomy cavern, which art or nature had scooped 
out of the rock ; and the marble quarries of Thebais are 
still inscribed with the monuments of their penance. 69 The 
most perfect hermits are supposed to have passed many 
days without food, many nights without sleep, and many 
years without speaking ; and glorious was the man (I abuse 
that name) who contrived any cell, or seat, of a peculiar 
construction, which might expose him, in the most incon- 
venient posture, to the inclemency of the seasons.* 
Simeon styiites. Among these heroes of the monastic life, the 
a. d. 395-451- name and genius of Simeon Styiites 70 have been 

66 Suicer. Thesaur. Ecclesiast. torn. ii. pp. 205, 218. Thoinassin, {Discipline de 
r Eglise, torn. i. pp. 1501, 1502,) gives a good account of these cells. When Geras- 
imus founded his monastry in the wilderness ofjordan.it was accompanied by 
a Laura of seventy cells. 

6T Theodoret. in a large volume (the Philotheus in Vit. Patrum, 1. ix. pp. 793- 
863), has collected the lives and miracles of thirty Anachorets. Evagrins, (1. i. c. 
12;, more briefly celebrates the monks and hermits of Palestine. 

cs Sozomen, 1. vi. c. 33. The great St. Ephrem composed a panegyric on these 
B'igkoi, or grazing monks, (Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. vii. p. 292.) 

69 The P. Sicard, [Missions du Levant, torn. ii. pp. 217-233), examined the 
caverns of the Lower Thebais with wonder and devotion. The inscriptions are 
in the old Syriac character, which was used by the Christians of Abyssinia. 

"o See Theodoret, (in Vit. Patrum, 1. ix. pp. 848-854), Antony, (in Vit. Patrum, 
1. i. pp. 107-177,) Cosmas. (in Asseman. Bibliot Oriental, torn. i. pp. 239-253), 
Evazfius, (1. i. c. 13, 14), and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. torn. xv. pp. 347-392.) 

* " If you are desirous," says Voltaire," of obtaining a great name, of becoming 
" the founder of a sect or establishment, be completely mad; but, be sure that 
" your madness corresponds with the turn and temper of your age. Have in 
" your madness reason enough to guide your extravagancies ; and forget not to 
" be excessively opinionated and obstinate. It is certainly possible that you may 
" get hanged ; but if you escape hanging, you will have altars erected to you." — E, 






SIMEON STYLITES. 58 1 

immortalized by the singular invention of an aerial pen- 
ance. At the age of thirteen, the young Syrian deserted 
the profession of a shepherd, and threw himself into an 
austere monastery. After a long and painful novitiate, 
in which Simeon was repeatedly saved from pious sui- 
cide, he established his residence on a mountain, about 
thirty or forty miles to the east of Antioch. Within the 
space of a mandra, or circle of stones, to which he had 
attached himself by a ponderous chain, he ascended a 
column, which was successively raised from the height of 
nine, to that of sixty, feet from the ground. 71 In this last 
and lofty station, the Syrian anachoret resisted the heat 
of thirty summers, and the cold of as many winters. Habit 
and exercise instructed him to maintain his dangerous 
situation without fear or giddiness, and successively to 
assume the different postures of devotion. He sometimes 
prayed in an erect attitude, with his out-stretched arms, in 
the figure of a cross ; but his most familiar practice was* 
that of bending his meagre skeleton from the forehead to 
the feet; and a curious spectator, after numbering twelve 
hundred and forty-four repetitions, at length desisted from 
the endless account. The progress of an ulcer in his thigh 72 
might shorten, but it could not disturb, this celestial life ; 
and the patient hermit expired, without descending from 
his column. A prince, who should capriciously inflict 
such tortures, would be deemed a tyrant; but it would 
surpass the power of a tyrant, to impose a long and 
miserable existence on the reluctant victims of his cruelty. 
This voluntary martyrdom must have gradually destroyed 
the sensibility both of the mind and body ; nor can it be 
presumed that the fanatics, who torment themselves, are 
susceptible of any lively affection for the rest of mankind. 
A cruel unfeeling temper has distinguished the monks of 
every age and country : their stern indifference, which is 
seldom mollified by personal friendship, is inflamed by re- 
ligious hatred; and their merciless zeal has strenuously 
administered the holy office of the Inquisition. 

71 The narrow circumference of two cubits, or three feet, which Evagrius as- 
signs for the summit of the column, is inconsistent with reason, with facts, and 
with the rules of architecture. The people who saw it from below might be 
easily deceived. 

i- I must not conceal a piece of ancient scandal concerning the origin of this 
ulcer. It has been reported that the Devil, assuming an angelic form, invited 
him to ascend, like Elijah, into a fiery chariot. The saint too hastily raised his 
foot, and Satan seized the moment of inflicting this chastisement on his vanity. 



582 SUPERSTITION OF THE AGE. 

Miracles and The monastic" saints, who excite only the con- 
worship of tempt and pity of a philosopher, were respected, 
e mon . ^^ aim os t adored, by the prince and people. 
Successive crowds of pilgrims from Gaul and India saluted 
the divine pillar of Simeon : the tribes of Saracens disputed 
in arms the honor of his benediction ; the queens of Arabia 
and Persia gratefully confessed his supernatural virtue; 
and the angelic hermit was consulted by the younger 
Theodosius, in the most important concerns of the church 
and state. His remains were transported from the mountain 
of Telenissa, by a solemn procession of the patriarch, the 
master-general of the East, six bishops, twenty-one counts 
or tribunes, and six thousand soldiers ; and Antioch revered 
his bones, as her glorious ornament and impregnable 
defence. The fame of the apostles and martyrs was gradually 
eclipsed by these recent and popular anachorets ; the 
Christian world fell prostrate before their shrines ; and the 
•niracles ascribed to their relics, exceeded, at least in 
number and duration, the spiritual exploits of their lives. 
But the golden legend of their lives 73 was embellished by 
the artful credulity of their interested brethren ; and a be- 
lieving age was easily persuaded, that the slightest caprice 
of an Egyptian or a Syrian monk, had been sufficient to 
interrupt the eternal laws of the universe. The favorites 
of heaven were accustomed to cure inveterate diseases 
with a touch, a word, or a distant message ; and to expel 
the most obstinate daemons from the souls or bodies 
which they possessed. They familiarly accosted, or im- 
periously commanded, the lions and serpents of the desert ; 
infused vegetation into a sapless trunk ; suspended iron on 
the surface of the water ; passed the Nile on the back of a 
crocodile, and refreshed themselves in a fiery furnace. 
These extravagant tales, which display the fiction, without 
the genius, of poetry, have seriously affected the reason, 
Superstion of tne faith, and the morals, of the Christians. Their 
the age. credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of 
the mind ; they corrupted the evidence of history ; and 
superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of 
philosophy and science. Every mode of religious worship 

T3 I know not how to select or specify the miracles contained in the Vit. Pa- 
trum, of Rosweyde, as the number very much exceeds the thousand pages of that 
voluminious work. An elegant specimen may be found in the Dialogues ofSul- 
picius Severus, and his Life of St. Martin. He reveres the monks of Egypt ; yet 
he insults them with the remark, that they never raised the dead ; whereas the 
bishop of Tours had restored three dead men to life. 



CONVERSION OF THE BARBARIANS. 583 

which had been practiced by the saints, every mysterious 
doctrine which they believed, was fortified by the sanction 
of divine revelation, and all the manly virtues were oppressed 
by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks. If it 
be possible to measure the interval between the philosophic 
writings of Cicero and the sacred legend of Theodoret, 
between the character of Cato and that of Simeon, we may 
appreciate the memorable revolution which was accom- 
plished in the Roman empire within a period of five hundred 
years.* 

II. The progress of Christianity has been n C onver- 
marked by two glorious and decisive victories : sion of the 
over the learned and luxurious citizens of the BARBARIANJ 
Roman empire ; and over the warlike barbarians of Scythia 
and Germany, who subverted the empire, and embraced 
the religion, of the Romans. The Goths were the foremost 
of these savage proselytes ; and the nation was indebted 
for its conversion to a countryman, or, at least to a subject 
worthy to be ranked among the inventors of useful arts, 
who have deserved the remembrance and gratitude of 
posterity. A great number of Roman provincials had been 
led away into captivity by the Gothic bands, who ravaged 
Asia in the time of Gallienus : and of these captives, many 
were Christians, and several belonged to the ecclesiastical 
order. Those involuntary missionaries, dispersed as slaves 
in the villages of Dacia, successively labored for the salvation 
of their masters. The seeds, which they planted, of the 
evangelic doctrine, were gradually propagated ; and before 
the end of a century, the pious work was achieved by the 
labors of Ulphilas, whose ancestors had been transported 
beyond the Danube from a small town of Cappadocia. 

Ulphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths, 74 acquired 

** On the subject of Ulphilas, and the conversion of the Goths, see Sozomen, I. 
vi. c. 37. Socrates, 1. iv. c.33. Theodoret, 1. iv. c. 37. Philostorg. 1. ii. c. 5. The 
heresy of Philostorgius appears to have given him superior means of information.! 

* The term of five hundred years is too long and begins too early. The de- 
generacy of Roman character and talent does not date from the age that 
immediately followed that of Cicero and Cato. No marked deterioration is per- 
ceptible till after the beginning of the second century. The change then came on 
gradually. It may be more accurately measured, by comparing Theodoret and 
Prosper with Pliny or Tacitus, and seeing Simeon Stylites on his pillar more 
revered than Antonine on his throne. It is important to mark the date, for it 
will be found, that Roman decay began soon after the Christian priesthood 
erected themselves into a hierarchy, received endowments, coveted more, 
manoeuvred for the acquisition of wealth, and used ignorance and superstition as 
their purveyors. Public debasement and episcopal aggrandizement went on 
together, " passibus aequis.''— Eng. Ch. 

t Most ancient and many modern writers have been so occupied in debating, 
whether and why Ulphilas was an Arian, whether he lived in the time of Con- 



584 ULPHILAS, APOSTLE OF THE GOTHS. 

uiphiias, their love and reverence by his blameless life 
ap °Go e th°i the and indefatigable zeal ; and they received, with 
a. d. 360, &c. implicit confidence, the doctrines of truth and 
and virtue which he preached and practiced. He executed 
the arduous task of translating the Scriptures into their 
native tongue, a dialect of the German, or Teutonic, lan- 
guage; but he prudently suppressed the four books of 
Kings, as they might tend to irritate the fierce and 
sanguinary spirit of the barbarians. The rude, imperfect 
idiom of soldiers and shepherds, so ill qualified to com- 

ptantine or of Valens, and whether he was the inventor of the alphabet used in 
his translation of the Scriptures, that they have overlooked the most instructive 
lesson to be gathered from what we know of him. These discussions may be 
found in Neander's Hist, of Chris, vol. iii. p. 177. and Mallet's Northern Ant. 
\vith Bishop Percy's Notes, p. 223, edit Bohn. Wolff or Wolf el, the real name of 
tJlphilas, is manifestly Gothic. Yet, as Neander suggests, it may have been 
adopted by him, though of a Cappadociau family, to ingratiate himself with the 
Moesian colony among whom he was born and had long been resident. He cer- 
tainly acquired great influence over them, and by his translation of the Scriptures 
into their language, marked an important era in the history of their progress. 
It was the first book that they ever possessed. The manuscript, mentioned by 
Gibbon, was discovered in the abbey of Werden, in Westphalia, and is believed 
to be the " identical version of Uiphiias." It is preserved in the library of Upsal 
under the name of the " Codex Argenteus" the letters being all of silver, with 
gold initials, on a violet-colored vellum. They are stamped with hot metal 
types, like titles on the backs of books, and show that at that early period the 
art of printing was all but invented. Other fragments have been discovered in 
the library at Wolfenbiittel and by Cardinal Mai at Rome, by means of which a 
complete edition was published in 1836, at Leipzig. In these manuscripts, the 
letters are quite different from the Runic, and bishop Percy admits that they 
must have been invented by Uiphiias, as ancient writers expressly assert. Nie- 
buhr, {Lectures, 3. 317) ascribes to them a rather earlier origin, for he says that 
when the Visigoths crossed the Danube, in the time of the emperor Valens, 
" they had a national civilization of their own, and already possessed an alpha- 
" bet, invented for them by Uiphiias." No discordant statements can however 
cloud or conceal the fact which here stands prominent to fix our attention. In- 
tercourse with the Roman world had so far improved the Goths, that the first 
preliminary step to all education and enlightenment was decidedly taken, and 
they were fit to receive the means of acquiring and diffusing knowledge. All 
their alleged incapacity and aversion for learning is here at once disproved. 
Yet such were the obstacles by which this progress was impeded, that the Gothic 
mind * had to struggle against them for a thousand years, after the days of 
Uiphiias, before it could assert its native privilege of working freely. — Eng. Ch. 

* The learned editor of Bonn's edition of Gibbon's Rome, who signs his notes 
" English Churchman," is an enthusiastic admirer of the " Gothic mind," and he 
never tires of recounting its many virtues. That particular portion of Gothic 
humanity, developed in England, of course surpasses all the other varieties, and 
may almost claim, in his opinion, the merit of absolute perfection. But, as a 
matter of fact, the "Celtic mind " has also done good service in the cause of 
religious freedom ; and no race or nation may claim, with entire justice, to be the 
sole representative of human progress. Unfortunately, persecution, in the name 
of religion, is the besetting sin of the sectarians of all nationalities ; and this spirit 
of intolerance is too often exhibited, even at the present day, by all the sects in 
Christendom, and particularly by a large class of the people of England. No 
rational mind can hope to understand their inconsistent conduct in regard to 
teachers of science and advocates of free thought ; or comprehend why Charles 
Darwin, the eminent scientist, who was an acknowledged disbeliever in revela- 
tion, and whose writines were opposed with bitterness and ridicule during his 
life, was honored with Christian burial in Westminster Abbey at his death. 

" How much would the world gain," says Castelar, " if the Christian conscience 
" would but consider the services lent to the education of humanity by all races 
" and by all institutions."— E. 



CHARACTER OF ULPHILAS. 585 

municate any spiritual ideas, was improved and modulated 
by his genius: and Ulphilas, before he could frame his 
version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of twenty- 
four letters ;* four of which he invented, to express the 
peculiar sounds that were unknown to the Greek and Latin 
pronunciation. 75 But the prosperous state of the Gothic 
church was soon afflicted by war and intestine discord, and 
the chieftains were divided by religion as well as by interest. 
Fritigern, the friend of the Romans, became the proselyte 
of Ulphilas ; while the haughty soul of Athanaric disdained 
the yoke of the empire, and of the gospel. The faith of 
the new converts was tried by the' persecution which he 
excited. A wagon, bearing aloft the shapeless image of 
Thor, perhaps, or of Woden, was conducted in solemn 
procession through the streets of the camp ; and the rebels, 
who refused to worship the god of their fathers, were 
immediately burnt, with their tents and families. The 
character of Ulphilas recommended him to the esteem of 
the eastern court, where he twice appeared as the minister 
of peace ; he pleaded the cause of the distressed Goths, 
who implored the protection of Valens ; and the name of 
Moses was applied to this spiritual guide, who conducted 
his people through the deep waters of the Danube, to the 
Land of Promise. 76 The devout shepherds, who were 
attached to his person, and tractable to his voice, acquiesced 
in their settlement, at the foot of the Mcesian mountains, in 
a country of woodlands and pastures, which supported 
their flocks and herds, and enabled them to purchase the 

is A mutilated copy of the four Gospels, in the Gothic version, was published 
A. d. 1665. and is esteemed the most ancient monument of the Teutonic language, 
though Wetstein attempts, by some frivolous conjectures, to deprive Ulphilas of 
the honor of the work. Two of the four additional letters express the IV, and 
our own Th. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau Testament, torn. ii. pp. 219- 
223. Mill. Prolegom. p. 151, edit. Kuster. Wetstein, Prolegom. torn. i. p. U4.t 

76 Philostorgius erroneously places this passage under the reign of Constan- 
tine ; but I am much inclined to believe that it preceded the great emigration. 

* This is the Moeso-Gothic alphabet, of which many of the letters are evidently 
formed from the Greek and Roman. M. St. Martin, however, contends, that it 
is impossible but that some written alphabet must have been known long before 
among the Goths. He supposes that their former letters were those inscribed on 
the runes, which being inseparably connected with the old idolatrous supersti- 
tions, were proscribed by the Christian missionaries. Everywhere the runes, 
so common among all the German tribes, disappear after the propagation of 
Christianity. St. Martin, iv. pp. 97, 98.— MlLMAN. 

t The Codex Argenteus, found in the sixteenth century at Wenden. near Co- 
logne, and now preserved at Upsal, contains almost the entire four Gospels. The 
best edition is that of J. Chris. Zahn. Weissenfels, 1S05. In 1762 Knettel discov- 
ered and published from a Palimpsest MS. four chapters of the Epistle to the 
Romans; they were reprinted at Upsal, 1763. M. Mai has since that time dis- 
covered further fragments, and other remains of Moeso-Gothic literature, from a 
Palimpsest at Milan. See Ulphilse partium ineditarum in Ambrosianis Palimp- 
sestis ab Aug. Maio repertarum specimen. Milan, 410. 1S19.— Milman. 



586 CONVERSION OF THE GOTHIC NATIONS. 

corn and wine of the more plentiful provinces. These 
harmless barbarians multiplied in obscure peace, and the 
profession of Christianity." 

Their fiercer brethren, the formidable Visi- 
The Goths, goths, universally adopted the religion of the 
gindians" r " Romans, with whom they maintained a perpetual 
christTanitv 6 intercourse, of war, of friendship, or of conquest. 
a. d. 400, &c. In their long and victorious march from the 
Danube to the Atlantic ocean, they converted 
their allies ; they educated the rising generation ; and the 
devotion which reigned in the camp of Alaric, or the court 
of Thoulouse, might edify, or disgrace, the palaces of 
Rome and Constantinople. 78 During the same period, 
Christianity was embraced by almost all the barbarians, 
who established their kingdoms on the ruins of the western 
empire ; the Burgundians in Gaul, the Suevi in Spain, the 
Vandals in Africa, the Ostrogoths in Pannonia, and the 
various bands of mercenaries, that raised Odoacer to the 
throne of Italy. The Franks and the Saxons still persevered 
in the errors of Paganism ; but the Franks obtained the 
monarchy of Gaul by their submission to the example of 
Clovis ; and the Saxon conquerors of Britain were reclaimed 
from their savage superstition by the missonaries of Rome. 
These barbarian proselytes displayed an ardent and 
successful zeal in the propagation of the faith. The 
Merovingian kings, and their successors, Charlemagne and 
the Othos, extended, by their laws and victories, the 
dominion of the cross. England produced the apostle of 
Germany ; and the evangelic light was gradually diffused 
from the neighborhood of the Rhine, to the nations of the 
Elbe, the Vistula, and the Baltic. 79 
Motives of The different motives which influenced the 
their faith, reason, or the passions, of the barbarian converts, 
cannot easily be ascertained. They were often capricious 
and accidental ; a dream, an omen, the report of a miracle, 
the example of some priest or hero, the charms of a be- 
lieving wife, and, above all, the fortunate event of a prayer, 

77 We are obliged to Jornandes (de Reb. Get. c. 51. p. 688) for a short and lively- 
picture of these lesser Goths. Gothi minores, populus immensus, cum suo Ponti- 
fice ipsoque primate Wulfila. The last words, if they are not mere tautology, 
imply some temporal jurisdiction. 

'* At non ita Gothi'non ita Vandali; malis licet doctoribus instituti, meliores 
tamen etiam in hac parte quam nostri. Salviau, de Gubern. Dei, 1. vii. p. 243. 

19 Mosheim has slightly sketched the progress of Christianity in the North, 
from the fourth to the fourteenth century. The subject would afford materials 
for an ecclesiastical, and even philosophical, history. 



ARGUMENT FOR PAGAN CONVERSION. 587 

or vow, which, in a moment of danger, they had addressed 
to the God of the Christians. 80 The early prejudices of 
education were insensibly erased by the habits of frequent 
and familiar society ; the moral precepts of the gospel were 
protected by the extravagant virtues of the monks ; and a 
spiritual theology was supported by the visible power of 
relics, and the pomp of religious worship. But the rational 
and ingenious mode of persuasion, which a Saxon bishop 81 
suggested to a popular saint, might sometimes be employed 
by the missionaries, who labored for the conversion of 
infidels. " Admit," says the sagacious disputant, " what- 
" ever they are pleased to assert of the fabulous and carnal 
" genealogy of their gods and goddesses, who are prop- 
" agated from each other. From this principle deduce 
" their imperfect nature, and human infirmities, the as- 
" surance they were bom, and the probability that they 
" will die. At what time, by what means, from what cause, 
" were the eldest of the gods or goddesses produced ? Do 
" they still continue, or have they ceased to propagate ? If 
" they have ceased, summon your antagonists to declare 
" the reason of this strange alteration. If they still continue, 
" the number of the gods must become infinite ; and shall 
" we not risk, by the indiscreet worship of some impotent 
" deity, to excite the resentment of his jealous superior ? 
" The visible heavens and earth, the whole system of the 
" universe, which may be conceived by the mind, is it 
" created or eternal ? If created, how, or where, could the 
" gods themselves exist before the creation ? If eternal, 
" how could they assume the empire of an independent 
" and pre-existing world ? Urge these arguments with 
" temper and moderation, insinuate, at seasonable intervals, 
" the truth and beauty of the Christian revelation ; and 
" endeavor to make the unbelievers ashamed, without 
" making them angry." This metaphysical reasoning, too 
refined perhaps for the barbarians of Germany, was fortified 
by the grosser weight of authority and popular consent. 
The advantage of temporal prosperity had deserted the 

so To such a course has Socrates, (1. vii. c. 30) ascribed the conversion of the 
Burgundians, whose Christian piety is celebrated by Orosius, (1. vii. c. 19.) 

si See an original and curious epistle from Daniel, the first bishop of Winches- 
ter, (Beda, Hist. Eccles. Anglorum, 1. v. c. i3, p. 203, edit. Smith), to St. Boniface, 
who preached the gospel among the savages of Hesse and Thuringia. Epistol. 
Bonifaciiy lxii., in the Maxivie Bibliotheca Patrum, torn. xiii. p. 93.* 

* Daniel was the first bishop of Winchester, after the division of Wessex into 
two dioceses, and the erection of a separate see at Sherborne, about a. d. 705. 
There had been five preceding bishops of Winchester. Bede, Ecc. Hist. lib. iii. 
c. 7, iv. c. 12, p. 119, 191, edit. Bonn. — Exg. Ch. 



588 EFFECTS OF BARBARIAN CONVERSION. 

Pagan cause, and passed over to the service of Christianity. 
The Romans themselves, the most powerful and enlightened 
nation of the globe, had renounced their ancient superstition ; 
and, if the ruin of their empire seemed to accuse the 
efficacy of the new faith, the disgrace was already retrieved 
by the conversion of the victorious Goths. The valiant 
and fortunate barbarians, who subdued the provinces of 
the west, successively received, and reflected, the same 
edifying example. Before the age of Charlemagne, the 
Christian nations of Europe might exult in the exclusive 
possession of the temperate climates, of the fertile lands, 
which produced corn, wine, and oil ; while the savage idola- 
ters, and their helpless idols, were confined to the extremi- 
ties of the earth, the dark and frozen regions of the north. 82 
Effects of their Christianity, which opened the gates of heaven 
conversion. to t h e barbarians, introduced an important 
change in their moral and political condition. They re- 
ceived, at the same time, the use of letters, so essential to 
a religion whose doctrines are contained in a sacred book ; 
and, while they studied the divine truth, their minds were 
insensibly enlarged by the distant view of history, of nature, 
of the arts, and of society. The version of the Scriptures 
into their native tongue, which had facilitated their con- 
version, must excite, among their clergy, some curiosity to 
read the original text, to understand the sacred liturgy of 
the church, and to examine, in the writings of the fathers, 
the chain of ecclesiastical tradition. These spiritual gifts 
were preserved in the Greek and Latin languages, which 
concealed the inestimable monuments of ancient learning. 
The immortal productions of Virgil, Cicero, and Livy, 
which were accessible to the Christian barbarians, main- 
tained a silent intercourse between the reign of Augustus, 
and the times of Clovis and Charlemagne. The emulation 
of mankind was encouraged by the remembrance of a more 
perfect state ; and the flame of science was secretly kept 
alive, to warm and enlighten the mature age of the western 
world. In the most corrupt state of Christianity, the 
barbarians might learn justice from the law, and mercy 
from the gospel : and if the knowledge of their duty was 
insufficient to guide their actions, or to regulate their 
passions, they were sometimes restrained by conscience, 

82 The sword of Charlemagne added weight to the argument ; but when Daniel 
wrote this epistle (a. d. 723), the Mahometans, who reigned from India to Spain, 
might have retorted it against the Christians. 



THE ARIAN HERESY. 



589 



and frequently punished by remorse. But the direct 
authority of religion was less effectual, than the holy com- 
munion which united them with their Christian brethren in 
spiritual friendship. The influence of these sentiments 
contributed to secure their fidelity in the service, or the 
alliance, of the Romans, to alleviate the horrors of war, to 
moderate the insolence of conquest, and to preserve, in the 
downfall of the empire, a permanent respect for the name 
and institutions of Rome. In the days of Paganism, the 
priests of Gaul and Germany reigned over the people, and 
controlled the jurisdiction of the magistrates ; and the 
zealous proselytes transferred an equal, or more ample, 
measure of devout obedience, to the pontiffs of the Christian 
faith. The sacred character of the bishops was supported 
by their temporal possessions ; they obtained an honorable 
seat in the legislative assemblies of soldiers and freemen ; 
and it was their interest, as well as their duty, to mollify, 
by peaceful counsels, the fierce spirit of the barbarians. 
The perpetual correspondence of the Latin clergy, the 
frequent pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem, and the 
growing authority of the popes, cemented the union of the 
Christian republic; and gradually produced the similar 
manners, and common jurisprudence, which have dis- 
tinguished from the rest of mankind, the independent, and 
even hostile, nations of modern Europe. 

But the operation of these causes was checked Th .. .. 
and retarded by the unfortunate accident, which voived in the 
infused a deadly poison into the cup of salvation. Anan heresy - 
Whatever might be the 'early sentiments of Ulphilas, his 
connections with the empire and the church were formed 
during the reign of Arianism. The apostle of the Goths 
subscribed the creed of Rimini ; professed with freedom, 
and perhaps with sincerity, that the Son was not equal, or 
consubstantial, to the Father i 83 communicated these errors 
to the clergy and people ; and infected the barbaric world 
with a heresy, 84 which the great Theodosius proscribed and 

83 The opinions of Ulphilas and the Goths inclined to semi-Arianism. since they 
would not say that the Son was a creature, though they held communion with 
those who maintained that heresy. Their apostle represented the whole contro- 
versy as a question of trifling moment, which had been raised by the passions 
of the clergy. Theodoret. 1. iv. c. 37. 

84 The Arianism of the Goths has been imputed to the emperor Valens : " Ita- 
" quejustoDei judicio ipsieum vivumincenderunt, qui propter eum etiam mortui, 
" vitio erroris arsuri sunt." Orosius, I. vii. c. 33, p. 554 This cruel sentence is 
confirmed by Tillemont {Mem. Eccles. torn, vi pp. 604-610), who coolv observes, 
" un seul horarae entraina dans l'enfer un nombre infini de Septentrio'naux, &c." 
Salvian, (de Gubern. Dei, 1. v. pp. 150, 151), pities and excuses their involuntary 
error. 



590 GENERAL TOLERATION. 

extinguished among the Romans. The temper and under- 
standing of the proselytes were not adapted to metaphysical 
subtilities ; but they strenuously maintained what they had 
piously received, as the pure and genuine doctrines of 
Christianity. The advantage of preaching and expounding 
the Scriptures in the Teutonic language, promoted the 
apostolic labors of Ulphilas and his successors ; and they 
ordained a competent number of bishops and presbyters 
for the instruction of the kindred tribes. The Ostrogoths, 
the Burgundians, the Suevi, and the Vandals, who had 
listened to the eloquence of the Latin clergy, 85 preferred 
the more intelligible lessons of their domestic teachers ; 
and Arianism was adopted as the national faith of the war- 
like converts, who were seated on the ruins of the western 
empire. This irreconcilable difference of religion was a 
perpetual source of jealousy and hatred ; and the reproach 
of barbarian was embittered by the more odious epithet of 
heretic. The heroes of the north, who had submitted, with 
some reluctance, to believe that all their ancestors were in 
hell, 86 * were astonished and exasperated to learn, that they 
themselves had only changed the mode of their eternal 
condemnation. Instead of the smooth applause, which 
Christian kings are accustomed to expect from their loyal 
prelates, the orthodox bishops and their clergy were in a 
state of opposition to the Arian courts ; and their indiscreet 
opposition frequently became criminal, and might some- 
times be dangerous.* 7 The pulpit, that safe and sacred 
organ of sedition, resounded with the names of Pharaoh 
and Holofernes f 8 the public discontent was inflamed by 
the hope or promise of a glorious deliverance : and the 
seditious saints were tempted to promote the accomplish- 
Generai ment of their own predictions. Notwithstanding 
toleration, these provocations, the Catholics of Gaul, Spain, 

83 Orosius affirms, in the year 416 (I. vii. c. 41, p. 580). that the Churches of 
Christ, (of the Catholics), were filled with Huns, Suevi, Vandals, Burgundians. 

ss Radbod, king of the Prisons, was so much scandalized by this rash declara- 
tion of a missionary, that he drew back his foot after he had entered the bap- 
tismal font. See Fleury, Hist. Eccles. torn. ix. p. 167. 

8" The epistles of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, under the Visigoth, and of 
Avitus, bishop of Vienna, under the Burgundians, explain sometimes in dark 
hints, the general disposition of the Catholics. The history of Clovis and Theo- 
doric will suggest some particular facts. 

88 Genseric confesses the resemblance, by the severity with which he punished 
such indiscreet allusions. Victor Vitensis, 1. 7, p. 10. 

* "Suppose your mother were in hell, would you be happy in heaven, then?" 
enquired Col. Robt. G. Ingersoll, of a young gentleman, who, having recently 
been converted to Piesbyterianism, was perfectly happy. "Well," replied the 
young convert, " I suppose God would know the best place for mother." "And, 
I thought to myself, then," said the witty orator, when relating the incident, 
" if I was a woman, I would like to have five or six boys like that." — E. 



PERSECUTION OF THE VANDALS. 59I 

and Italy, enjoyed under the reign of the Arians, the free 
and peaceful exercise of their religion. Their haughty 
masters respected the zeal of a numerous people, resolved 
to die at the foot of their altars ; and the example of their 
devout constancy was admired and imitated by the barbar- 
ians themselves. The conquerors evaded, however, the 
disgraceful reproach, or confession, of fear, by attributing 
their toleration to the liberal motives of reason and 
humanity ; and while they affected the language, they 
imperceptibly imbibed the spirit, of genuine Christianity. 

The peace of the church was sometimes Arian perse . 
interrupted. The Catholics were indiscreet, the cation of the 
barbarians were impatient ; and the partial acts 
of severity or injustice, which had been recommended by 
the Arian clergy, were exaggerated by the orthodox writers. 
The guilt of persecution may be imputed to Euric, king of 
the Visigoths; who suspended the exercise of ecclesiastical, 
or at least of episcopal, functions ; and punished the popular 
bishops of Aquitain with imprisonment, exile, and con- 
fiscation. 89 But the cruel and absurd enterprise of subduing 
the minds of a whole people, was undertaken Genseric, 
by the Vandals alone. Genseric himself, in his A " D- 4 2 9-477- 
early youth, had renounced the orthodox communion ; and 
the apostate could neither grant, nor expect, a sincere 
forgiveness. He was exasperated to find, that the Africans, 
who had fled before him in the field, still presumed to dis- 
pute his will in synods and churches ; and his ferocious 
mind was incapable of fear, or of compassion, His Catholic 
subjects were oppressed by intolerant laws, and arbitrary 
punishments. The language of Genseric was furious and 
formidable; the knowledge of his intentions might justify 
the most unfavorable interpretation of his actions ; and the 
Arians were reproached with the frequent executions, which 
stained the palace, and the dominions of the tyrant. Arms 
and ambition were, however, the ruling passions of the 
monarch of the sea. But Hunneric, his inglorious Hnnnetic, 
son, who seemed to inherit only his vices, A - D - 477 - 
tormented the Catholics with the same unrelenting fury 
which had been fatal to his brother, his nephews, and the 
friends and favorites of his father ; and even to the Arian 
patriarch, who was inhumanly burnt alive in the midst of 

89 Such are the contemporary complaints of Sidonius, bishop of Clermont, 
(1. vii. c. 6, p. 182, &c, edit. Sirmond). Gregory of Tours, who quotes this epistle 
(1. ii. c. 25, in torn. ii. p. 174), extorts an unwarrantable assertion, that of the nine 
vacancies in Aquitain, some had been produced by episcopal martyrdoms. 



592 ARIAN PERSECUTION. 

Carthage. The religious war was preceded and prepared 
by an insidious truce ; persecution was made the serious 
and important business of the Vandal court ; and the loath- 
some disease, which hastened the death of Hunneric, re- 
venged the injuries, without contributing to the deliverance, 
of the church. The throne of Africa was successively filled 
Gundamund, by the two nephews of Hunneric ; by Gunda- 
a. d. 484. mund, who reigned about twelve, and by 
Thrasimund, who governed the nation above twenty-seven 
years. Their administration was hostile and oppressive to 
the orthodox party. Gundamund appeared to emulate, or 
even to surpass, the cruelty of his uncle ; and, if at length 
he relented, if he recalled the bishops, and restored the 
freedom of Athanasian worship, a premature death inter- 
Thrasimund, cepted the benefits of his tardy clemency. His 
a. d. 496. brother, Thrasimund, was the greatest and most 
accomplished of the Vandal kings, whom he excelled in 
beauty, prudence, and magnanimity of soul. But this 
magnanimous character was degraded by his intolerant 
zeal and deceitful clemency. Instead of threats and tortures, 
he employed the gentle but efficacious powers of seduction. 
Wealth, dignity, and the royal favor, were the liberal re- 
wards of apostasy ; the Catholics, who had violated the 
laws, might purchase their pardon by the renunciation of 
their faith : and whenever Thrasimund meditated any 
rigorous measure, he patiently waited till the indiscretion 
of his adversaries furnished him with a specious opportunity. 
Bigotry was his last sentiment in the hour of death ; and 
he exacted from his successor a solemn oath that he would 
Hiideric, never tolerate the sectaries of Athanasius. But 
a. d. 523. 1^ SUCC essor, Hiideric, the gentle son of the 
savage Hunneric, preferred the duties of humanity and 
justice, to the vain obligation of an impious oath; and his 
accession was gloriously marked by the restoration of peace 
and universal freedom. The throne of that virtuous, though 
Geiimer, feeble monarch, was usurped by his cousin 
a. d. 530. Geiimer, a zealous Arian ; but the Vandal king- 
dom, before he could enjoy or abuse his power, was sub- 
verted by the arms of Belisarius ; and the orthodox party 
retaliated the injuries which they had endured. 90 

90 The original monuments of the Vandal persecution are preserved in the five 
books of the history of Victor Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandalica) , a bishop 
who was exiled by Hunneric ; in the Life of St. Fulgentius, who was distinguished 
in the persecution of Thrasimund (in Biblioth. Max. Patrum. torn. ix. pp. 4-16; 
and in the first book of the Vandalic War, by the impartial Procopius, (c. 7, 8, pp. 



PERSECUTION IN AFRICA. 593 

The passionate declamations of the Catholics, 
the sole historians of this persecution, cannot viewoFthe 
afford any distinct series of causes and events : persecution 

3 . , r , , 'in Atnca. 

any impartial view 01 the characters, or coun- 
sels ; but the most remarkable circumstances that deserve 
either credit or notice, may be referred to the following 
heads : I. In the original law, which is still extant, 91 Hunneric 
expressly declares (and the declaration appears to be cor- 
rect), that he had faithfully transcribed the regulations and 
penalties of the imperial edicts, against the heretical con- 
gregations, the clergy, and the people, who dissented from 
the established religion. If the rights of conscience had 
been understood, the Catholics must have condemned their 
past conduct, or acquiesced in their actual sufferings. But 
they still persisted to refuse the indulgence which they 
claimed. While they trembled under the lash of persecu- 
tion, they praised the laudable severity of Hunneric himself, 
who burnt or banished great numbers of Manichseans ; 92 
and they rejected with horror, the ignominious compromise, 
that the disciples of Arius and of Athanasius should enjoy 
a reciprocal and similar toleration in the territories of the 
Romans, and in those of the Vandals. 93 II. The practice 
of a conference, which the Catholics had so frequently used 
to insult and punish their obstinate antagonists, was retorted 
against themselves. 94 At the command of Hunneric, four 
hundred and sixty-six orthodox bishops assembled at 
Carthage : but when they were admitted into the hall of 
audience, they had the mortification of beholding the Arian 
Cyrila exalted on the patriarchal throne. The disputants 

196-199.) Dom. Ruinart, the last editor of Victor, has illustrated the whole subject 
with a copious and learned apparatus of notes and supplement. (Paris, 1694.) 

91 Victor, iv. 2, p. 65. Hunneric refuses the name of Catholics to the Homoou- 
sicns. He describes, as the veri Divinae Majestatis cultores, his own party, who 
professed the faith, confirmed by more than a thousand bishops, in the synods of 
Rimini and Seleucia.* 

92 Victor, ii. 1, pp. 21, 22. Laudabilior * * * videbatur. In the MSS. which 
omit this word, the passage is unintelligible. See Ruinart, Not. p. 164. 

93 Victor, ii. 2. pp. 22, 23. The clergy of Carthage called these conditions per~ 
iculostE, and they seem, indeed, to have been proposed as a snare to entrap the 
Catholic bishops. 

94 See the narrative of this conference, and the treatment of the bishops, in 
Victor, ii. 13-18, pp. 35-42, and the whole fourth book, pp. 63-171. The third 
book, pp. 42-62, is entirely filled by their apology or confession of faith. 

* These recitals, even after making much allowance for the exaggerations of 
the injured and irritated, only prove what it was that the converted barbarians 
were taught to regard as Christianity. Neander (4. 92) traces the joint influence 
of example and instigation. " The Vandal princes wished to retaliate the op- 
" pressions which their companions in the faith had to suffer in the Roman 
" empire ; those among their subjects, who agreed in faith with the Roman 
" Christians, were also objects of suspicion to them ; and in part they were led 
" on by the rude fanatical Arian clergy."— Eng. Ch. 



594 CONTINUED PERSECUTION. 

were separated, after the mutual and ordinary reproaches 
of noise and silence, of delay and precipitation, of military 
force and of popular clamor. One martyr and one con- 
fessor were selected among the Catholic bishops ; twenty- 
eight escaped by flight, and eighty-eight by conformity ; 
forty-six were sent into Corsica to cut timber for the royal 
navy ; and three hundred and two were banished to the 
different parts of Africa, exposed to the insults of their 
enemies, and carefully deprived of all the temporal and 
spiritual comforts of life. 95 The hardships of ten years' 
exile must have reduced their numbers ; and if they had 
complied with the law of Thrasimund, which prohibited 
any episcopal consecrations, the orthodox church of Africa 
must have expired with the lives of its actual members. 
They disobeyed ; and their disobedience was punished by 
a second exile of two hundred and twenty bishops into 
Sardinia; where they languished fifteen years, till the 
accession of the gracious Hilderic. 96 The two islands were 
judiciously chosen by the malice of their Arian tyrants. 
Seneca from his own experience has deplored and ex- 
aggerated the miserable state of Corsica, 97 and the plenty 
of Sardinia was overbalanced by the unwholesome quality 
of the air. 98 III. The zeal of Genseric, and his successors, 
for the conversion of the Catholics, must have rendered 
them still more jealous to guard the purity of the Vandal 
faith. Before the churches were finally shut, it was a crime 
to appear in a barbarian dress ; and those who presumed 
to neglect the royal mandate, were rudely dragged back- 
wards by their long hair. 99 The palatine officers, who re- 

95 See the list of the African bishops, in Victor, pp. 117-140, and Ruinart's 
Notes, pp. 215-397. The schismatic name of Donatus frequently occurs, and they 
appear to have adopted (like our fanatics of the last age) the pious appellations 
of Deodatus, Deogratias, Quidvultdeus. Habetdeum, &c* 

96 Fulgent. Vit. c. 16-29. Thrasimund affected the praise of moderation and 
learning ; and Fulgentius addressed three books of controversy to the Anan 
tyrant, whom he styles piissime Rex. Biblioth. Maxim. Patrum. torn. ix. p. 41. 
Only sixty bishops are mentioned as exiles, in the life of Fulgentius ; they are 
increased to one hundred and twenty by Victor Tunnunensis and Isidor : but 
the number of two hundred and twenty is' specified in the Historia Miscella, and 
a short authentic chronicle of the times. See Ruinart, pp. 570-571. 

9" See the base and insipid epigrams of the Stoic, who could not support exile 
with more fortitude than Ovid. Corsica might not produce corn, wine, or oil ; 
but it could not be destitute of grass, water, and even fire. 

93 Si ob gravitatem cceii interissent, vile damnum. Tacit. Annal. ii. 85. In 
this application, Thrasimund would have adopted the reading of some critics, 
utile damnum. 

99 See the preludes of a general persecution, in Victor ii. 3, 4, 7, and the two 
edicts of Hunneric ; 1. ii. p. 35, 1, iv. p. 64. 

* These names appear to have been introduced by the Donatists. — Milman. 

The Deogratias. of whom honorable mention has been made, (c. 36), was an 
Arian bishop. The prevalent spirit of the times, as here depicted, shows us why 
his kindness to the suffering orthodox made him obnoxious to all parties. — E. C. 



BANISHMENT OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS. 595 

fused to profess the religion of their prince, were ignomini- 
ously stripped of their honors and employments ; banished 
to Sardinia and Sicily ; or condemned to the servile labors 
of slaves and peasants in the fields of Utica. In the dis- 
tricts which had been peculiarly allotted to the Vandals, 
the exercise of the Catholic worship was more strictly 
prohibited; and severe penalties were denounced against 
the guilt both of the missionary and the proselyte. By 
these arts, the faith of the barbarians was preserved, and 
their zeal was inflamed ; they discharged, with devout 
fury, the office of spies, informers, or executioners ; and 
whenever their cavalry took the field it was the favorite 
amusement of the march, to defile the churches, and to 
insult the clergy of the adverse faction. 300 IV. The citizens 
who had been educated in the luxury of the Roman 
province, were delivered, with exquisite cruelty, to the 
Moors of the desert. A venerable train of bishops, presby- 
ters, and deacons, with a faithful crowd of four thousand 
and ninety-six persons, whose guilt is not precisely 
ascertained, were torn from their native homes, by the 
command of Hunneric. During the night they were con- 
fined, like a herd of cattle, amidst their own ordure: during 
the day they pursued their march over the burning sands ; 
and if they fainted under the heat and fatigue, they were 
goaded or dragged along, till they expired in the hands of 
their tormentors. 101 These unhappy exiles, when they 
reached the Moorish huts, might excite the compassion of 
a people, whose native humanity was neither improved by 
reason, nor corrupted by fanaticism : but if they escaped 
the dangers, they were condemned to share the distress, of 
a savage life. V. It is incumbent on the authors of perse- 
cution previously to reflect, whether they are determined 
to support it in the last extreme. They excite the flame 
which they strive to extinguish ; and it soon becomes 
necessary to chastise the contumacy, as well as the crime, 
of the offender. The fine, which he is unable or unwilling 
to discharge, exposes his person to the severity of the law ; 
and his contempt of lighter penalties suggests the use and 
propriety of capital punishment. Through the veil of fiction 
and declamation, we may clearly perceive, that the Catholics, 

100 See Procopius de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 7, pp, 197, 198. A Moorish prince en- 
deavored to propitiate the God of the Christians, by his diligence to erase the 
marks of the Vandal sacrilege. 

101 See this story in Victor, ii. 8-12, pp. 30-34. Victor describes the distress of 
these confessors as an eye-witness. 



596 FORCIBLE IMPOSITION OF BAPTISM. 

more especially under the reign of Hunneric, endured the 
most cruel and ignominious treatment. 102 Respectable 
citizens, noble matrons, and consecrated virgins, were 
stripped naked, and raised in the air by pulleys, with a 
weight suspended at their feet. In this painful attitude 
their naked bodies were torn with scourges, or burnt in the 
most tender parts with red-hot plates of iron. The amputa- 
tion of the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the right hand,* 
was inflicted by the Arians ; and although the precise 
number cannot be defined, it is evident that many persons, 
among whom a bishop 103 and a proconsul 104 may be named, 
were entitled to the crown of martyrdom. The same honor 
has been ascribed to the memory of count Sebastian, who 
professed the Nicene creed with unshaken constancy ; and 
Genseric might detest, as an heretic, the brave and ambitious 
fugitive whom he dreaded as a rival. 105 VI. A new mode 
of conversion, which might subdue the feeble, and alarm 
the timorous, was employed by the Arian ministers. They 
imposed, by fraud or violence, the rites of baptism ; and 
punished the apostasy of the Catholics, if they disclaimed 
this odious and profane ceremony, which scandalously 
violated the freedom of the will, and the unity of the 
sacrament. 106 The hostile sects had formerly allowed the 
validity of each other's baptism ; and the innovation, so 
fiercely maintained by the Vandals, can be imputed only to 
the example and advice of the Donatists. VII. The Arian 
clergy surpassed, in religious cruelty, the king and his 
Vandals ; but they were incapable of cultivating the spiritual 
vineyard, which they were so desirous to possess. A 
patriarch 107 might seat himself on the throne of Carthage ; 

102 See the fifth book of Victor. His passionate complaints are confirmed by 
the sober testimony of Procopius, and the public declaration of the emperor 
Justinian. Cod. I. i. tit xxvii. 

103 Victor, ii. 18, p. 41. 

104 Victor, v. 4. pp. 74, 75. His name was Victorianus, and he was a wealthy 
citizen of Adrumetum. who enjoyed the confidence of the king: by whose favor 
he had obtained the office, or at least the title, of proconsul of Africa. 

105 Victor, i. 6, pp. 8, 9. After relating the firm resistance and dexterous reply 
of Count Sebastian, he adds, quare alio generis argumento postea bellicosum 
virum occidit. 

106 Victor, v. 12, 13. Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn. vi. p. 609. 

107 Primate was more properly the title of the bishop of Carthage ; but the 
name of patriarch was given by the sects and nations to their principal ecclesi- 
astic. See Thomassin, Discipline de VEglise, torn. i. pp. 155, 158. 

* The history of Christianity is a history of persecution. It is a history of 
injustice, of oppression, and of cruelty. Its founder taught the sublime doctrine 
of Confucius, ''Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you." 
But those who claim to be his followers have repudiated this moral teaching and 
invented a system of creeds and dogmas which has arrayed man against his 
fellow, brother against brother, the father against the son, and the mother 
against the daughter. Instead of peace, justice, liberty, and happiness, we see 
war, conquest, misery, and superstition. — E. 



IGNORANCE OF THE VANDAL CLERGY. 597 

some bishops, in the principal cities, might usurp the place 
of their rivals ; but the smallness of their numbers, 
and their ignorance of the Latin language, 10 ' disqualified 
the barbarians for the ecclesiastical ministry of a great 
church ; and the Africans, after the loss of their orthodox 
pastors, were deprived of the public exercise of Christianity. 
VIII. The emperors were the natural protectors of the 
Homoousian doctrine : and the faithful people of Africa, 
both as Romans and as Catholics, preferred their lawful 
sovereignty to the usurpation of the barbarous heretics. 
During an interval of peace and friendship, Hunneric re- 
stored the cathedral of Carthage, at the intercession of 
Zeno, who reigned in the East, and of Placidia, the daughter 
and relict of emperors, and the sister of the queen of the 
Vandals. 109 But this decent regard was but of short duration ; 
and the haughty tyrant displayed his contempt for the 
religion of the empire, by studiously arranging the bloody 
images of persecution, in all the principal streets through 
which the Roman ambassador must pass in his way to the 
palace. 110 An oath was required from the bishops, who 
were assembled at Carthage, that they would support the 
succession of his son Hilderic, and that they would renounce 
all foreign or transmarine correspondence. This engage- 
ment, consistent, as it should seem, with their moral and 
religious duties, was refused by the more sagacious 
members 111 of the assembly. Their refusal, faintly colored 
by the pretence that it is unlawful for a Christian to swear, 
must provoke the suspicions of a jealous tyrant. 

The Catholics, oppressed by royal and military Catholic 
force, were far superior to their adversaries in frauds, 
numbers and learning. With the same weapons which the 
Greek 112 and Latin fathers had already provided for the 
Arian controversy, they repeatedly silenced, or vanquished, 

los The patriarch Cyrila himself publiclv declared, that he did not understand 
Latin, ( Victor, ii. 18, p. 42) : Nescio Latine ; and he might converse with tolerable 
ease, without being capable of disputing or preaching in that language. His 
Vandal clergy- were still more ignorant; and small confidence could be placed in 
the Africans who had conformed. 109 Victor, ii. 1, 2, p. 22. 

no Victor, v. 7. p, 77. He appeals to the ambassador himself, whose name was 
Uranius. 

111 Astutiores. Victor, iv. 4, p. 70. He plainly intimates that their quotation of the 
gospel " Non jurabitis in toto," was only meant to elude the obligation of an incon- 
venient oath . The forty-six bishops who refused were banished to Corsica; the three 
hundred and two who swore, were distributed through the provinces of Africa. 

112 Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspas, in the Byzacene province, was of a senatorial 
family, and had received a liberal education. He could repeat all Homer and 
Menander before he was allowed to study Latin, his native tongue. (Vit. Fulgent. 
c. 1). Many African bishops might understand Greek, and many Greek theo- 
logians were translated into Latin. 



598 CATHOLIC FRAUDS. 

the fierce and illiterate successors of Ulphilas. The con- 
sciousness of their own superiority might have raised them 
above the arts and passions of religious warfare. Yet, instead 
of assuming such honorable pride, the orthodox theologians 
were tempted, by the assurance of impunity, to compose 
fictions, which must be stigmatized with the epithets of 
fraud and forgery. They ascribed their own polemical 
works to the most venerable names of Christian antiquity ; 
the characters of Athanasius and Augustin were awkwardly 
personated by Vigilius and his disciples ; 113 and the famous 
creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the 
Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong 
probability, from this African school. 114 Even the Scriptures 
themselves were profaned by their rash and sacrilegious 
hands. The memorable text, which asserts the unity of the 
Three who bear witness in heaven, 115 is condemned by the 
universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, 
and authentic manuscripts. 116 It was first alleged by the 
Catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the con- 
ference of Carthage. 117 An allegorical interpretation, in the 
form, perhaps, of a marginal note, invaded the text of the 
Latin Bibles, which were renewed and corrected in a dark 

us Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of Vigilius of Thapsus (pp. 118, 
119, edit. Chiflet). He might amuse his learned reader with an innocent fiction; 
but the subject was too grave, and the Africans were too ignorant. 

'1* The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has been favorably received. 
But the three following truths, however surprising they may seem, are now uni- 
versally acknowledged, Gerard Vossius, torn. vi. pp. 516-522. (Tillemont, Mem. 
Eccles. torn. viii. pp. 667-671.) 1. St. Athanasius is not the author of the creed, 
which is so frequently read in our churches. 2. It does not appear to have 
existed within a century after his death. 3. It was originally composed in the 
Latin tongue, and, consequently, in the Western provinces, Gennadius, patriarch 
of Constantinople, was so much amazed by this extraordinary composition, that 
he frankly pronounced it to be the work of a drunken man. Petav. Dogmat. 
Theologica, torn, ii., 1. vii. c. 8, p. 687. 

115 / ¥ohn, v. 7. See Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau Testament, part i. c. 
xviii. pp. 203-218 ; and part ii. c. ix. pp. 99-121 ; and the elaborate Prolegomena 
and Annotations of Dr. Mill and Wetstein to their editions of the Greek Testa- 
ment. In 1689, the Papist Simon strove to be free; in 1707, the Protestant Mill 
wished to be a slave ; in 1751, the Armenian Wetstein used the liberty of his times, 
and of his sect.* 

us Of all the MSS. now extant, above fourscore in number, soma of which are 
more than 1200 years old, (Wetstein ad loc.) The orthodox copies of the Vatican, 
of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens, are become invisible; and 
the two MSS. of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception. See 
Emlyn's Works, vol. ii. pp. 227-255, 269-299 ; and M. de Missy's four ingenious 
letters, in torn. viii. and ix of the yournal Britannique. 

11" Or, more properly, by the four bishops who composed and published the 
profession of faith in the name of their brethren. They stvled this text, luce 
clarius, {Victor Vitensis de Persecut. Vandal. 1. iii, c. 11, p'. 54 ) It is quoted 
soon afterwards by the African polemics, Vigilius and Fulgentius. 

* This controversy has continued to be agitated, but with declining interest, 
even in the more religious part of the community ; and may now be considered 
to have terminated in an almost general acquiescence of the learned in the con- 
clusions of Porson in his Letters to Travis. See the pamphlets of the late 
Bishop of Salisbury and of Crito Cantabrigionsis, Dr. Turton of Cambridge— M. 



THE THREE HEAVENLY WITNESSES. 599 

period of ten centuries. 118 After the invention of printing, 119 
the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own 
prejudices, or to those of the times ; 120 and the pious fraud, 
which was embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, 
has been infinitely multiplied in every country and every 
language of modern Europe.f 

us In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles were corrected by Lanfranc, 
archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicholas, cardinal and librarian of the Roman 
church, secundum orthodoxam fidem, (Wetstein, Prolegom, pp. 84, 85.) Notwith- 
standing these corrections, the passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin, MSS. 
[Wetstein ad loc.) the oldest and the fairest; two qualities seldom united, except 
in manuscripts. 

us The art which the Germans had invented was applied in Italy to the pro- 
fane writers of Rome and Greece. The original Greek of the New- Testament 
was published about the same time, (a. d. 1514, 1516, 1520,) by the industry of 
Erasmus, and the munificence of Cardinal Ximenes. The Complutensian Polyglot 
cost the cardinal 50,000 ducats. See Macttaire. Annal. Typograph. torn. ii. pp. 
2-8, 125-133 ; and Wetstein, Prolegomena, pp. 116-127. 

120 The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the 
prudence of Erasmus : the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors ; the 
typographical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens, in the placing a crochet; 
and the deliberate falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza.* 

* In his edition of the New Testament, in 1539, Robert Stephens made a paren- 
thesis of the passage "in heaven — on earth," to indicate that it was not to be 
found in the Latin manuscript ; but in the edition of 1550, only the words- 
" in heaven " are placed between brackets as suspicious, instead of the whole 
passage, as it ought to have been. — German Editor. 

Any further observations on this subject are rendered unnecessary by Porson's 
Letters to Travis, which completely establish Gibbon's position, that the verse 
respecting the " three witnesses " was the interpolation of a later age. — Eng. Ch. 
f Taylor places this text in relation to "the three heavenly witnesses," (the 
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one,) in his list of 
" Spurious Passages in the New Testament.'" {Appendix to Diegesis, page 421.) 
The text is found in / ?ohn, v : 7. It had been willfully and wickedly interpo- 
lated, to sustain the Trinitarian doctrine, as Taylor has shown ; and it has been 
entirely omitted by the revisers of the New Testament. Dr. Roberts, in his 
Companion to the Revised Version of the English New Testament, page 72, sa} r s : 
" So decidedly have the minds of all scholars now been made up as to the spuri- 
" ousness of the words, that they have been omitted in the Revised Version 
" without a line even on the margin to indicate that they had ever been admitted 
" to a place in the sacred text." 

The equally pregnant passage, 1 Timothy, iii : 16, " God was manifest in the 
" flesh," which was altered to its present reading, by some over-zealous Christian, 
to sustain the doctrine of Christ's divinity, and which Taylor denounced as a 
forgery, has been robbed of its significance and radically changed by the revisers. 
It now reads, " He who was manifest in the flesh." Thus, the great mystery of 
" godliness," which precedes the text, is no longer a mystery, for the riddle has 
been explained— the puzzle has been solved— and the simple pronoun, " he," 
which, with the context, will apply to any religious teacher, has been substituted 
in the place of God, the creator and preserver of the universe. It is but justice to 
the learned Dr. Roberts to remark, that but two and a half pages of his interesting 
and instructive Companion, are occupied with this necessary explanation. 

Taylor also rejects " the whole of the Doxologv at the end of the Lord's prayer," 
{Matt. vi. 13,) and Dr. Roberts endorses his judgment, by stating on page 60 of his 
Companion to Revised Version, that "Criticism must pronounce decidedly against 
" the clause as forming part of the original text ; and it is, accordingly, not ad- 
" mitted into the Revised Version." Taylor and Roberts also agree in the total 
want of authority for the story of the Pool of Bethesda, yohn, v. 3, 4. Also, the 
important passage, Acts, xx, 2S, where Christ and the Holy Ghost are spoken of 
and confounded with God,— the essential point at issue between the Trinitarians 
and Arians— the orthodox and heterodox. 

In the year 1828 the Rev. Robt. Taylor was imprisoned in Oakham jail, England, 
as a punishment for his heterodox opinions, and in the year 1SS2 Dr. Roberts and 
his reverend associates have shown, in their Revised Version of the New Testa' 
ment, that many of Taylor's learned criticism are correct. — E. 



600 MIRACLES AT TIPASA. 

The example of fraud must excite suspicion ; 
And miracles. and the spec i ous m i rac les by which the African 
Catholics have defended the truth and justice of their cause, 
may be ascribed, with more reason, to their own industry, 
than to the visible protection of heaven. Yet the historian, 
who views this religious conflict with an impartial eye, may 
condescend to mention one preternatural event, which will 
edify the devout, and surprise the incredulous. Tipasa, 121 
a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east 
of Caesarea, had been distinguished, in every age, by the 
orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the 
fury of the Donatists ; m they resisted, or eluded, the tyranny 
of the Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of 
an heretical bishop : most of the inhabitants who could 
procure ships passed over to the coast of Spain ; and the 
unhappy remnant, refusing all communion with the usurper, 
still presumed to hold their pious, but illegal, assemblies. 
Their disobedience exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric. 
A military count was despatched from Carthage to Tipasa: 
he collected the Catholics in the forum, and in the presence 
of the whole province, deprived the guilty of their right 
hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors con- 
tinued to speak without tongues : and this miracle is 
attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published a 
history of the persecution within two years after the event. 1 " 
" If any one," says Victor, " should doubt of the truth, let 
11 him repair to Constantinople, and listen to the clear and 
" perfect language of Restitutus, the subdeacon, one of these 
" glorious sufferers, who is now lodged in the palace of the 
" emperor Zeno, and is respected by the devout empress." 
At Constantinople we are astonished to find a cool, a learned, 
and unexceptionable witness, without interest, and without 
passion, tineas of Gaza, a Platonic philosopher, has 
accurately described his own observations on these African 
sufferers. " I saw them myself: I heard them speak : I 
" diligently inquired by what means such an articulate 
" voice could be formed without any organ of speech : I 
" used my eyes to examine the report of my ears : I opened 
" their mouth, and saw that the whole tongue had been 

121 Plin, Hist. Natural, v. i. Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 15. Cellarius, Geograph. 
Antiq. torn. ii. part ii. p. 127. This Tipasa (which must not be confounded with 
another in Numidia) was a town of some note, since Vespasian endowed it with 
the right of Latium. 

122 Optatus Milevitanus de Schism, Donatist. 1. ii. p. 38. 

123 Victor Vitensis, v, 6, p. 76. Ruinart, pp. 483-487. 



SPEAKING WITHOUT TONGUES. 6oi 

" completely torn away by the roots ; an operation which 
" the physicians generally suppose to be mortal." 124 The 
testimony of JEneas of Gaza might be confirmed by the 
superfluous evidence of the emperor Justinian, in a perpetual 
edict ; of count Marcellinus, in his Chronicle of the times ; 
and of pope Gregory the first, who had resided at Con- 
stantinople, as the minister of the Roman pontiff. 123 They 
all lived within the compass of a century ; and they all 
appeal to their personal knowledge, or the public notoriety, 
for the truth of a miracle, which was repeated in several 
instances, displayed on the greatest theatre of the world, 
and submitted, during a series of years, to the calm ex- 
amination of the senses. This supernatural gift of the 
African confessors, who spoke without tongues, will com- 
mand the assent of those, and of those only, who already 
believe, that their language was pure and orthodox. But 
the stubborn mind of an infidel is guarded by secret, 
incurable suspicion ; f and the Arian, or Socinian, who has 
seriously rejected the doctrine of the Trinity, will not be 
shaken by the most plausible evidence of an Athanasian 
miracle. 

124 ^Eneas Gazaeus in Theophrasto, in Biblioth. Palritm, torn. viii. pp. 664, 665. 
He was a Christian, and composed this Dialogue (the Theophrastus) on the im- 
mortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the bodv ; besides twentv-five 
Epistles, still extant. See Cave, {Hist. Litteraria, p. 297), and Fabricius, {Biblioth. 
Gmc. torn. i. p. 422). 

125 Justinian. Codex, 1. i. tit. xxvii. Marcellin. in Chron. p. 44, in Tkesaur. 
Temporum Scahger. Procopius, de Bell. Vandal. 1. i. c. 7, p. 196 Gregor. 
Magnus, Dialog, iii. 32. None of these witnesses have specified the number of 
the confessors, which is fixed at sixty in an old menology (apud Ruinart, p. 486). 
Two of them lost their speech by fornication ; but the miracle is enhanced by the 
singular instance of a boy who had never spoken before his tongue was cut out.* 

* Nothing can be more curious than this miracle, and orobablv nothing in earlv 
ecclesiastical history is more authentic. In an age of wonders we must expect 
surprises. St. Peter walked out of prison through an iron gate "which opened 
' to him OJ his own accord." Acts of the Apostles, chap. xii. v. 10. When St 
Polycarp. was committed to the flames, " the flaming fire, burning itself after the 
" form of a vault or sail of a ship, refused to burn so good a man." When he 
was lanced in the side with a spear, "such a stream of blood issued out of his 

body, that the fire was therewith quenched?" When the decaved bodv of 
St. Stephen was dug up and shown to the light " the earth trembled, and an odor 

such as that of Paradise, was smelt." Tertullian assures us that the bodv of a 
Christian which had been some time buried, "moved itself to one side of the 

grave to make room for another corpse." Eusebius assures us " that on some 

occasions the podies of the martyrs who had been devoured bv wild beasts upon 

the beasts being strangled, were found alive in their stomachs." Tavlor's 
Syntagma, page, 33, quotes St. Augustin, as saving that he had preached' to a 
whole nation of men and women " that had no heads," and this last assertion 
surpasses the first named miracle— for if it be wonderful for a bov to speak without 
a tongue who never spoke with one, it is certainlv still more wonderful to observe 
devout and intelligent Christians, without heads, watching attentivelv without 
eyes, listening intently, without ears, and understanding perfectlv, without brains 
the spirited and spiritual harangues of the zealous and eloquent St. Augustin.— E.' 

t Unbelief," says Taylor, "is no sin that ignorance was ever ^capable of 

being guilty of." — E. 



602 RUIN OF ARIANISM. 

The ruin of The Vandals and the Ostrogoths persevered 
Arianism in the profession of Arianism till the final ruin 
harbananJ of the kingdoms which they had founded in 
a. d. 500-700. Africa and Italy. The barbarians of Gaul sub- 
mitted to the orthodox dominion of the Franks ; and Spain 
was restored to the Catholic church by the voluntary 
conversion of the Visigoths. 

This salutary revolution 126 was hastened by 
Revolt and tne example of a royal martyr, whom our calmer 

martyrdom of r J J f . 

Hermetiegiid reason may style an ungrateful rebel. Leovigild, 
a."d. S 577-584. tne Gothic monarch of Spain, deserved the 
respect of his enemies, and the love of his 
subjects : the Catholics enjoyed a free toleration, and his 
Arian synods attempted, without much success, to reconcile 
their scruples by abolishing the unpopular rite of a second 
baptism. His eldest son Hermenegild, who was invested 
by his father with the royal diadem, and the fair principality 
of Bcetica, contracted an honorable and orthodox alliance 
with a Merovingian princess, the daughter of Sigebert, king 
of Austrasia, and of the famous Brunechild. The beauteous 
Ingundis, who was no more than thirteen years of age, was 
received, beloved, and persecuted, in the Arian court of 
Toledo ; and her religious constancy was alternately 
assaulted with blandishments and violence by Goisvintha, 
the Gothic queen, who abused the double claim of maternal 
authority. 127 Incensed by her resistance, Goisvintha seized 
the Catholic princess by her long hair, inhumanly dashed 
her against the ground, kicked her till she was covered with 
blood, and at last gave orders that she should be stripped, 
and thrown into a basin, or fish-pond. 128 Love and honor 
might excite Hermenegild to resent this injurious treatment 
of his bride ; and he was gradually persuaded that Ingundis 
suffered for the cause of divine truth. Her tender com- 
plaints, and the weighty arguments of Leander, archbishop 
of Seville, accomplished his conversion ; and the heir of the 
Gothic monarchy was initiated in the Nicene faith by the 

126 See the two general historians of Spain, Mariana (Hist, de Rebus Hispanice. 
torn. i. 1. v. c. 12-15, PP- 182-194), a»d Ferreras, (French translation, torn. ii. pp. 
206-247). Mariana almost forgets that he is a Jesuit, to assume the style and 
spirit of a Roman classic. Ferreras, an industrious compiler, reviews his facts, 
and rectifies his chronology. 

127 Goisvintha successively married two kings of the Visigoths; Athanigild, to 
whom she bore Brunechild, the mother of Ingundis; and Leovigild, whose two 
sons, Hermenegild and Recared, were the issue of a former marriage. 

12s Iracundiae furore succensa, adprehensam per comam capitis puellam in 
terrain conlidit, et diu calcibus verberatam, ac sanguine cruentatam, jussit ex- 
spoliari, et piscinas immergi. Greg. Turon, 1. v. c. 39, in torn. ii. p. 255. Gregory 
is one of our best originals for this portion of history. 



CONVERSION OF RECARED. 603 

solemn rites of confimation. 129 The rash youth, inflamed 
by zeal, and perhaps by ambition, was tempted to violate 
the duties of a son and a subject ; and the Catholics of 
Spain, although they could not complain of persecution, 
applauded his pious rebellion against an heretical father. 
The civil war was protracted by the long and obstinate 
sieges of Merida, Cordova, and Seville, which had strenu- 
ously espoused the party of Hermenegild. He invited the 
orthodox Barbarians, the Suevi, and the Franks, to the 
destruction of his native land ; he solicited the dangerous 
aid of the Romans, who possessed Africa, and a part of the 
Spanish coast ; and his holy ambassador, the archbishop 
Leander, effectually negotiated in person with the Byzantine 
court. But the hopes of the Catholics were crushed by the 
active diligence of a monarch who commanded the troops 
and treasures of Spain ; and the guilty Hermenegild, after 
his vain attempts to resist or to escape, was compelled to 
surrender himself into the hands of an incensed father. 
Leovigild was still mindful of that sacred character ; and 
the rebel, despoiled of the regal ornaments, was still per- 
mitted, in a decent exile, to profess the Catholic religion. 
His repeated and unsuccessful treasons at length provoked 
the indignation of the Gothic king ; and the sentence of 
death, which he pronounced with apparent reluctance, was 
privately executed in the tower of Seville.* The inflexible 
constancy with which he refused to accept the Arian com- 
munion, as the price of his safety, may excuse the honors 
that have been paid to the memory of St. Hermenegild. 
His wife and infant son were detained by the Romans 
in ignominious captivity ; and this domestic misfortune 
tarnished the glories of Leovigild, and imbittered the last 
moments of his life. 

His son and successor, Recared, the first 
Catholic king of Spain, had imbibed the faith of g^S™ / 
his unfortunate brother, which he supported the Visigoths 
with more prudence and success. Instead of a.°d. 5S6-589. 
revolting against his father, Recared patiently 
expected the hour of his death. Instead of condemning 

129 The Catholics who admitted the baptism of heretics repeated the rite, or, 
as it was afterwards styled, the sacrament of confirmation, to which they 
ascribed many mystic and marvelous prerogatives, both visible and invisible. 
See Chardon, Hist, des Sacremens, torn. i. pp. 405-552. 

* Who was most of a barbarian, Leovigild, "the Goth," Constantine, "the 
" Christian emperor," Philip, " the most Catholic" of Spain, or Peter " the Great " 
of Russia? The answer must be given by an impartial age. — Eng. Ch. 



604 CONVERSION OF THE VISIGOTHS. 

his memory, he piously supposed, that the dying monarch 
had abjured the errors of Arianism, and recommended to 
his son the conversion of the Gothic nation. To accomplish 
that salutary end, Recared convened an assembly of the 
Arian clergy and nobles, declared himself a Catholic, and 
exhorted them to imitate the example of their prince. The 
laborious interpretation of doubtful texts, or the curious 
pursuit of metaphysical arguments, would have excited an 
endless controversy ; and the monarch discreetly proposed 
to his illiterate audience two substantial and visible 
arguments, — the testimony of Earth and of Heaven. The 
Earth had submitted to the Nicene synod : the Romans, 
the barbarians, and the inhabitants of Spain, unanimously 
professed the same orthodox creed ; and the Visigoths 
resisted, almost alone, the consent of the Christian world. 
A superstitious age was prepared to reverence, as the 
testimony of Heaven, the preternatural cures, which were 
performed by the skill or virtue of the Catholic clergy ; the 
baptismal fonts of Osset in Bcetica, 130 which were sponta- 
neously replenished each year, on the vigil of Easter ; 131 and 
the miraculous shrine of St. Martin of Tours, which had 
already converted the Suevic prince and people of Gallicia. 132 
The Catholic king encountered some difficulties on this 
important change of the national religion. A conspiracy, 
secretly fomented by the queen-dowager, was formed 
against his life ; and two counts excited a dangerous revolt 
in the Narbonnese Gaul. But Recared disarmed the con- 
spirators, defeated the rebels, and executed severe justice ; 
which the Arians, in their turn, might brand with the 
reproach of persecution. Eight bishops, whose names 
betray their barbaric origin, abjured their errors ; and all 
the books of Arian theology were reduced to ashes, with 
the house in which they had been purposely collected. The 
whole body of the Visigoths and Suevi were allured or driven 
into the pale of the Catholic communion ; the faith, at least 
of the rising generation, was fervent and sincere ; and the 

130 Osset, or Julia Constantia, was opposite to Seville, on the northern side of 
the Boetis. (Plin. Hist. Natur. iii. 3); and the authentic reference of Gregory of 
Tours, Hist. Francor. 1. vi. c. 43, p. 28S), deserves more credit than the name 
of Lusitania, (de Gloria Martyr, c. 24), which has been eagerly embraced by the 
vain and superstitious Portuguese. (Ferreras, Hist, d' ' Espagne, torn. ii. p. 166). 

i3i This miracle was skillfully performed. An Arian king sealed the doors, 
and dug a deep trench round the church, without being able to intercept the 
Easter supplv of baptismal water. 

1S2 Ferreras, (torn. ii. pp. 168-175, A - D - 55°). has illustrated the difficulties which 
regard the time and circumstances of the conversion of the Suevi. They had 
been recently united by Leovigild to the Gothic monarchy of Spaiu. 



CONVERSION OF THE LOMBARDS. 605 

devout liberality of the barbarians enriched the churches 
and monasteries of Spain. Seventy bishops, assembled in 
the council of Toledo, received the submission of their 
conquerors ; and the zeal of the Spaniards improved the 
Nicene creed, by declaring the procession of the Holy Ghost 
from the Son, as well as from the Father ; a weighty point 
of doctrine, which produced, long afterwards, the schism 
of the Greek and Latin churches. 133 The royal proselyte 
immediately saluted and consulted Pope Gregory, surnamed 
the Great, a learned and holy prelate, whose reign was 
distinguished by the conversion of heretics and infidels. 
The ambassadors of Recared respectfully offered on the 
threshold of the Vatican his rich presents of gold and gems ; 
they accepted, as a lucrative exchange, the hairs of St. John 
the Baptist ; a cross, which enclosed a small piece of the 
true wood ; and a key, that contained some particles of iron, 
which had been scraped from the chains of St. Peter. 134 

The same Gregory, the spiritual conqueror 
of Britain, encouraged the pious Theodelinda, theLombards 
queen of the Lombards, to propagate the Nicene A <g !^ y ^ c 
faith among the victorious savages, whose recent 
Christianity was polluted by the Arian heresy. Her devout 
labors still left room for the industry and success of future 
missionaries ; and many cities of Italy were still disputed 
by hostile bishops. But the cause of Arianism was gradually 
suppressed by the weight of truth, of interest, and of 
example ; and the controversy, which Egypt had derived 
from the Platonic school, was terminated, after a war of 
three hundred years, by the final conversion of the Lombards 
of Italy. 135 

The first missionaries who preached the gospel Persecution 
to the barbarians, appealed to the evidence of [,/spain WS 
reason, and claimed the benefit of toleration, 163 a. d. 612-712. 

133 This addition to the Nicene, or rather, the Constantinopolitan creed, was 
first made in the eighth council ol Toledo, A. D. 653 ; but it was expressive of the 
popular doctrine, {Gerard Vossius, torn. vi. p. 527, de tribus Symbolis). 

134 See Gregor. Magn. 1. vii. epist. 126, apud Baronium, Annal, Eccles. A. d 
599, No. 2=;, 26. 

135 PaufWarnefrid, {de Gestis Langobard, I. iv. c. 44, p. 853, edit. Grot.), allows 
that Arianism still prevailed under the reign of Rotharis, (a. d. 636-652). The 
pious deacon does not attempt to mark the precise era of the national conversion, 
which was accomplished, however, before the end of the seventh century. 

13C Quorum fidei et conversioni ita congratulatus esse rex perhibetur, ut 
nullum tamen cogeret ad Christianismum * * * Didicerat enim a doctoribus 
auctoribusque suae salutis, servitium Christi voluntarium non coactitium esse 
debere. Bedcz Hist. Ecclesiastic. 1. i. c. 26, p. 62, edit. Smith.* 

* The English reader may find this memorable passage at p. 39, edit. Bohn.— E. C 



606 PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 

But no sooner had they established their spiritual dominion, 
than they exhorted the Christian kings to extirpate, with- 
out mercy, the remains of Roman or barbaric superstition. 
The successors of Clovis inflicted one hundred lashes on 
the peasants who refused to destroy their idols ; the crime 
of sacrificing to the demons was punished by the Anglo- 
Saxon laws with the heavier penalties of imprisonment 
and confiscation ; and even the wise Alfred adopted, as 
an indispensable duty, the extreme rigor of the Mosaic 
institutions. 137 But the punishment and the crime were 
gradually abolished among a Christian people ; the theologi- 
cal disputes of the schools were suspended by propitious 
ignorance ; and the intolerant spirit which could find 
neither idolaters nor heretics, was reduced to the persecution 
of the Jews. That exiled nation had founded some syna- 
gogues in the cities of Gaul ; but Spain, since the time of 
Hadrian, was filled with their numerous colonies. 138 The 
wealth which they accumulated by trade, and the manage- 
ment of the finances, invited the pious avarice of their 
masters ; and they might be oppressed without danger, as 
they had lost the use, and even the remembrance, of arms. 
Sisebut, a Gothic king, who reigned in the beginning of the 
seventh century, proceded at once to the last extremes of 
persecution. 139 Ninety thousand Jews were compelled to 
receive the sacrament of baptism ; the fortunes of the 
obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies were 
tortured ; and it seems doubtful whether they were per- 
mitted to abandon their native country. The excessive 
zeal of the Catholic king was moderated, even by the clergy 
of Spain, who solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence: 
that the sacraments should not be forcibly imposed ; but 
that the Jews who had been baptized should be constrained, 
for the honor of the church, to persevere in the external 
practice of a religion which they disbelieved and detested. 
Their frequent relapses provoked one of the successors of 

137 See the Historians of France, torn. iv. p. 114 ; and Wilkins, Leges Anglo- 
Saxoniccz, pp. 11, 31, Siquis sacrificium immolaverit praeter Deo soli morte 
moriatur. 

13^ The Jews pretend that they were introduced into Spain by the fleets of 
Solomon, and the arms of Nebuchadnezzar ; that Hadrian transported forty 
thousand families of the tribe of Judah, and ten thousand of the tribe of Benja- 
min, &c. Basnage, Hist, des fuifs, torn. vii. c. 9, pp. 240-256. 

139 Isidor, at that time archbishop of Seville, mentions, disapproves, and con- 
gratulates, the zeal of Sisebut, (Chron. Goth. p. 728). Baronius, (a. d. 614, No. 41) 
assigns the number on the evidence of Aimo'in, (1. iv. c. 22) ; but the evidence is 
weak, and I have not been able to verify the quotations, (Historians of France, 
torn. iii. p. 127). 



JEWISH INTRIGUES IN SPAIN. 607 

Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his dominions ; 
and a council of Toledo published a decree, that every 
Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict. 
But the tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom 
they delighted to torture, or to deprive themselves of the 
industrious slaves, over whom they might exercise a 
lucrative oppression. The Jews still continued in Spain, 
under the weight of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which 
in the same country have been faithfully transcribed in the 
Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic kings and bishops at 
length discovered, that injuries will produce hatred, and 
that hatred will find the opportunity of revenge.* A nation, 
the secret or professed enemies of Christianity, still multi- 
plied in servitude and distress ; and the intrigues of the 
Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian con- 
querors. 140 

As soon as the barbarians withdrew their conclusion, 
powerful support, the unpopular heresy of Arius 
sunk into contempt and oblivion. But the Greeks still 
retained their subtle and loquacious disposition : the 
establishment of an obscure doctrine suggested new 
questions, and new disputes ; and it was always in the 
power of an ambitious prelate, or a fanatic monk, to violate 
the peace of the church, and, perhaps, of the empire. The 
historian of the empire may overlook those disputes which 
were confined to the obscurity of schools and synods. The 
Manichaeans, who labored to reconcile the religions of 
Christ and of Zoroaster, had secretly introduced themselves 
into the provinces : but these foreign sectaries were involved 
in the common disgrace of the Gnostics, and the Imperial 
laws were executed by the public hatred. The rational 
opinions of the Pelagians were propagated from Britain to 
Rome, Africa, and Palestine, and silently expired in a 
superstitious age. But the East was distracted by the 
Nestorian and Eutychian controversies ; which attempted 
to explain the mystery of the incarnation, and hastened the 

i-to Basnage, (torn. viii. c. 13, pp. 388-400), faithfully represents the state of the 
Jews ; but he might have added from the canons of the Spanish councils, and the 
laws of the Visigoths, many curious circumstances, essential to his subject, though 
they are foreign to mine.f 

* Milton truly says : 

"Who overcomes 
" By force, hath overcome but half his foe." — E. 
t Compare Milman, Hist, of Jews, iii. 256, 266.— Milman. 



608 CONSEQUENCES OF CHRISTIAN CONTROVERSY. 

ruin of Christianity in her native land. These controversies 
were first agitated under the reign of the younger Theo- 
dosius : but their important consequences extend far 
beyond the limits of the present volume. The meta- 
physical chain of argument, the contests of ecclesiastical 
ambition, and their political influence on the decline of 
the Byzantine empire, may afford an interesting and in- 
structive series of history, from the general councils of 
Ephesus and Chalcedon, to the conquest of the East by 
the successors of Mahomet. 




Vesta. 



HERCL'LES. 
" The Son of Heaven' s eternal King. 
" 0/ wedded maid and virgin mother bom."— Milton. 

THE god Hercules was born in Thebes, about 12S0 years before the Christian 
era, and, like Jesus of Nazareth, he was called a son of god— a savior of 
mankind. Like the Jewish Messiah, he was born of a human mother ; and, like 
him, he also owed his existence to an immortal father. His mother Alcmene, 
like the Virgin Mary, was an honored descendant of a noble race, and, like Mary, 
she was especially selected, and appointed, and favored by omnipotence ; and the 
Grecian wedded maid, like the Jewish virgin mother, involuntarily surprised her 
legal consort and rejoiced a believing world, by giving birth to an acknowledged 
savior of mankind. 

The father of Jesus was called Jehovah or Elohim by the descendants of 
Abraham. The father of Hercules was called Jupiter or Jovis by the Romans, 
and Zeus by the Greeks. These omnipotent parents of incarnate deities were 
separate and antagonistic gods, worshiped by different and rival nations of 
antiquity; and both deities, we may believe, were worshiped in sincerity and in 
truth. But the former worship has supplanted the latter — the Jewish faith has van- 
quished the Roman. Hercules now finds no believers in his divinity — 

" None so poor as to do him reverence " — 
while the worshipers of the humane Jesus are found over a large portion of the 
habitable globe, and among all ranks and conditions of mankind. 

The jealous Juno sought to destroy the infant Hercules. The tyrant Herod 
sought to destroy the infant Jesus. And, as a further illustration of the harmony 
that exists between all these mythologies, we may mention that the tyrant Cansa 
also sought to destroy the infant Chrishna. 

" In the Sanscrit Dictionary" says Sir William Jones, Asiatic Researches, vol. 
i. p. 259, " compiled more than two thousand years ago, we have the whole story 
" of the incarnate deity, born of a virgin, and miraculously escaping in his infancy 
" from the reigning tyrant of his country." " I am persuaded," continues this 
great author, " that a connection existed between the old idolatrous nations of 
" Egypt, India. Greece, and Italy, long before the time of Moses." 

At the north door of the Lord's house, says the inspired Jewish prophet, 
" Behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz." (Ezekiel, viii. 14.) 

" In vain the Tynan maids their wounded Tammuz mourn." — Milton. 

"Jerome." says Wm. Smith, LL.D., in his Bible Dictionary, " identifies Tammuz 
" with Adonis. Luther and others regarded Tammuz as a name of Bacchus. 
" That Tammuz was the Egyptian Osiris, and that his worship was introduced 
" into Jerusalem from Egypt, was held by Calvin, Piscator, Junius, Leusden, 
" and Pfeiffer." Parkhurst in his Hebrew Lexicon, refers " Tammuz, as well as 
" the Greek and Roman Hercules, to that class of idols, which was originally 
" designed to represent the promised savior, the Desire of all nations." 

The same deity or demi-god may be traced in ancient mythology under many 
different and varied designations ; and there were also numerous incarnate divini- 
ties—sons of god— saviors of men ! Indeed, no tribe or nation, whose daughters 
were fair and whose gods were amorous, was deprived of the company or could 
boast a monopoly of the heaven-descended race. But these demi-godsof antiquity 
were all derived from the old mythology — the ancient Sun worship — the primeval 
myth. They were all symbolical personifications of the genius or god of the Sun : 
and were known and worshiped as the Indian Chrishna, the Egyptian Osiris, 
the Grecian Apollo, the Roman Hercules, or whatever name was selected by 
the piety of mankind to designate the beneficent, omnipotent, vivifying principle, 
recognized and worshiped as the author of light, and life, and immortality, of 
whom the bright orb of day — the dazzling, glorious Sun — was the visible and 
sublime representative. — E. 




Clio. 



ABOLITION OF THE SCHOOLS OF ATHENS, AND THE CON- 
SULSHIP OF ROME.f 

JUSTINIAN suppressed the schools of Athens and the 
consulship of Rome, which had given so many sages 
and heroes to mankind. Both these institutions had 
long since degenerated from their primitive glory ; yet 
some reproach may be justly inflicted on the avarice and 
jealousy of a prince, by whose hand such venerable ruins 
were destroyed. 

Athens, after her Persian triumphs, adopted The schools 
the philosophy of Ionia and the rhetoric of of Athens. 

*The Musae (from Movoai, to meditate, to enquire), were guardian divinities 
whom the Pagans assigned to different hranches of science and the arts. They 
were the daughters of Jupiter, the father of gods and men, and Mnemosyne, 
Memory, who was the daughter of Heaven and Earth ; and they inherited from 
their venerable mother the inestimable treasures of accumulated knowledge. 

The Muses were represented as nine beautiful virgins, with ornamented dresses, 
and crowned with palms or laurels. The ancient poets invoked their aid as the 
inspiring goddesses of song, and modern poets and artists still hold the names 
of the immortal nine in grateful remembrance. Indeed, our literature would 
seem bare of illustration if authors were deprived of the familiar quotations 
which refer to these Pagan divinities. 

Clio, the Muse of history, holds in one hand a stylus, in the other, a half-opened 
scroll. The square column at her side, upon which she rests her arm, serves as 
a writing-table ; and her pensive attitude and thoughtful look, betray the interest 
with which she regards passing events. Her name signifies, glory, renown. 

Thalia, the Muse of comedy and merry or idyllic poetry, holds in one hand 
a comic mask, which she intently regards, and in the other, an open scroll. 
Her name signifies, the blooming. 

Terpsichore, the Muse of choral dance and song, stands beside a small 
column, upon which she rests her hand, and against which leans her seven- 
stringed lyre. Her name signifies, dance-loving. 

_ Euterpe, the Muse of lyric poetry, holds two flutes or pipes. Her name 
signifies, the agreeable. 

Polymnia or Polyhymnia, the Muse of the sublime hymn, is leaning on a broken 
stone column, in an attitude of pensive meditation. Her name signifies, many 
songs. 

t From Chap. XL. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

(609) 



6lO THE SCHOOLS OF ATHENS. 

Sicily ; and these studies became the patrimony of a city, 
whose inhabitants, about thirty thousand males, condensed, 
within the period of a single life, the genius of ages and 
millions. Our sense of the dignity of human nature is 
exalted* by the simple recollection, that Isocrates 1 was the 
companion of Plato and Xenophon ; that he assisted, per- 
haps with the historian Thucydides, at the first representa- 
tions of the CEdipus of Sophocles and the Iphigenia of 
Euripides ; and that his pupils ^Eschines and Demosthenes 
contended for the crown of patriotism in the presence of 
Aristotle, the master of Theophrastus, who taught at Athens 
with the founders of the Stoic and Epicurean sects. 2 The 
ingenuous youth of Attica enjoyed the benefits of their 
domestic education, which was communicated without envy 
to the rival cities. Two thousand disciples heard the lessons 
of. Theophrastus ; 3 the schools of rhetoric must have been 
still more populous than those of philosophy ; and a rapid 
succession of students diffused the fame of their teachers 
as far as the utmost limits of the Grecian language and 
name. Those limits were enlarged by the victories of 
Alexander ; the arts of Athens survived her freedom and 
dominion ; and the Greek colonies which the Macedonians 

i The life of Isocrates extends from Olymp. lxxxvi. i, to ex. 3, (ante Christi 
436-438). See Dionys. Halicarn. torn. ii. pp. 149, 150, edit. Hudson. Plutarch, 
(sive anonymous) in Vit. X. Oratorum, pp. 1538-1543, edit. H. Steph. Phot. cod. 
eclix. p. 1453^ 

2 The schools of Athens are copiously though concisely represented in the 
Fort una Attica of Meursius, c. viii. pp. 59-73. in torn. i. Opp.) For the state 
and arts of the city, see the first book of Pausanias, and a small tract of 
Dicaearchus (in the second volume of Hudson's Geographers), who wrote about 
Olymp. cxvii. (Dodwell s Dissertat. sect. 4). 

3 Diogen. Laert. de Vit. Philosoph. 1. v. segm. 37, p. 289. 

* It is a relief to turn from the miracles, creeds, fanaticism and persecutions 
of the early Christians to the teachings of their contemporaries, the Pagan 
philosophers ; who, although surrounded with the spirit of superstition, still 
upheld "the dignity of human nature," and diffused the divine light of reason. 
They did not oppress the mind with incomprehensible dogmas, and creeds like 
that of Athanasius, which the worthy Gennadius, patriarch of Constantinople, 
not unnaturally, "pronounced to be the work of a drunken man," but they in- 
terpreted the morals of Epictitus, still " preserved in the library of nations, as a 
" classic book, most excellently adapted to direct the will, to purify the heart, 
" and to confirm the understanding, by a just confidence in the nature both of 
" God and man." — E. 

f What rays of glory are here concentered into one dazzling point ! Yet in 
four centuries the work of two thousand years was undone. When the contrast 
stands before us in so strong a light, it invites us to look with a searching eye 
into the origin of the change. — Eng. Ch. 

The advent of Christianity, so loudly applauded by the clergy, closed the schools 
of Athens, suppressed the Pagan philosophy, " and 'finally erected the triumphant 
" banner of the cross on the ruins of the Capitol." After centuries of ignorance 
and gloom, so fitly described in historv as the "dark ages," the leaders of the 
Protestant reformation boldly challenged the truth of Catholicism, and, incident- 
ally, taught the people again to question, to doubt, to reason, and to disbelive. 
Science again returned to bless, and civilization to adorn, humanity; and, if 
we now behold the waning power of faith and superstition, we also witness the 
returning blessings of liberty, equality, and fraternity.— E. 



PAGAN PHILOSOPHY. 6ll 

planted in Egypt, and scattered over Asia, undertook long 
and frequent pilgrimages to worship the Muses in their 
favorite temple on the banks of the Ilissus. The Latin 
conquerors respectfully listened to the instructions of their 
subjects and captives ; the names of Cicero and Horace 
were enrolled in the schools of Athens ; and after the perfect 
settlement of the Roman empire, the natives of Italy, of 
Africa, and of Britain, conversed in the groves of the 
academy with their fellow-students of the East. The studies 
of philosophy and eloquence are congenial to a popular 
state, which encourages the freedom of inquiry, and submits 
only to the force of persuasion. In the republics of Greece 
and Rome, the art of speaking was the powerful engine of 
patriotism or ambition ; and the schools of rhetoric poured 
forth a colony of statesmen and legislators. When the 
liberty of public debate was suppressed, the orator, in the 
honorable profession of an advocate, might plead the cause 
of innocence and justice ; he might abuse his talents in the 
more profitable trade of panegyric ; and the same precepts 
continued to dictate the fanciful declamations of the sophist, 
and the chaster beauties of historical composition. The 
systems, which professed to unfold the nature of God, of 
man, and of the universe, entertained the curiosity of the 
philosophic student; and, according to the temper of his 
mind, he might doubt with the Skeptics, or decide with the 
Stoics, sublimely speculate with Plato, or severely argue 
with Aristotle. The pride of the adverse sects had fixed 
an unattainable term of moral happiness and perfection; 
but the race was glorious and salutary ; the disciples of 
Zeno, and even those of Epicurus, were taught both to act 
and to suffer; and the death of Petronius was not less 
effectual than that of Seneca, to humble a tyrant by the 
discovery of his impotence. The light of science could not 
indeed be confined within the walls ol Athens. Her incom- 
parable writers address themselves to the human race ; the 
living masters emigrated to Italy and Asia ; Berytus, in 
later times, was devoted to the study of the law ; astronomy 
and physie were cultivated in the musaeum of Alexandria ; 
but the Attic schools of rhetoric and philosophy maintained 
their superior reputation from the Peloponnesian war to 
the reign of Justinian. Athens, though situate in a barren 
soil, possessed a pure air, a free navigation, and the monu- 
ments of ancient art. That sacred retirement was seldom 



6l2 LN'COME OF THE PROFESSORS. 

disturbed by the business of trade or government ; and the 
last of the Athenians were distinguished by their lively wit, 
the purity of their taste and language, their social manners, 
and some traces, at least in discourse, of the magnanimity 
of their fathers. In the suburbs of the city, the academy 
of the Platonists, the lyctzum of the Peripatetics, the portico 
of the Stoics, and the garden of the Epicureans, were 
planted with trees and decorated with statues : and the 
philosophers, instead of being immured in a cloister, 
delivered their instructions in spacious and pleasant walks, 
which, at different hours, were consecrated to the exercises 
of the mind and body. The genius of the founders still 
lived in those venerable seats ; the ambition of succeeding 
to the masters of human reason, excited a generous emula- 
tion ; and the merit of the candidates was determined, on 
each vacancy, by the free voices of an enlightened people. 
The Athenian professors were paid by their disciples : 
according to their mutual wants and abilities, the price 
appears to have varied from a minae to a talent ; and 
Isocrates himself, who derides the avarice of the sophists, 
required, in his school of rhetoric, about thirty pounds from 
each of his hundred pupils. The wages of industry are 
just and honorable, yet the same Isocrates shed tears at 
the first receipt of a stipend ; the Stoic might blush when 
he was hired to preach the contempt of money : and I 
should be sorry to discover, that Aristotle or Plato so far 
degenerated from the example of Socrates, as to exchange 
knowledge for gold. But some property of lands and 
houses was settled by the permission of the laws, and the 
legacies of deceased friends, on the philosophic chairs of 
Athens. Epicurus bequeathed to his disciples the gardens 
which he had purchased for eighty minae or two hundred 
and fifty pounds, with a fund sufficient for their frugal 
subsistence and monthly festivals f and the patrimony of 
Plato afforded an annual rent, which, in eight centuries, 
was gradually increased from three to one thousand pieces 
of gold. 5 The schools of Athens were protected by the 
wisest and most virtuous of the Roman prjnces. The 
library, which Hadrian founded, was placed in a portico 

4 See the testament of Epicurus in Dioge?i. Laert. 1. x. segm. 16-20, pp. 6n, 
612, A single epistle 'ad Familiares. xiii. 1), displays the injustice of the Areopa- 
gus, the fidelity'of the Epicureans, the dexterous politeness of Cicero, and the 
mixture of contempt and esteem with which the Roman senators considered the 
philosophy and philosophers of Greece. 

s Damascius, in Vit. Isidor. apud Photium, cod. ccxlii. p. 1054. 



LIBERTY OF THE SCHOOLS. 613 

adorned with pictures, statues, and a roof of alabaster, and 
supported by one hundred columns of Phrygian marble. 
The public salaries were assigned by the generous spirit of 
the Antonines ; and each professor, of politics, of rhetoric, 
of the Platonic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean 
philosophy, received an annual stipend of ten thousand 
drachmae, or more than three hundred pounds sterling. 6 
After the death of Marcus, these liberal donations, and the 
privileges attached to the thrones of science, were abolished 
and revived, diminished and enlarged; but some vestige 
of royal bounty may be found under the successors of 
Constantine ; and their arbitrary choice of an unworthy 
candidate might tempt the philosophers of Athens to regret 
the days of independence and poverty. 7 It is remarkable, 
that the impartial favor of the Antonines was bestowed on 
the four adverse sects of philosophy, which they considered 
as equally useful, or at least as equally innocent.* Socrates 
had formerly been the glory and the reproach of his 
country; and the first lessons of Epicurus so strangely 
scandalized the pious ears of the Athenians, that by his 
exile and that of his antagonists, they silenced all vain 
disputes concerning the nature of the gods. But in the 
ensuing year they recalled the hasty decree, restored the 

6 See Lucian, (in Eunuch, torn. ii. pp. 350-359, edit. Reitz), Philosoratus (in Vit. 
Sophist, 1. ii. c. 2), and Dion Cassius, or Xiphilin, (1. Ixxi. p. 1195), with their 
editors Du Soul, Olearius, and Reimar, and, above all, Salmasius (ad Hist. 
August, p. 72). A judicius philosopher, (Smith's Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. pp. 
340-374), prefers the free contributions of the students to a fixed stipend for 
the professor. 

1 Brucker, Hist. Crit. Philosoph. tom. ii. p. 310, &c. 

* "The several sects of philosophy amongst the ancients," says Montesquieu, 
(Spirit of Laws, vol. ii. chap. x. page 147), "were a species of religion. Never 
" were any principles more worthy of human nature, and more proper to form 
" the good man, than those of the Stoics ; and, if I could for a moment cease to 
" think that I am a Christian, I should not be able to hinder myself from ranking 
" the destruction of the sect of Zeno among the misfortunes that have befallen 
" the human race. 

" It carried to excess only those things in which there is true greatness, the 
" contempt of pleasure and of pain. 

" It was this sect alone that made citizens ; this alone that made great men ; 
" this alone great emperors. 

" Laying aside for a moment revealed truths, let us search through all nature, 
" and we shall not find a nobler object than the Antoninus's : even Julian himself, 
" Julian, (a commendation thus wrested from me will not render me an accom- 
" plice of his apostasy), no, there has not been a prince since his reign more 
" worthy to govern mankind. 

"While the Stoics looked upon riches, human grandeur, grief, disquietude, and 
" pleasure, as vanity, they were entirely employed in laboring for the happiness 
" of mankind, and in exercising the duties of society. It seems as if they re- 
" garded that sacred spirit, which they believed to dwell within them, as a kind 
" of favorable providence, watchful over the human race. 

" Born for society, they all believed that it was their destiny to labor for it ; 
" with so much the less fatigue as their rewards were all within themselves. 
" Happy by their philosophy alone, it seemed as if only the happiness of others 
" could increase theirs." — E. 



6 14 . PROCLUS AND HIS SUCCESSORS. 

liberty of the schools, and were convinced, by the experience 
of ages, that the moral character of philosophers is not 
affected by the diversity of their theological speculations. 8 
They are sup- The Gothic arms were less fatal to the schools 
pressed by of Athens than the establishment of a new re- 
justmiau. ligion, whose ministers superseded the exercise 
of reason, resolved every question by an article of faith, 
and condemned the infidel or sceptic to eternal flames.* In 
many a volume of laborious controversy, they exposed the 
weakness of the understanding and the corruption of the 
heart, insulted human nature in the sages of antiquity, and 
proscribed the spirit of philosophical inquiry, so repugnant 
to the doctrine, or at least to the temper, of an humble 
believer. The surviving sect of the Platonists, whom Plato 
would have blushed to acknowledge, extravagantly mingled 
a sublime theory with the practice of superstition and 
magic ; and as they remained alone in the midst of a 
Christian world, they indulged a secret rancor against the 
government of the church and state, whose severity was 
still suspended over their heads. About a century after 
Procl the reign of Julian, 9 Proclus 10 was permitted to 

teach in the philosophic chair of the academy ; 

s The birth of Epicurus is fixed to the year 342 before Christ, (Bayle), Olym- 
piad eix. 3 ; and he opened his school at Athens, Olymp. cxviii. 3. 306 years before 
the same a;ra. This intolerant law, (Athanaeus, 1. xiii. p. 610. Diogen. Laertius, 
1. v. s. 38. p. 290. Julius Pollux, ix. 5), was enacted in the same or the succeeding 
year, (Sigonius, Opp. torn. v. p. 62. Menagius ad Diogen. Laert. p. 204. Corsini, 
'Fasti Attici, torn. iv. pp. 67, 68)*, Theophrastus, Chief of the Peripatetics, and 
disciple of Aristotle, was involved in the same exile, f 

y This is no fanciful aera ; the Pagans reckoned their calamities from the 
reign of their hero. Proclus whose nativity is marked by his horoscope l A. D. 
412, February 8, at C. P.), died 124 years u~o 'lov/uavov fiaciAtuc, A, D. 485 
(Ma) in. in Vita Prodi, c. 36). 

10 The life of Proclus, by Marinus, was published by Fabricius (Hamburg, 
1700, et ad calcem Bibliof. Latin. Lond. 1703). See Suidas, (torn. iii. pp 1S5, 186), 
Fabricius, (Bibliot Grcec. 1. v. c. 26, pp. 449-552), and Brucker {Hist. Cnt. Philo- 
soph. torn. ii. pp. 319-326.) 

* The Gothic arms were in no way fatal to the schools of Athens. We have 
seen >chap. 30) how they were respected by Alaric, when he was master of 
Greece. Nor was it by religion that they were depressed and now finally 
crushed. Enough has been said in former p'ages to show that Christianity in its 
early progress had philosophy for its ally and coadjutor, and that the reasonj 
which overthrew Paganism, pioneered the way for a spiritual belief. — Eng. Ch. 

t Diogenes Laertius, (x. 14,) very circumstantially fixes the birth of Epicurus 
to the month, (Gatnelion of Olymp'. 109, 3), which corresponds with Jan. b. c. 341 
The date of the decree of Sophocles against the philosophers is uncertain. It is 
placed by some at b. c. 316. ten years before Epicurus arrived in Athens. See 
Clinton, F. H., ii. 169. Theophrastus succeeded Aristotle B. c 322, and held his 
chair till 287.— Eng. Ch. 

X Xo one can expect to understand why the English Churchman persists in 
claiming that Christianity was indebted to' reason for its establishment. This is 
like "stealing the livery of heaven to serve the devil in." The church was not 
conceived in reason, nor founded on reason, nor upheld bv reason ; and there is 
no reason for so asserting. Christianity is founded on the doctrine of the 
incarnation, miraculous conception, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Reason has no affinity, or connexion, with this doctrine.— E. 



THE SCHOOLS SUPPRESSED. 615 

and such was his industry, that he frequently, in the same 
day, pronounced five lessons and composed seven hundred 
lines. His sagacious mind explored the deepest questions 
of morals and metaphysics, and he ventured to urge 
eighteen arguments against the Christian doctrine of the 
creation of the world. But, in the intervals of study, he 
personally conversed with Pan, .^Esculapius, and Minerva, 
in whose mysteries he was secretly initiated, and whose 
prostrate statues he adored, in the devout persuasion that 
the philosopher, who is a citizen of the universe, should be 
the priest of its various deities. An eclipse of the sun 
announced his approaching end ; and his life, with that of 
his scholar Isidore, 11 compiled by two of their most learned 
disciples, exhibits a deplorable picture of the second child- 
hood of human reason. Yet the golden chain, as His 
it was fondly styled, of the Platonic succession, successors, 
continued forty-four years from the death of A " D " 485 ~ 529 * 
Proclus to the edict of Justinian, 12 which imposed a perpetual 
silence on the schools of Athens, and excited the grief and 
indignation of the few remaining votaries of Grecian science 
and superstition. Seven friends and philosophers, Diogenes 
and Hermias, Eulalius and Priscian, Damascius, Isidore 
and Simplicius, who dissented from the religion of their 
sovereign, embraced the resolution of seeking in a foreign 
land the freedom which was denied in their native country. 
They had heard, and they credulously believed, that the 
republic of Plato was realized in the despotic government 
of Persia, and that a patriot king reigned over the happiest 
and most virtuous of nations. They were soon astonished 
by the natural discovery, that Persia resembled the other 
countries of the globe ; that Chosroes, who affected the 
name of a philosopher, was vain, cruel, and ambitious ; that 
bigotry, and a spirit of intolerance, prevailed among the 
Magi ; that the nobles were haughty, the courtiers servi 1 e, 
and the magistrates unjust; that the guilty sometimes 
escaped, and that the innocent were often oppressed. The 

11 The life of Isidore was composed by Damascius, (apud Photium, cod. ccxlii. 
p. 1028-1076). See the last age of the Pagan philosophers, in Brucker, torn. ii. pp. 
341-351).* 

12 The suppression of the schools of Athens is recorded by John Malalas (torn, 
ii. p. 187, sub Decio Cos. Sol.), and an anonymous Chronicle'in the Vatican library 
(apud Aleman. p. 106). 

* This biography is part of a general history of philosophy and philosophers, 
written by Damascius before a. d. 526. Besides his collection of preternatural 
stories referred to by Gibbon in ch. 36, he also produced commentaries on Plato 
and Aristotle. (Clinton, F. R., i, 743; ii. 327.)— Eng. Ch. 



6l6 SIMPLICIUS AND HIS COMPANIONS. 

disappointment of the philosophers provoked them to 
overlook the real virtues of the Persians : and they were 
scandalized, more deeply perhaps than became their pro- 
fession, with the plurality of wives and concubines, the 
incestuous marriages, and the custom of exposing dead 
bodies to the dogs and vultures, instead of hiding them in 
the earth, or consuming them with fire. Their repentance 
was expressed by a precipitate return, and they loudly 
declared that they had rather die on the borders of the 
empire than enjoy the wealth and favor of the barbarian. 
From this journey, however, they derived a benefit which 
reflects the purest lustre on the character of Chosroes. He 
required that the seven sages who had visited the court of 
Persia, should be exempted from the penal laws which 
Justinian enacted against his Pagan subjects; and this 
privilege, expressly stipulated in a treaty of peace, was 
The last of the guarded by the vigilance of a powerful mediator. 13 
philosophers. Simplicius and his companions ended their lives 
in peace and obscurity ; and as they left no disciples, they 
terminate the long list of Grecian philosophers, who may 
be justly praised, notwithstanding their defects, as the wisest 
and most virtuous of their contemporaries. The writings 
of Simplicius are now extant. His physical and metaphysical 
commentaries on Aristotle have passed away with the 
fashion of the times ; but his moral interpretation of Epictetus 
is preserved in the library of nations, as a classic book, 
most excellently adapted to direct the will, to purify the 
heart, and to confirm the understanding, by a just confidence 
in the nature both of God and man. 

About the same time that Pythagoras first 

Tons^hf" invented the appellation of philosopher, liberty 
extinguished and the consulship were founded at Rome by 

A D U 54i. n ' the elder Brutus. The revolutions of the con- 
sular office, which may be viewed in the succes- 
sive lights of a substance, a shadow, and a name, have been 
occasionally mentioned in the present history. The first 
magistrates of the republic had been chosen by the people, 
to exercise, in the senate and in the camp, the powers of 
peace and war, which were afterwards translated to the 
emperors. But the tradition of ancient dignity was long 

is Agathins, (1. ii. pp. 69, 70, 71), relates this curious story. Chosroes ascended 
the throne in the year 531, and made his first peace with the Romans in the 
beginning of 533 — a date most compatible with his young fame and the old age 
of Isidor, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. iii. j). 404. Pagi, torn. ii. pp. 543, 550). 



ROMAN CONSULSHIP ABOLISHED. 617 

revered by the Romans and barbarians. A Gothic historian 
applauds the consulship of Theodoric as the height of all 
temporal glory and greatness ; u the king of Italy himself 
congratulates those annual favorites of fortune, who, without 
the cares, enjoyed the splendor of the throne ; and at the 
end of a thousand years, two consuls were created by the 
sovereigns of Rome and Constantinople, for the sole purpose 
of giving a date to the year, and a festival to the people. 
But the expenses of this festival, in which the wealthy and 
the vain aspired to surpass their predecessors, insensibly 
rose to the enormous sum of fourscore thousand pounds ; 
the wisest senators declined a useless honor, which involved 
the certain ruin of their families : and to this reluctance I 
should impute the frequent chasms in the last age of the 
consular Fasti. The predecessors of Justinian had assisted 
from the public treasures the dignity of the less opulent can- 
didates; the avarice of that prince preferred the cheaper and 
more convenient method of advice and regulation. 35 Seven 
processions or spectacles were the number to which his edict 
confined the horse and chariot races, the athletic sports, 
the music, and pantomimes of the theatre, and the hunting, 
of wild beasts ; and small pieces of silver were discreetly 
substituted to the gold medals, which had always excited 
tumult and drunkenness, when they were scattered with a 
profuse hand among the populace. Notwithstanding these 
precautions, and his own example, the succession of consuls 
finally ceased in the thirteenth year of Justinian, whose 
despotic temper might be gratified by the silent extinction 
of a title which admonished the Romans of their ancient 
freedom. 16 Yet the annual consulship still lived in the 
minds of the people: they fondly expected its speedy 
restoration ; they applauded the gracious condescension 
of successive princes, by whom it was assumed in the first 
year of their reign : and three centuries elapsed, after the 
death of Justinian, before that obsolete dignity, which had 
been suppressed by custom, could be abolished by law." 

14 Cassiodor, Variariim Epist. vi. 1. Jornandes, c. 57, p. 696, edit. Grot Quod 
summum boaum primumque in mundo decus edicitur. 

15 See the regulations of Justinian, (Novell, cv.), dated at Constantinople, July 
5, and addressed to Strategius, treasurer of the empire. 

is Procopius, in Anecdot. c. 26. Aleman. p. 106. In the xviiith year after the 
consulship of Basilius, according to the reckoning of Marcellinus, Victor, Marius, 
&c, the secret history was composed, and, in the eyes of Procopius, the consul- 
ship was finally abolished. 

it By Leo, the philosopher. (Novell, xciv. a. d. 8S6-911). See Pagi, {Dissertat. 
Hypatica, pp. 325-362 and Ducange, Gloss. Grczc. pp. 1635, 1636). Even the title 
was vilified : consulates codicilli * * * vilescundi, says the emperor himself. 



6l8 THE ERA OF CREATION. 

The imperfect mode of distinguishing each year by the 
name of a magistrate, was usefully supplied by the date of 
a permanent aera : the creation of the world, according to 
the Septuagint version, was adopted by the Greeks ; 18 and 
the Latins, since the age of Charlemagne, have computed 
their time from the birth of Christ. 19 

is According to Julius Africanus, &c, the world was created the first of Sep- 
tember, 5508 years, three months, and twenty-five days before the birth of Christ. 
(See Pezron, Antiquite des Terns dej endue, pp. 20-28.) And this era has been 
used by the Greeks, the Oriental Christians, and even by the Russians, till the 
reign of Peter I. The period, however arbitrary, is clear and convenient. Of 
the 7296 years which are supposed to elapse since the creation, we shall find 3000 
of ignorance and darkness ; 2000 either fabulous or doubtful ; 1000 of ancient his- 
tory, commencing with the Persian empire, and the republics of Rome and 
Athens : 1000 from the fall of the Roman empire in the West to the discovery of 
America ; and the remaining 296 will almost complete three centuries of the 
modern state of Europe and mankind. I regret this chronology, so far preferable 
to our double and perplexed method of counting backwards and forwards the 
years before and after the Christian era.* 

is The era of the world has prevailed in the East since the sixth general 
council, (a. d. 681). In the West, the Christian era was first invented in the sixth 
century ; it was propagated in the eighth by the authority and writings of vener- 
able Bede ; but it was not till the tenth that the use became legal and popular. 
See r Art de Verifier les Dates, Dissert. Preliminaire, p. iii. xii. Dictionnaire 
Diplomatique, torn. i. pp. 329-337 ; the works of a laborious society of Benedictine 
monks. 

* The chronology of archbishop Usher, {Annates Vet. Test. p. 1), fixes the day 
of creation on Sunday, the 23rd October, 4004 years before the commencement 
of the Christian era. The early state of our race must necessarily be hidden in 
impenetrable darkness. What we can discover, may be divided into two thou- 
sand years of progress, beginning in fable, brightening into tradition, and 
clearing up into history ; next twelve hundred years of retrogression into an 
almost pristine barbarism, and then about five hundred of renewed progress. — 
Einglish Churchman. 





PROMETHEUS. 



THE ORIGIN OF MAX. 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his 
" nostrils the breath of life." — Genesis, ii : 7. 

THE mythological origin of men is so subordinate, says Moritz, " that they 
" are represented as not even owing their existence to the reigning gods, 
" but to Prometheus, a descendant of the Titans, who took a piece of 
" earth, a portion of clay still impregnated with divine particles, moistened it 
" with water, and formed man after the image of the gods." 

Bv thus becoming a creator of living beings Prometheus aroused the opposi- 
tion of Jupiter, who, in anger, contemplated the destruction of mankind ; but 
Prometheus, who tenderly loved the beings he had endowed with life, and who 
was crucified on Mt. Caucasus because he so loved the world, — whose reward was 
" The rock, the vulture, and the chain," — grandly defended his creations, and, 
in the sublime language of Goethe, thus defied the Thunderer's malice : 

'Cover thy sky. O Zeus, with dusky clouds, and, like playing boys, who 
" thistles poll, try thy power on oaks and mountain-summits. Thou must, in 
" spite of thee, suffer my Earth to stand ; my cottage, too, not built by thee, and 
" my hearth, the glow of which thou enviest me. I know no poorer creatures 
" beneath the sun than vou gods! You miserably support your majesty by 
" means of small offerings, and the breath of prayers; and would starve, if 
" children and beggars were not hopeful fools. I honor thee? For what? Hast 
'• thou ever lessened the pains of the heavy laden? Hast thou ever wiped the 
" tears of affliction ? Hath not almighty time and eternal fate, my masters and 
" thine, wrought and formed me? Dost thou haply ween, that I should hate 
' life, and flee into deserts, because not every flowery dream doth ripen? Here 
" sit I, forming men after my image, a race to resemble me, to suffer and to 
" weep, to enjoy and to rejoice ; and, like me, not to care for thee ! " 

" Prometheus is represented," says Moritz, " upon ancient works of art. as an 
" artist engaged in his professional employment, with a vase standing at his leet. 
" and before him a human bust, on which he seems to bestow the most intense 
"consideration. When he had succeeded in representing the divine form, lie 
" burned with desire to bring his work to perfection. He rose up therefore to the 
" chariot of Phcebus, in order to kindle a torch at the celestial luminary, and from 
" the fire of which he blew ethereal flames into the bosoms of his creatures, thus 
" giving them warmth and life. He is, therefore, often represented with a torch in 
" his hand, over which a butterfly is hovering, to denote the animating breath 
" by which the dead mass is enlivened." 

The similarity between the Pagan and Hebrew belief, in regard to the origin cf 
Man, is so apparent, that we must regard the grander and more finished account 
of Moses, as a new and improved version of the ruder and earlier Pagan myth. 
" The more we read the Old Testament, the plainer we see the resemblance 
" between many of the Pagan customs, and the religious observances of the 
" Jews." says the chief editor, or one of the eleven reverend and learned con- 
tributors whose names appear on the title page of that interesting Christian work. 
The History of all the Religions of the World, p. 644. " The striking difference. 
" however, must not be overlooked." is the unanimous verdict of this orthodox 
jury, " that the Jews worshiped the true and living God. while the Pagans 
" bowed to the false and dead idol." The significant fact remains, however, that the 
" religious observances " of the Jews and Pagans were alike ; but Christians have 
named the Jewish worship religion, and the Pagan worship is termed idolatry. 
A burnt offering by the Jews was called true devotion — a sacrifice by the Pagans 
was considered impious. The two faiths were indeed identical, but only one was 
believed to be true, while the other was denounced as false. When "Aaron cast 
" down his rod before Pharoah, and it became a serpent, the magicians of Egypt 
" also did in like manner with their enchantments." Ex. vii:io-n. Themiracles 
performed by the Jews and Egyptians were precisely the same, but the interpreta- 
tion was quite different. The miracle of Aaron was a proof of divine agency, and 
the other miracle was not interesting. Intelligent Christians believe, that when 
the Pagan priests healed the sick, like the apostles, and imitated the apostolic mira- 
cles, that they did it by the power of the demons, and not by the power 01 the God of 
Israel. Miracles performed by Pagans were futile, and did' not show that Paganism 
was true, for miracles can only prove and demonstrate the truth of Christianity. 

" Prometheus, answering to the Christian personification Providence, is, like 
" that personification, used sometimes as an epithet synonymous with the Supreme 
" Deity himself. The Pagan phrase, ' Thank Prometheus,'' like the Christian one, 
" ' Thank Providence ,' its literal interpretation, meant exactly the same as ' Thank 
" ' God/' Thus in the Orphic Hymn to Chronus or Saturn, we have this sublime 
" address to the Supreme Deity under his name Prometheus, ' Illustrious, cherish- 
" ' ing Father, both of the immortal gods and of men, various of counsel, spotless, 
" ' powerful, mighty Titan, who consumest all things, and again thyself repuircst 
" ' them, who holdest the ineffable bands throughout the boundless world ; thou 
" ' universal parent of successive being, various in design, fructifier of the earth 
" ' and of the starry heaven, dread Prometheus, who dwellesi in all parts of 
" ' the world, author of generation, tortuous in counsel, most excellent, hear our 
" ' suppliant voice, and send of our life a happy blameless end.' Amen! " — E. 




Calliope- 



Erato. 



Urania. 



Melpomene.* 



XII. 



INTRODUCTION OF LEARNING AMONG THE ARABIANS, f 



Introduction 
of learning 
among the 
Arabians, 

A.D.754.&C, 
813, &c 



NDER the reign of the Ommiades, the 

U studies of the Moslems were confined to 
the interpretation of the Koran, and the 
eloquence and poetry of their native tongue. A 
people continually exposed to the dangers of 
the field must esteem the healing powers of medicine, or 
rather of surgery : but the starving physicians of Arabia 
murmured a complaint that exercise and temperance 

* An ancient writer thus recounts the praises of the nine sisters : 

" They pour on the lips of man, whom they favor, the dew of soft persuasion ; 
" they bestow on him wisdom, that he may be a judge and umpire among his 
'" people, and give him renown among nations : and the poet who wanders on the 
" mountain tops and in the lovely dales, is inspired by them with divine strains, 
" which dispel sorrow and grief from the breast of every mortal." 

Calliope, the Muse of epic poetry, has a roll of parchment in one hand, and 
a small tuba or trumpet in the other. She owes her name to the majesty of her 
voice. She presided over rhetoric and epic poetry. 

Erato, the Muse of erotic poetry, holds in her hands a nine-stringed instrument. 
She is the inspirer of amatory poetry, and observes the triumphs and misfortunes 
of lovers. Her name signifies love. Ovid invokes Erato, in his Art of Love, and 
his Fasti for April, which the Romans considered as peculiarly the lovers' month. 

Urania, the Muse of astronomy, is leaning against a column, on which she 
rests her elbow. She appears in an attitude of deep meditation, and in her right 
hand holds a wand, with which she points out some object on the globe resting 
at her feet. Her name signifies the celestial ; and she is esteemed as the discoverer 
of the science of astronomy. 

Melpomene, the Muse of tragedy, is leaning slightly forward, with one foot 
placed upon a stone, and her cheek resting on her right hand. Her tragic mask 
is thrown back from her face, and conceals the laurel wreath which usually binds 
her brows, It is her province to present the noble actions, as well as the misfor- 
tunes, of heroes; and her name signifies one who only expressed herself in song. 

The Muses are described, in the Homeric poems, as the goddesses of song and 
poetry, and on Mount Parnassus, or Helicon, accompanied by Apollo, with his 
lyre, they take, if we may borrow the language of Milton, their golden harps, 
" And with preamble sweet 
" Of charming symphony, they introduce 
" Their sacred songs, and waken raptures high : 
" No voice exempt — no voice but well could join 
" Melodious part." — E. 
t From Chap. lii. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

(619) 



620 ABULPHARAGIUS COMMENDS SCIEISTCE. 

deprived them of the greatest part of their practice. 1 After 
their civil and domestic wars, the subjects of the Abbassides, 
awakening from this mental lethargy, found leisure and felt 
curiosity for the acquisition of profane science. This spirit 
was first encouraged by the caliph Almansor, who, besides 
his knowledge of the Mahometan law, had applied himself 
with success to the study of astronomy. But when the 
sceptre devolved to Almamon, the seventh of the Abbassides, 
he completed the designs of his grandfather, and invited 
the Muses from their ancient seats. His ambassadors at 
Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, 
collected the volumes of Grecian science : at his command 
they were translated by the most skillful interpreters into 
the Arabic language : his subjects were exhorted assiduously 
to peruse these instructive writings ; and the successor of 
Mahomet assisted with pleasure and modesty at the 
assemblies and disputations of the learned. " He was not 
'* ignorant," says Abulpharagius, " that they are the elect 
11 of God, his best and most useful servants, whose lives are 
" devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties. 
" The mean ambition of the Chinese or the Turks may 
" glory in the industry of their hands or the indulgence of 
" their brutal appetites. Yet these dexterous artists must 
" view, with hopeless emulation, the hexagons and pyramids 
" of the cells of a bee-hive : a * these fortitudinous heroes are 
" awed by the superior fierceness of the lions and tigers ; 
" and in their amorous enjoyments, they are much inferior 
" to the vigor of the grossest and most sordid quadrupeds. 
" The teachers of wisdom are the true luminaries and 
" legislators of a world, which, without their aid, would 
" again sink in ignorance and barbarism." 3 The zeal and 
curiosity of Almamon were imitated by succeeding princes 

i The Guliston, (p. 289.), relates the conversation of Mahomet and a physician 
{Epistol. Renaudot, in Fabricius Bibliot. Grcsc. torn. i. p. 814.) The prophet 
himself was skilled in the art of medicine; and Gagnier, {Vie de Mahomet, torn, 
iii. pp. 294-405;, has given an extract of the aphorisms which are extant under 
his name. 

2 See their curious architecture in Reaumur, {Hist des Insectes, torn. v. 
Memoire viii). These hexagons are closed by a pyramid ; the angles of the three 
sides of a similar pvramid, such as would accomplish the given end with the 
smallest quantitv possible of materials, were determined by a mathematician, at 
109 degrees 26 minutes for the larger, 70 degrees 34 minutes for the smaller. The 
actual measure is 109 degrees 28 minutes, 70 degrees 32 minutes. Yet this perfect 
harmony raises the work at the expense of the artist ; the bees are not masters 
of transcendent geometrv. .- , 

s Saed Ebn Ahmed, cadhi of Toledo, who died A. H. 462, a. d. 1069, has fur- 
nished Abulpharagius. {Dynast, p. 160), with this curious passage, as well as with 
the text of Pocock's Specimen Histories Arabum. A number of literary anec- 
dotes of philosophers, physicians, &c , who have flourished under each caliph, 
form the principal merit of the Dynasties of Abulpharagius. 



ARABIAN LEARNING. 62 1 

of the line of Abbas : their rivals the Fatimites of Africa 
and the Ommiades of Spain, were the patrons of the learned, 
as well as the commanders of the faithful : the same royal 
prerogative was claimed by their independent emirs of the 
provinces ; and their emulation diffused the taste and the 
rewards of science from Samarcand and Bochara to Fez and 
Cordova. The vizir of a sultan consecrated a sum of two 
hundred thousand pieces of gold to the foundation of a 
college at Bagdad, which he endowed with an annual 
revenue of fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits of instruction 
were communicated, perhaps at different times, to six 
thousand disciples of every degree, from the son of the 
noble to that of the mechanic : a sufficient allowance was 
provided for the indigent scholars ; and the merit or 
industry of the professors was repaid with adequate 
stipends. In every city the productions of Arabic literature 
were copied and collected by the curiosity of the studious, 
and the vanity of the rich. A private doctor refused the 
invitation of the sultan of Bochara, because the carriage of 
his books would have required four hundred camels. The 
royal library of the Fatimites consisted of one hundred 
thousand manuscripts, elegantly transcribed and splendidly 
bound, which were lent, without jealousy or avarice, to the 
students of Cairo. Yet this collection must appear moderate, 
if we can believe that the Ommiades of Spain had formed 
a library of six hundred thousand volumes, forty -four of 
which were employed in the mere catalogue. Their capital, 
Cordova, with the adjacent towns of Malaga, Almeria, and 
Murcia, had given birth to more than three hundred 
writers, and above seventy public libraries were opened in 
the cities of the Andalusian kingdom. 4 The age of Arabian 
learning continued about five hundred years, till the great 
irruption of the Moguls, and was coeval with the darkest 
and most slothful period of European annals ; but since the 

* These literary anecdotes are borrowed from the Bibliotheca Arabico-His- 
pana; (torn. ii. pp. 38, 71, 201, 202), Leo Africanus, (de Arab Medicis et Philo- 
sophis, in Fabric. Bibliot. Gtcbc. torn. xiii. pp. 259-29S, particularly p. 274), and 
Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. pp. 274, 275, 536, 537), besides the chronological 
remarks of Abulpharagius.* 

* The literary history of Spain, under the Ommiades. mav be collected from 
many of Conde's chapters. He relates their special care for the education of 
their sons and their general provisions for that of their subjects ; their patronage 
of learned men, and their anxiety to collect for the use of others, as well as for 
their own study, the works of the best authors. A\ Hakem II., the son of the 
great Abderahman III., was eminent for these pursuits. He had agents in 
various countries to purchase or copy MSS. for him, and thus collected the ex- 
tensive library mentioned by Gibbon. His catalogue of fortv-four vols, con- 
tained not only the names of the books and their authors, but' also each man's 
genealogy, with the dates of his birth and death. {Condi, vol. i. p. 460, &c.)— E. C. 



622 ARABIAN PROGRESS IN SCIENCE. 

sun of science has arisen in the west, it should seem that 
the oriental studies have languished and declined. 
„... „ , In the libraries of the Arabians, as in those of 

Their real * . 

progress in Europe, the iar greater part ot the innumerable 
the sciences. vo i umes were possessed only of local value or 
imaginary merit. 5 The shelves were crowded with orators 
and poets, whose style was adapted to the taste and manners 
of their countrymen; with general and partial histories, 
which each revolving generation supplied with a new harvest 
of persons and events ; with codes and commentaries of 
jurisprudence, which derived their authority from the law 
of the prophet ; with the interpreters of the Koran, and 
orthodox tradition ; and with the whole theological tribe, 
polemics, mystics, scholastics, and moralists, the first or the 
last of writers, according to the different estimate of skeptics 
or believers. The works of speculation or science may be 
reduced to the four classes of philosophy, mathematics, 
astronomy, and physic. The sages of Greece were translated 
and illustrated in the Arabic language, and some treatises, 
now lost in the original, have been recovered in the 
versions of the east, 6 which possessed and studied the 
writings of Aristotle and Plato, of Euclid and Apollonius, 
of Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen. 7 Among the ideal 
systems, which have varied with the fashion of the times, 
the Arabians adopted the philosophy of the Stagirite, alike 
intelligible or alike obscure for the readers of every age. 

s The Arabic catalogue of the Escurial will give a just idea of the proportion 
of the classes. In the library of Cairo, the MSS. of astronomy and medicine 
amounted to 6500, with two fair globes, the one of brass, the other of silver. 
(Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. torn. i. p. 417.) 

6 As. for instance, the fifth, sixth, and seventh books, (the eighth is still want- 
ing), of the Conic Sections of Apollonius Pergaeus, which were printed from the 
Florence MS. 1661. (Fabric. Bibliot. Grcec. torn. ii. p. 559). Yet the fifth book had 
been previously restored by the mathematical divination of Viviani. ^See his 
Eloge in Fonte'nelle, torn. v. p. 59, &c.) 

« The merit of these Arabic versions is freely discussed by Renaudot. (Fabric. 
Bibliot. GrcEC. torn. i. pp. 812-816) and piously defended by Casiri. (Bibliot. Arab. 
Hispana, torn. i. pp. 238-240.) Most of the versions of Plato, Aristotle, Hippoc- 
rates. Galen, &c, are ascribed to Honain, a physician of the Nestorian sect, 
who flourished at Bagdad in the court of the caliphs, and died A. D. 876. He was 
at the head of a school or manufacture of translations, and the works of his sons 
and disciples were published under his name. See Abulpharagius, (Dynast, pp. 
88. 115, 171-174, and apud Asseman, Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. p. 438), D'Herbelot, 
(Bibliot. Orientate, p. 456), Asseman, Bibliot. Orient, torn. iii. p. 164), and 
Casiri. (Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, torn. i. pp. 238. &c, 251 2S6-290, 302, 304, &c.).* 

* Civilization and literature, although so long retrogade among the nations 
that succumbed to the Saracen arms, still had not lost all their efficacy to soften 
and smooth the roughness of Barbarian conquerors. The rude were made ac- 
quainted with the works of better ages, and from the recorded thoughts of the 
enlightened, learned themselves to think. A single century transformed the 
wild camel-driver of the desert into the student of the college, and elevated 
Bagdad above Constantinople, Athens and Rome. The rapid change which one 
century made in the character and habits of the Arabians proves the usual 
course of human nature. — Eng. Ch. 



THE SCHOOLS OF THE SARACENS. 623 

Plato wrote for the Athenians, and his allegorical genius is 
too closely blended with the language and religion of 
Greece. After the fall of that religion, the Peripatetics, 
emerging from their obscurity, prevailed in the controversies 
of the oriental sects, and their founder was long afterwards 
restored by the Mahometans of Spain to the Latin schools. 8 
The physics, both of the Academy and the Lycseum, as 
they are built, not on observation, but on argument, have 
retarded the progress of real knowledge. The metaphysics 
of infinite, or finite, spirit, have too often been enlisted in 
the service of superstition. But the human faculties are 
fortified by the art and practice of dialectics ; the ten 
Predicaments of Aristotle collect and methodize our ideas, 9 
and his syllogism is the keenest weapon of dispute. It was 
dexterously wielded in the schools of the Saracens, but as 
it is more effectual for the detection of error than for the 
investigation of truth, it is not surprising that new genera- 
tions of masters and disciples should still revolve in the 
same circle of logical argument. The mathematics are 
distinguished by a peculiar privilege, that, in the course of 
ages, they may always advance, and can never recede. But 
the ancient geometry, if I am not misinformed, was resumed 
in the same state by the Italians of the fifteenth century ; 
and whatever may be the origin of the name, the science of 
algebra is ascribed to the Grecian Diophantus by the 
modest testimony of the Arabs themselves. 10 They cultivated 
with more success the sublime science of astronomy, which 
elevates the mind of man to disdain his diminutive planet 
and momentary existence. The costly instruments of 
observation were supplied by the caliph Almamon, and the 
land of the Chaldaeans still afforded the same spacious 

s See Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. pp. 181, 214, 236, 257, 315, 338, 396, 438. &c. 

9 The most elegant commentary on the Categories or Predicaments of Aris- 
totle may be found in the Philosophical Arrangements of Mr. James Harris, 
(Lon. 1775), wri ° labored to revive the studies of Grecian literature and philosophy. 

10 Abulpharagius, Dynast, pp. 81, 222. Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. torn. i. pp. 37°,37i- 
In quern, (says the primate of the Jacobites), si immiserit se lector, oceanum hoc 
in genere (algebra) inveniet. The time of Diophantus of Alexandria is un- 
known ; but his six books are still extant, and have been illustrated by the Greek 
Planudes and the Frenchman Meziriac, (Fabric. Bibliot. Grcec. torn. iv. pp. 12-15).* 

* Was this Diophantus the same as the philosopher of that name, who educated 
Libanius about the year 330, and spoke the funeral oration of Proaeresius at Athens 
in 367? The writer of the books on Algebra is said by Abulpharagius to have lived 
about A. d. 365, and the best informed moderns believe that he flourished in the 
fourth century, (Colebrooke's Preface to his Algebra). It appears therefore 
probable, that there was but one Diophantus ; that after leaving Arabia, his first 
place of abode was Antioch, where he was the preceptor of Libanius ; that he 
thence proceeded to Athens, and afterwards to Alexandria, where it was likely 
that his mathematical talents would be more encouraged. This identity, if as- 
certained, would prove that the science of Algebra did come originally from 
Arabia.— Eng. Ch. 



624 THE ARABIAN PHYSICIANS. 

level, the same unclouded horizon. In the plains of Sinaar, 
and a second time in those of Cufa, his mathematicians 
accurately measured a degree of the great circle of the 
earth, and determined at twenty-four thousand miles the 
entire circumference of our globe. 11 From the reign of the 
Abbassides to that of the grand-children of Tamerlane, the 
stars, without the aid of glasses, were diligently observed ; 
and the astronomical tables of Bagdad, Spain, and Samar- 
cand, 12 correct some minute errors, without daring to 
renounce the hypothesis of Ptolemy, without advancing a 
step towards the discovery of the solar system. In the 
eastern courts, the truths of science could be recommended 
only by ignorance and folly, and the astronomer would have 
been disregarded, had he not debased his wisdom or 
honesty by the vain predictions of astrology. 13 But in the 
science of medicine, the Arabians have been deservedly 
applauded. The names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and 
Avicenna, are ranked with the Grecian masters ; in the city 
of Bagdad, eight hundred and sixty physicians were 
licensed to exercise their lucrative profession : 14 in Spain, 
the life of the Catholic princes was intrusted to the skill of 
the Saracens, 15 and the school of Salerno, their legitimate 
offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the 
healing art. 16 The success of each professor must have been 
influenced by personal and accidental causes ; but we may 
form a less fanciful estimate of their general knowledge of 
anatomy, 17 botany, 18 and chemistry, 19 the threefold basis of 

n Abulfeda, Annal. Moslem, pp. 210, 211, vers. Reiske), describes this operation 
according to Ibn Challecan, and the best historians. This degree most accurately 
contains 200,000 royal or Hashemite cubits, which Arabia had derived from the 
sacred and legal practice both of Palestine and Egypt. This ancient cubit is 
repeated 400 times in each basis of the great pyramid, and seems to indicate the 
primitive and universal measures of the East. See the Metrologie of the 
laborious M. Paucton, pp. 101-195. 

12 See the Astronomical Tables of Ulugh Begh, with the preface of Dr. Hyde 
in the first volume of his Syntagma Dissertationum , Oxon. 1767. 

is The truth of astrology was allowed by Albumazar, and the best of the 
Arabian astronomers, who drew their most certain predictions, not from Venus 
and Mercury, but from Jupiter and the sun, (Abulpharag. Dynast, pp. 161-163). 
For the state and science of the Persian astronomers, see Chardin, (Voyages en 
Perse, torn iii. pp. 162-203). 

14 Bibliot. Arabico. Hispana, torn. i. p. 438. The original relates a pleasant 
tale of an ignorant, but harmless practitioner. 

15 In the year 956, Sancho the Fat, king of Leon, was cured by the physicians 
of Cordova, [Mariana, 1. viii. c. 7, torn. i. p. 318). 

16 The school of Salerno, and the introduction of the Arabian sciences into Italy, 
are discussed with learning and judgment by Muratori, Antiquitat Italics Medii 
s£vi, torn. iii. pp. 932-940), and Giannone, [Istoria Civ. di Napoli, torn. ii. p,H9-i27. 

i" See a good view of the progress of anatomy in Wotton, (Reflections on 
Ancient and Modern Learning, pp. 208-256). His reputation has been unworthily 
depreciated by the wits in the controversy of Boyle and Bentley. 

is Bibliot. Arab. Hispana. torn. i. p. 275. Al Beither, of Malaga, their greatest 
botanist, had traveled into Africa, Persia, and India. 

1* Dr. Watson, (Elements 0/ Chemistry, vol. i. p. 17, &c), allows the original 



ARABIAN CHEMISTRY. 625 

their theory and practice. A superstitous reverence for the 
dead confined both the Greeks and the Arabians to the dis- 
section of apes and quadrupeds : the more solid and visible 
parts were known in the time of Galen, and the finer scrutiny 
of the human frame was reserved for the microscope and the 
injections of modern artists. Botany is an active science, and 
the discoveries of the torrid zone might enrich the herbal of 
Dioscorides with two thousand plants. Some traditionary 
knowledge might be secreted in the temples and monasteries 
of Egypt ; much useful experience had been acquired in the 
practice of arts and manufactures ; but the scie?ice of chem- 
istry owes its origin and improvement to the industry of the 
Saracens. They first invented and named the alembic for the 
purposes of distillation, analyzed the substances of the three 
kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and affinities of al- 
kalis and acids, and converted the poisonous minerals into 
soft and salutary medicines. But the most eager search of 
Arabian chemistry was the transmutation of metals, and the 
elixir of immortal health ; the reason and the fortunes of 
thousands were evaporated in the crucibles of alchemy, and 
the consummation of the great work was promoted by the 
worthy aid of mystery, fable, and superstition. 

But the Moslems deprived themselves of the Wantoferu( ii- 
principal . benefits of a familiar intercourse with tkm, taste, and 
Greece and Rome, the knowledge of antiquity, 
the purity of taste, and the freedom of thought. Confident 
in the riches of their native tongue, the Arabians disdained 
the study of any foreign idiom. The Greek interpreters 
were chosen among their Christian subjects ; they formed 
their translations, sometimes on the original text, more 
frequently perhaps on a Syriac version ; and in the crowd 
of astronomers and physicians, there is no example oi a 
poet, an orator, or even an historian, being taught to speak 
the language of the Saracens. 20 The mythology of Homer 
would have provoked the abhorrence of those stern fanatics ; 
they possessed in lazy ignorance the colonies of the Mace- 
merit of the Arabians. Yet he quotes the modest confession of the famous 
Geber of the ninth eenturv. {D'Herbelot, p. 387), that he had drawn most ot his 
science, perhaps of the transmutation of metals, from the ancient sages, Whatever 
mi°;ht be the origin or extent of their knowledge, the arts of cnemistrv and 
alchemv appear to have been known in Egypt at least three hundred years before 
Mahomet, (IVotton's Reflections, pp. 121-133. Pauw, Recherches sur les Rgyp- 
iiens et les Ckinois, torn. i. 376-429. , . . _._«»_ 

2a Abulpharagius. (Dvnast. pn. 26, 14S. mentions a Synac version ot Homer s 
two ooems, bv Theophilus. a Christian Maronite of Mount Libamus, who pro- 
fess iS astronomy at Roha or Edessa towards the end of the eighth century. His 
work would be a'literarv curiositv. I have read somewhere, but I do not believe, that 
Plutarch's Lives were translated into Turkish for the use of Mahomet the Second. 



626 ORIENTAL LITERATURE. 

donians, and the provinces of Carthage and Rome ; the 
heroes of Plutarch and Livy were buried in oblivion ; and the 
history of the world before Mahomet was reduced to a 
short legend of the patriarchs, the prophets, and the 
Persian kings. Our education in the Greek and Latin 
schools may have fixed in our minds a standard of exclusive 
taste ; and I am not forward to condemn the literature and 
judgment of nations, of whose language I am ignorant. 
Yet I know that the classics have much to teach, and I 
believe that the Orientals have much to learn : the temperate 
dignity of style, the graceful proportions of art, the forms 
of visible and intellectual beauty, the just delineation of 
character and passion, the rhetoric of narrative and 
argument, the regular fabric of epic and dramatic poetry. 21 
The influence of truth and reason is of a less ambiguous 
complexion. The philosophers of Athens and Rome 
enjoyed the blessings and asserted the rights, of civil and 
religious freedom. Their moral and political writings might 
have gradually unlocked the fetters of Eastern despotism, 
diffused a liberal spirit of inquiry and toleration, and 
encouraged the Arabian sages to suspect that their caliph 
was a tyrant and their prophet an impostor. 22 The instinct 
of superstition was alarmed by the introduction eyen of the 
abstract sciences ; and the more rigid doctors of the law 
condemned the rash and pernicious curiosity of Almamon. 23 
To the thirst of martyrdom, the vision of paradise, and the 
belief of predestination, we must ascribe the invincible 
enthusiasm of the prince and people. And the sword of the 
Saracens became less formidable, when their youth was 
drawn away from the camp to the college, when the armies of 
the faithful presumed to read and to reflect. Yet the foolish 
vanity of the Greeks was jealous of their studies, and reluct- 
antly imparted the sacred fire to the barbarians of the East. 24 

21 I have perused, with much pleasure, Sir William Jones's Latin Commentary 
on Asiatic Poetry, (London, 1774, in octavo), which was composed in the youth 
of that wonderful linguist. At present, in the maturity of his taste and judgment, 
he would perhaps abate of the fervent, and even partial, praise which he has 
bestowed on the Orientals. r , 

22 Among the Arabian philosophers, Averroes has been accused of despising 
the religions of the Jews, the Christians, and the Mahometans, (see his article in 
Bayle's Dictionary). Each of these sects would agree, that in two instances out 
of three, his contempt was reasonable. 

23 D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orientate, p. 546. % v 

24 Qeo&l'aos uto-ov npivag el rriv tuv ovtuv yvfiotv, 6C tjv to Fuuaiuv 
Aevoq ^avfid^rai, indorov noiTjoet rol<; eQvegi, &c. Cedremts, p. 548. wn <> 
relates how manfully the emperor refused a mathematician to the instances and 
offers of the caliph Almamon. This absurd scruple is expressed almost in the 
same words by the continuator of Theophanes, {Scriptores post Theop. p. 118.) 



BACCHUS. 
" Bacchus was the type of vigor." — Longfellow. 

IN both the Greek and Roman mythologies Bacchus, like Hercules, owed his 
existence to the union of a celestial and a terrestrial — a god from heaven and a 
woman from earth — a mortal mother and an immortal father. The Olympian 
Jupiter claimed him as a son, and the beautiful Semele, a daughter of Cadmus, 
was his unfortunate mother. 

" The ancients " says Eschenburg, " ascribed to Bacchus manifold offices, and 
" related a multitude of achievements as performed by him. Especially was he 
" celebrated for his advancement of morals, legislation, and commerce ; for th* 
" culture of the vine and the rearing of bees; and for his military expedition^ 
" and success, particularly in India. He was worshiped as a god, and a worker 
" of miracles." 

" Bacchus, from his very birth," says Moritz, " takes his seat among the 
" celestials; while Hercules, by bold deeds and invincible valor, must prepare 
" for himself the path to immortality. For this reason, too, the latter, during his 
" lifetime, was ranked only among the godlike heroes, while Bacchus was always 
" entitled to the society of the gods themselves. The archetype of Bacchus was 
" the inward, swelling fullness of nature, of which, from her foaming cup, she 
" bestows animating enjoyment among her initiated. The worship of Bacchus, 
" therefore, was, like that of Ceres, mysterious, for both deities are emblems of 
" the whole of nature which no mortal eye penetrates. 

" The expedition of Bacchus to India, is a beautiful and sublime fiction. With 
" an army of both men and women, who went on in a joyful tumult, he extended 
" his beneficent conquests as far as the Ganges, teaching the conquered nations 
" the cultivation of the vine, together with a higher enjoyment of life, and giving 
" them laws. In the divine person of Bacchus, men revered the more cheerful 
" delights of life, and he was personified as a glorious and sublime being, who, 
" under the form of an eternally flourishing youth, subdues lions and tigers that 
" draw his chariot, and who, in divine ecstasy, accompanied by the sound of flutes 
" and timbrels, proceeds in triumph, from east to west, through all countries." 

" Bacchus," says Taylor, " was the god of good cheer, wine, and hilarity ; and 
" as such, the poets have been eloquent in his praises. On all occasions of mirth 
" and jollity, they constantly invoked his presence, and as constantly thanked 
" him for the blessings he bestowed. To him they ascribed the greatest happi- 
" ness of which humanity is capable — the forgetfulness of cares, and the delights 
" of social intercourse. It has been usual for Christians to represent this God 
" as a sensual encourager of inebriation and excess. He taught mankind the 
" culture of the vine, and so without a miracle changed their drink from mere 
" water into wine, ' which cheereth God and man,' ( Judges, ix. 13)." 

St. John asserts that Jesus of Nazareth , in Cana of Galilee, changed water into 
wine, and that the wine was of so good a quality as to astonish " the governor 
" of the feast," who explained to the bridegroom that, "Every man at the be 
" ginning, doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then thac 
"which is worse," [What a shrewd and economical device!] "but thou hast 
" kept the good wine until now." { ?ohn ii. 10.) Taylor denies this miracle and 
believes " that in any sense but that of an imposi tion practised upon men's senses, 
'* the miracle involves a physical impossibility, and a moral contradiction. That 
" the fluid, whatever it was. which had not been pressed out of the grape — which 
" had not been generated, concocted, matured and exuded through the secretory 
" ducts of the vine, drawn up by its roots out of the earth, circulated through 
'• its capillary tubes, and effunded into its fruit, could not be wine, nor could God 
" himself make it to be so. 

" That were to make 
" Strange contradiction, which to God himself 
" Impossible is held." Milton. 

" The Pagan philosophers," says Taylor, " pretended that their theology, and 
" the genealogy of their gods, did originally, in an allegorical sense, mean the 
" several parts of nature and the universe. Cicero gives a large account of this, 
" and tells us, that even the impious fables relating to the deities include in them 
" a good physical meaning. Thus, when Saturn was said to have devoured his 
" children, it was to be understood of Time, which is properly said to devour all 
'• things. ' We know,' says this great heathen, ' that the shapes of all the gods, 
" their age, habits, and ornaments, nay, their very genealogy, marriages, and 
'* ' every thing relating to them, hath been delivered in the exact resemblance to 
" ' human weakness. It is,' he adds, ' the height of folly to believe such absurd 
" 'and extravagant things.' " 

" As an allegorical sense," continues Taylor, " was the apology offered for the 
" manifest absurdities of Paganism, and an allegorical sense is challenged for the 
" contents of the New Testament, not onlv bv the earlv Fathers, but by and in 
"' the text of that New Testament itself, (IL Cor. iii : 6,) can it lie denied that both 
" alike are allegorical ? And both being confessedly allegorical, the innumerable 
" instances of perfect resemblance between them are a competent proof that the 
" one is but a modification or improved edition of the other, and that there never 
" was any real or essential difference between them."— E. 




Venus Marina. 1 * 



Triton. 



xiu.t 

THEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCAR- 
NATION. — THE HUMAN AND DIVINE NATURE OF CHRIST. 

ENMITY OF THE PATRIARCHS OF ALEXANDRIA AND 

CONSTANTINOPLE. — ST. CYRIL AND NESTORIUS. — THIRD 
GENERAL COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. — HERESY OF EUTYCHES. 

FOURTH GENERAL COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. CIVIL 

AND ECCLESIASTICAL DISCORD. — INTOLERANCE OF JUS- 
TINIAN. — THE THREE CHAPTERS. — MONOTHELITE CON- 
TROVERSY. — STATE OF THE ORIENTAL SECTS. — I. THE 
NESTORIANS. — II. THE JACOBITES. — III. THE MARONITES. 
IV. THE ARMENIANS. — V. THE COPTS AND ABYSSINIANS. 

AFTER the extinction of Paganism, the The incama- 
Christians in peace and piety might have tlon of Christ - 
enjoyed their solitary triumph. But the principle 
of discord was alive in their bosom, and they were more 
solicitous to explore the nature, than to practice the laws, 
of their founder. I have already observed, that the disputes 

* Venus sprang from the foam of the sea, near the island of Cyprus, or, according 
toHesiod, of Cythera, whither she was wafted by the Zephyrs, and received on the 
seashore by the Seasons, daughters of Jupiter and Themis. She was represented 
by Phidias as rising from the sea, attended by love and crowned by the goddess 
of Persuasion. At Cnidos, her statue by Praxiteles was considered as his most 
perfect work, and she was immortalized by the celebrated painting of Apelles, 
which represented her as rising from the bosom of the waves, and wringing 
ter tresses on her shoulder. When taken to Olvmpus, her personal charms 
;xcited the greatest admiration among the assembled gods. Vulcan, the deformed 
Jon of Jupiter, won her hand in marriage, but he never controlled her affections. 
The rose, the myrtle, and the apple, were sacred to Venus, and among birds, 
the dove, the swan, the swallow, and the sparrow were her favorites. Temples were 
built for her worship, and statues erected in her honor. "Her power over the 
" heart," says J. Lempriere, D. D., " was supported and assisted bv a celebrated 
" girdle, called zone by the Greeks, and cestus by the Latins. This mvsterious 
" girdle gave grace and elegance when worn even by the most deformed. It 
'' excited love and kindled desire. Venus no sooner put on her cestus. than 
Vulcan, unable to resist the influence of love, forgot all her intrigues and 
" infidelity. The ancients were fond of paying homage to a divinity who pre- 
' sided over generation, and bv whose influence alone mankind existed." Venus 
vas probably identical with the Svrian goddess Astarte, the Hebrew Ashtoreth.-E. 
t Chap, xlvii. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

(627) 



628 INCARNATION OF CHRIST. 

of the Trinity were succeeded by those of the Incarna- 
tion ; alike scandalous to the church, alike pernicious to 
the state, still more minute in their origin, still more durable 
in their effects. It is my design to comprise, in the present 
chapter, a religious war of two hundred and fifty years, to 
represent the ecclesiastical and political schism of the 
oriental sects, and to introduce their clamorous or sanguinary 
contests, by a modest inquiry into the doctrines of the 
primitive church. 1 

i. a pure man I- A laudable regard for the honor of the first 
to the proselytes, has countenanced the belief, the 
lomtes. h p ej t he w i sn> that the Ebionites, or at least 
the Nazarenes, were distinguished only by their obstinate 
perseverance in the practice of the Mosaic rites. Their 
churches have disappeared, their books are obliterated : 
their obscure freedom might allow a latitude of faith, and 
the softness of their infant creed would be variously moulded 
by the zeal or prudence of three hundred years. Yet the 
most charitable criticism must refuse these sectaries any 

i By what means shall I authenticate this previous inquiry, which I have 
studied to circumscribe and compress? If I persist in supporting each factor 
reflection by its proper and special evidence, every line would demand a string 
of testimonies, and every note would swell to a critical dissertation. But the 
numberless passages of antiquity which I have seen with my own eyes, are 
compiled, digested, and illustrated by Petavius and Le Clerc, by Beausobre and 
Afosheim. I shall be content to fortify my narrative by the names and characters 
of these respectable guides; and, in the contemplation of a minute or remote 
object, I am not ashamed to borrow the aid of the strongest glasses : i. The 
Dogmata Theologica of Petavius is a work of incredible labor and compass ; 
the volumes which relate solely to the Incarnation, (two folios, fifth and sixth, of 
of 837 pages), are divided into sixteen books— the first of history, and the remainder 
of controversy and doctrine. The Jesuit's learning is copious and correct ; his 
Latinity is pure, his method clear, his argument profound and well connected ; 
but he is the slave of the fathers, the scourge of heretics, and the enemy of truth 
and candor, as often as they are inimical to the Catholic cause. 2. The Arminian 
Le Clerc, who has composed in a quarto volume, (Amsterdam, 1716), the ecclesi- 
astical history of the two first centuries, was free both in his temper and situation ; 
his sense is clear, but his thoughts are narrow ; he reduces the reason or folly of 
ages to the standard of his private judgment, and his impartiality is sometimes 
quickened, and sometimes tainted by his opposition to the fathers. See the 
heretics, {Cerinthians. lxxx. Ebionites, ciii. Carpocratians, cxx. Valentinians, 
cxxi. Basilidians, cxxiii. Marcionites, cxli., &c), under their proper dates. 
3. The Histoire Critique du Manicheisme (Amsterdam, 1734, 1739, in 2 vols, in 4to., 
with a posthumous dissertation sur les Nazarenes, Lausanne, 1745) of M. de 
Beausobre is a treasure of ancient philosophy and theology. The learned his- 
torian spins with incomparable art the systematic thread of opinion, and trans- 
forms himself by turns into the person of a saint, a sage, or a heretic. Yet his 
refinement is sometimes excessive : he betrays an amiable partiality in favor of 
the weaker side, and, while he guards against calumny, he does not allow suffi- 
cient scope for superstition and fanaticism. A copious table of contents will direct 
the reader to any point that he wishes to examine. 4. Less profound than 
Patavius, less independent than Le Clerc, less ingenious than Beausobre, the 
historian Mosheim is full, rational, correct, and moderate. In his learned work, 
Du Rebus Christianis ante Const antinum, (Helmstadt, 1753, in 4to.), see the 
Nazarenes and Ebionites, p. 172-179,328-332; the Gnostics in general, p. 179, &c; 
Cermthus , pp. 196-202. Basilides, pp. 352-361. Carprocates, pp. 363-367. Valen- 
tinas, pp. 371-389. Marcion, pp. 404-410. The Manichceans, pp. 829, 837, &c 



BIRTH AND ELEVATION OF THE MESSIAH. 629 

knowledge of the pure and proper divinity of Christ. 
Educated in the school of Jewish prophecy and prejudice, 
they had never been taught to elevate their hopes above a 
human and temporal Messiah. 2 If they had courage to 
hail their king when he appeared, in a plebian garb, their 
grosser apprehensions were incapable of discerning their 
God, who had studiously disguised his celestial character 
under the name and person of a mortal. 3 The familiar 
companions of Jesus of Nazareth conversed with their 
friend and countryman, who, in all the actions of rational 
and animal life appeared of the same species with them- 
selves. His progress from infancy to youth and manhood, 
was marked by a regular increase in stature and wisdom ; 
and, after a painful agony of mind and body, he expired on 
the cross. He lived and died for the service of mankind : 
but the life and death of Socrates had likewise been devoted 
to the cause of religion and justice; and although the Stoic 
or the hero may disdain the humble virtues of Jesus, the 
tears which he shed over his friend and country, may be 
esteemed the purest evidence of his humanity. The miracles 
of the gospel could not astonish a people who held with 
intrepid faith the more splendid prodigies of the Mosaic 
law. The prophets of ancient days had cured diseases, 
raised the dead, divided the sea, stopped the sun, and 
ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot. And the metaphorical 
style of the Hebrews might ascribe to a saint and martyr, 
the adoptive title of Son of God. 

Yet in the insufficient creed of the Nazarenes His birth and 
and Ebionites, a distinction is faintly noticed be- elevation. 

2 K.cu yap Trdvreg rjuelg rbv Xpicrbv, dvdpoTrov tf dvdpuiruv 7rpoadoKcJfj.ev 
yevrjGEadat, sa ys the Jew Tryphon, {yustin Dialog, p. 207*), in the name of his 
countrymen ; and the modern Jews, the few who divert their thoughts from 
money to religion, still hold the same language, and allege the literal sense of the 
prophets.f 

3 Chrysostom, (Basnage, Hist, des yuifs, torn. v. c. 9, p. 183,) and Athanasius 
{Petav. Dog-mat. Theolog. torn. v. 1. i, c. 2, p. 3,) are obliged to confess that the 
divinity of Christ is rarely mentioned by himself or his apostles.J 

* See on this passage Bp. Kaye, yustin Martyr, p. 25. — Milman. 

t Most of the modern writers, who have closely examined this subject, and 
who will not be suspected of any theological bias, Rosenmuller on Isaiah ix. 5, 
and on Psalm xlv. 7, and Berthold. Christologia yudceorum, c. xx., rightly as- 
cribe much higher notions of the Messiah to the Jews. In fact, the dispute seems 
to rest on the notion that there was a definite and authorized notion of the Mes- 
siah, among the Jews, whereas it was probably so vague, as to admit every shade 
of difference, from the vulgar expectation of a mere temporal king, to the philo- 
sophic notion of an emanation from the Deity. — Milman. 

\ The clergy now assert, positively, the divinity of Jesus, which St. Chrysostom 
and St. Athanusius ventured to suggest. But the nobility and grandeur of Christ's 
humanity far transcends these empirical claims to divinity. Jesus loved his fel- 
low men, and bravely sacrificed his life for the poor and the oppressed.— E. 



630 



THE GENERATION OF CHRIST. 



tween the heretics, who confounded the generation of Christ 
in the common order of nature, and the less guilty schis- 
matics, who revered the virginity of his mother, and 
excluded the aid of an earthly father. The incredulity of 
the former was countenanced by the visible circumstances 
of his birth, the legal marriage of his reputed parents, 
Joseph and Mary, and his lineal claim to the kingdom of 
David and the inheritance of Judah. But the secret and 
authentic history has been recorded in several copies of the 
gospel according to St. Matthew, 4 which these sectaries 
long preserved in the original Hebrew, 5 as the sole evidence 

4 The two first chapters of St. Matthew did not exist in the Ebionite copies, 
(Epiphan. Hczres. 30, 13) ; and the miraculous conception is one of the last articles 
which Dr. Priestly has curtailed from his scanty creed.* 

5 It is probable enough that the first of the gospels, for the use of the Jewish 
converts, was composed in the Hebrew or Syriac idiom ; the fact is attested by 
a chain of fathers— Papias, Iremeus, Origen, Jerome, &c. It is devoutly believed 
by the Catholics, and admitted by Casaubon, Grotius, and Isaac Vossius, among 
the Protestant critics. But this Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew is most unac- 
countably lost ; and we may accuse the diligence or fidelity of the primitive 
churches, who have preferred the unauthorized version of some nameless Greek. 
Erasmus and his followers, who respect our Greek text as the original gospel, 
deprive themselves of the evidence which declares it to be the work of an apostle. 
See Simon, Hist. Critique, &c. torn. iii. c. 5-9, p. 47-101, and the Prolegomena 
of Mill and Wetstein to the New Testament.^ 

* The distinct allusion to the facts related in the two first chapters of the 
Gospel, in a work evidently written about the end of the reign of Nero, the 
Ascensio Isaitz, edited by Archbishop Lawrence, seems convincing evidence that 
they are integral parts of the authentic Christian history. — Milman. 

t Surely the extinction of the Judaso-Christian community related from Mos- 
heim by Gibbon himself (c. xv.) accounts both simply and naturally for the loss 
of a composition, which had become of no use ; nor does it follow that the Greek 
Gospel of St. Matthew is unauthorized. — Milman. J 

The German editor here says that Matthew's Hebrew Gospel was more pro- 
bably a translation than an original, which is contrary both to internal evidence 
and to positive testimony. See ch. 15, vol. ii, p. 69. — Eng. Ch. 

\ It is but reasonable to suppose that the apostles would have written the 
"glad tidings" in their native language, which was probably Hebrew, or, 
(according to the Bible Dictionary of Wm. Smith, LL.D. , Syro-Chaldaic, and 
that these apostolic writings would have been sacredly preserved by the early 
Christian devotees. " But this Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew," says Gibbon, 
" is most unaccountably lost, and the primitive Christians preferred the unau- 
" thorized version of some nameless Greek." 

The English Churchman quotes, without approval, the opinion of the German 
Editor, that " Matthew's Hebrew Gospel was more probably a translation than 
" an original." Indeed, he considers such a statement " contrary both to internal 
" evidence and to positive testimony." There is reason for believing that the 
judicial proceedings before Pilate, at which Jesus was condemned, were conducted 
in Greek, and many scholars believe the Gospels were written in that language. 
Smith's Bible Dictionary says, that " Every early writer who mentions that St. 
" Matthew wrote a Gospel at all, says that he wrote in Hebrew." The title page 
of the New Testament, King James' version, asserts that it was " translated out 
" of the original Greek." The title page of the revised version avoids this indis- 
creet assertion, and shrewdly omits the word original. " Erasmus and his 
" followers," says Gibbon, "who respect our Greek text as the original Gospel, 
" deprive themselves of the evidence which declares it to be the work of an 
" apostle." The early fathers, Papias, Iranaeus, Origen, and Jerome, claim a 
Hebrew original. Great uncertainty pervades the early history of the Gospels, 
and we are not only in doubt as to when, or where, or by whom they were origin- 
ally written, but we cannot even decide with certainty whether the Greek or 
Hebrew language was employed to announce the wonders of revelation. 

If, as many suppose, we are indebted to the learned Essenes or Therapeuts of 



THE DREAM OF JOSEPH. 631 

of their faith. The natural suspicions of the husband, 
conscious of his own chastity, were dispelled by the 

Alexandria for our Gospels, Greek would probably have been the language 
emploved, and a Hebrew translation would, in that case, have been necessary for 
the Jewish converts; but if, as most Christians believe, the Gospels were origin- 
ally written in Judea, by Messrs. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we should 
naturally expect to see Hebrew characters employed. 

But, if the original Hebrew, or the original Syriac, or the original Greek text be 
lost, we have still, at least, an authenticated copy of the teachings of Jesus, which, 
like the wood of the true cross, has been miraculously preserved to the present 
day? No! nothing of the kind. But we have remaining certain writings in 
Greek and monkish Latin, of unknown origin and uncertain date, purporting to 
be '• according to " Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but not by them. " It does 
" not appear/' says Win. Smith, LL.D., {Bible Die. p. 450), " that any special care 
" was taken in the first age to preserve the books of the New Testament from the 
" various injuries of time, or to insure perfect accuracy of transcription. They 
" were given as a heritage to man, and it was some time before men felt the full 
" value of the gift. The original copies seem to have soon perished. In the natural 
" course of things, the Apostolic autographs would be likely to perish soon." 

The oldest manuscripts now in existence cannot claim an earlier date than from 
the fourth to the seventh century after Christ, and each and all of these sacred 
" codices," as the old manuscripts are termed, are not only undated, but are in 
fact anonvmous productions. We are called upon to believe and reverence certain 
curious and perhaps essential records of the past, which the writers themselves 
did not deem of sufficient importance to require the formality of a date, or to be 
authenticated by a written signature. 

These old manuscripts contain many acknowledged interpolations, alterations, 
omissions, errors, and conflicting readings. Prof. Alexander Roberts, D.D., in 
his Companion to the Revised Version, p. 1, says, " The varieties of reading in the 
" New Testament are now referred to as amounting to no less than 150,000." This 
large number causes anxiety in the minds of those familiar with St. Paul's 
doctrine, that, " He who believeth a lie shall be damned ! " because they find it so 
difficult to distinguish the true from the false in a book which contains 150,000 
"varieties of reading." Some of these "variations" are of the most vital 
importance ; as, for instance, the story of the Three Heavenly Witnesses, 1 yohn, 
v.: 7, which was wickedly interpolated to sustain the doctrine of the Trinity. 
This interpolation has, however, been entirely omitted by the revisers of the 
New Testament. The correct reading of / Timothy, iii : 16, was early changed 
from " which was manifest in the flesh," to read " God was manifest in the 
" flesh," in order to sustain the doctrine of the Incarnation. The revisers have 
declined to condone the falsehood, and have honestly restored the original and 
correct reading. But how could such errors be permitted in the bible? How 
could these forgeries be introduced in the word of God? " There is, I understand," 
says Dr. Inman in Ancient Faiths and Modern, p. 116, "solid foundation for the 
" assertion that the New Testament, such as we have it now, might have been 
" composed, altered, curtailed, added to, remodelled, or otherwise fashioned, at 
" any period between the years a. d. 50 and 300, after which change was difficult, 
" though we cannot say impossible." 

Neither the received version, nor the revised version, agrees entirely with the 
Greek text or the oldest manuscripts. The present King James' Bible was founded 
on the Greek text, and the revised version has been modified by a comparison 
and selection of these anonymous manuscripts, assisted by a reference to the 
writings of the early fathers, and a discussion by the translators, in regard to the 
probable meaning of the " originals," as tested by the rules of textual criticism, 
and not forgetting the prevalent orthodox creeds. This revised version has 
required for its production the combined labor of the Christian scholars of 
Europe and America for a period of many years. It is now finished and published 
to the world. Its chief use will be to unsettle the faith of those who had previously 
believed the New Testament to be an infallible revelation, without a shadow of 
doubt, or a suspicion of error. Dr. Philip Scharff, LL.D., chairman of the 
American branch of the revision committee, in a public lecture delivered in 
Cooper Institute, New York, gave his opinion that King James' version was a 
good translation, that the new version was better, and he believed that in fifty 
years a better one still would or could be produced. This is not the language of 
certainty, and has not the appearance of infallibility. It is equivalent to saying 
that the New Testament will continue to be translated as long as science con- 
tinues to advance, in order that the latest translation may still agree with the last 
discovery. " We believe," says the author of the Talmagian Catechism, page 422. 



632 



A DOMESTIC PRODIGY. 



assurance (in a dream) that his wife was pregnant of the 
Holy Ghost: and as this distant and domestic prodigy 

" that the bible can be revised often enough to agree with anything that may really 
" be necessary to the preservation of the church." 

The Rev. Dr. Samson, in discussing the revision, at a meeting of Baptist 
ministers, as reported in the New York daily papers, contended that the ancient 
biblical manuscripts, "upon the authority of which the editors of the revised 
" version had made some notable omissions, were inferior as authorities to the 
" accepted version. Those manuscripts, he contended, were the work of 
" Alexandrian copyists not conversant with the Greek language, and are later 
" than the period of Constantine. They repeated lines and omitted lines, and 
" the evidences of error and imperfection thickly stud the manuscripts. 
" The accepted version of the Greek Church was an authority vastly superior to 
" such imperfect copies, and the Greek Church maintains the doxology in the 
" Lord's prayer and other passages omitted in the revision. 

" Dr. Yerks, commenting on the address, said that if Dr. Samson was right, 
" then the Church would have to abandon the hope of getting an infallible text, 
" for the version of the Greek Church had been handed down by copyists to the 
" age of printing, and was hence exposed to the same causes of error as Dr. 
" Samson had charged upon the Tischendorf manuscripts." 

Both of these learned and reverend gentlemen have told the truth. The oldest 
ripts are not originals, but unauthenticated copies by unknown monks; 
and the oldest cursive text, which is simply a manuscript of a later date, is also in 
the handwriting of some anonymous member of the monastic order. Neither the 
oldest nor the latest manuscripts are authenticated by the signatures of the apos- 
tles, early fathers, bishops, or church historians. " The Italian and Egpytian 
" papyri of the first century still exist, and give," says Wm. Smith, LL.D., 
" a clear notion of the caligraphy of the period." Writings of inferior import- 
ance have been preserved without especial care, but no gospel manuscript has 
survived the wreck of time; our oldest copies were transcribed, centuries after 
the time of Christ, by some " unauthorized and nameless Greek." 

Gibbon, in his Vindication, (vol. iii. p. 597, Miscellaneous Works, original 4to edi- 
ion,) has carefully summed up all the historical evidence that can be adduced in 
regard to the origin of Christianity, and the reader cannot fail to observe the 
meagre exhibit. It is as follows: '" The historical monuments of the three first 
"' centuries of ecclesiastical antiquitv, are neither very numerous nor very prolix. 
' From the end of the Acts of the Apostles, to the time when the first Apology of 
' Justin Martvr was presented, there intervened a dark and doubtful period of 
' fourscore years ; and, even if the Epistles of Ignatius should be approved by 
' the critic, they could not be verv serviceable to the historian. From the middle 
' of the second, to the beginning of the fourth century, we gain our knowledge 
' of the state and progress of Christianity, from the successive Apologies which 
' were occasionallv composed by Justin, Athenagoras, Tertullian, Origen, &c. ; 
' from the Epistles 'of Cvprian ; from a few sincere acts of the Martyrs ; from some 
1 moral or controversial tracts, which indirectly explain the events and manners 
' of the times ; from the rare and accidental notice which profane writers have 
' taken of the Christian sect ; from the declamatory narrative which celebrates 
' the deaths of the persecutors; and from the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, 
' who has preserved some valuable fragments of more early writers." 

There is a fatal gap of over 400 years between the time when the oldest manu- 
script, now in existence, was written, and the time of the Apostles. This gap 
cannot be filled bv assertion nor by tradition. The break in the chain of evidence 
cannot be mended by penance, prayer, or faith. No lawyer would accept title- 
deeds to real property, when those deeds were unsigned, and acknowledged to 
have been written centuries after the owner's death. And shall we not be 
eqnallv scrupulous in regard to our title to "mansions in the skies?" When an 
" English version of the New Testament is put into our hands," says Dr. Roberts, 
page 34, of the Companion to the Revised Version, " it is of the most vital import- 
" ance to be assured of the trustworthiness of the text on which that version is 
" based. Without this, everything else must be comparatively worthless." 
After stating this Dlain and fundamental truth, how could Dr. Roberts claim 
credence for a work which is based on tradition, on miracles, on faith, but not on 
positive historical evidence? 

But even admitting that a genuine gospel text was now in existence, written 
in the Hebrew language, containing the signatures of the Apostles, signed in the 
presence of witnesses, dulv certified by a Notary Public, and recorded in the 
Register's office at Jerusalem; there would still remain room for discussion in 
regard to a correct English translation, because it is extremely difficult to trans- 



TRANSMIGRATION AND IMMORTALITY OF SOULS. 633 

could not fall under the personal observation of the historian, 
he must have listened to the same voice which dictated to 
Isaiah the future conception of a virgin. The son of a 
virgin, generated by the ineffable operation of the Holy 
Spirit, was a creature without example or resemblance, 
superior in every attribute of mind and body to the children 
of Adam. Since the introduction of the Greek or Chaldean 
philosophy, 6 the Jews 7 were persuaded of the pre-existence, 
transmigration, and immortality of souls ; and Providence 
was justified by a supposition, that they were confined in 
their earthly prisons to expiate the stains which they had 

6 The metaphysics of the soul are disengaged by Cicero, (Tusculan. 1. i.), and 
Maximus of Tyre, (Dissertat. xvi.) from the intricacies of dialogue, which some- 
times amuse, and often perplex, the readers of the Phcedrus, the Phcsdon, and 
the laws of Plato. 

i The disciples of Jesus were persuaded that a man might have sinned before 
he was born, (?ohn ix 2), and the Pharisees held the transmigration of virtuous 
souls, (Joseph, de Bell. Judaico, 1. ii. c. 7) : and a modern Rabbi is modestly 
assured, that Hermes, Pythagoras, Plato, &c, derived their metaphysics from 
his illustrious countrvmen. 



late correctly the old Hebrew of the first century, which was written with 
consonants, without vowels, points or punctuation marks — the proper vowels 
being supplied by the reader according to the apparent meaning. Thus, the con- 
sonants FLL, can be read, by introducing different vowels, fall, fell, full, fill, &c. 
Translators of equal knowledge and sincerity might supply different vowels to 
these consonants and thus change or reverse the intended meaning. This fact in- 
troduces an element of uncertainty in the translation, which is fatal to all 
pretence to divine inspiration or infallibility; but our English version cannot 
claim even this defective Hebrew original. It is confessedly composed from a 
selection and comparison of various anonymous Greek and Latin " originals," 
which originals were, it is claimed, translated from the original Hebrew by an 
unknown and uninspired translator. This fact should teach zealous believers to 
respect the honest doubts of those who have critically examined the subject, and 
who sincerely believe the bible to be a valuable work, entirely of human origin — 
containing sublime and noble truths, mixed with grave and radical errors, like all 
the productions that spring from the human intellect. 

The learned William Smith, LL. D., Classical Examiner in the University of 
London, from whose Bible Dictionary we have already quoted, says, in his article 
on the New Testament : " No manuscript of the New Testament of the first three 
" centuries remains." * * * "It is evident that various readings existed in 
" the books of the New Testament at a time prior to all extant authorities." * * * 
" History affords no trace of the pure Apostolic originals." This admission, 
which gives the exact historical truth, concedes all that skeptical critics have 
claimed.^ It effectually disposes of all pretence to apostolic authority for the 
purity of the gospel text; and leaves its claim to reverence and belief resting, as 
it properly should, on intrinsic merit alone. By accepting this reasonable ground 
for the authority of our sacred books, ingenuity need not further be taxed to ex- 
plain the difficulties that beset, and the evidences that disprove, their claim to 
infallibility and inspiration. Indeed, difficulties vanish when we admit the 
human origin of our Scriptures, and base their claim to credence, not on blind 
authority, but on the wisdom and morality they inculcate ; not on the interested 
testimony of the early fathers, but on the treasures of past experience the books 
contain ; not on assertions made by venal bishops or zealous monks, but on the 
grandest and noblest of all foundations — the simple majesty of truth. Judged 
by this standard, we may reject the selfishness, the ignorance, the positive wicked- 
ness, our scriptures contain, and garner every noble thought, every- just precept, 
every virtuous command, every wise legend, every- word, in short, which tends 
to increase the sum of human happiness, and lessen the sum of human ignorance. 
" Read the bible then." to quote the words of Thomas Jefferson in his admirable 
letter to Peter Carr, " as you would read Livy or Tacitus, and judge its statements 
" by the same standard."— E. 



634 THE LOGOS OR WORD OF GOD. 

contracted in a former state. 8 But the degrees of purity 
and corruption are almost immeasurable. It might be 
fairly presumed, that the most sublime and virtuous of 
human spirits was infused into the offspring of Mary and 
the Holy Ghost ; 9 that his abasement was the result of his 
voluntary choice ; and that the object of his mission was to 
purify, not his own, but the sins of the world. On his 
return to his native skies, he received the immense reward 
of his obedience; the everlasting kingdom of the Messiah, 
which had been darkly foretold by the prophets, under the 
carnal images of peace, of conquest, and of dominion. 
Omnipotence could enlarge the human faculties of Christ 
to the extent of his celestial office. In the language of 
antiquity, the title of God has not been severely confined to 
the first parent, and his incomparable minister, his only- 
begotten Son, might claim, without presumption, the 
religious, though secondary, worship of a subject world. 
11. ApureGod ^- The seeds of the faith, which had slowly 
to the arisen in the rocky and ungrateful soil of Judea, 
were transplanted, in full maturity, to the happier 
climes of the Gentiles ; and the strangers of Rome or Asia, 
who never beheld the manhood, were the more readily 
disposed to embrace the divinity, of Christ. The polytheist 
and the philosopher, the Greek and the barbarian, were 
alike accustomed to conceive a long succession, an infinite 

* Four different opinions have been entertained concerning the origin of hu- 
man souls* : 1. That they are eternal and divine. 2. That they were created, in a 
separate state of existence, before their union with the body. 3. That they have 
been propagated from the original stock of Adam, who contained in himself the 
mental as well as the corporeal seat of his posterity. 4. That each soul is occa- 
sionally created and embodied in the moment of conception.— The last of these 
sentiments appears to have prevailed among the moderns ; and our spiritual 
history is grown less sublime, without becoming more intelligible. t 

9 'On rj tov 2wr//pof ipvx*l V T °v 'Add/* 7],— was one of the fifteen heresies 
imputed to Origen, and denied by his apologist, (Photius, Bibliothec. Cod, cxvii. 
p. C96.) Some of the Rabbis attribute one and the same soul to the persons of 
Adam, David, and the Messiah. 

*" How then," says Voltaire, "shall we be bold enough to affirm what the soul 
" is? We know certainly that we exist, that we feel, that we think. Seek we 
" to advance one step further— we fall into an abyss of darkness; and in this 
" abyss we have still the foolish temerity to dispute whether this soul, of which 
" we have not the least idea, is made before us or with us, and whether it is 
" perishable or immortal? 

" We dare to put the question, whether the intelligent soul is spirit or matter; 
" whether it is created before us, or proceeds from nothing at our birth ; whether, 
" after animating us for a day on this earth, it lives after us in eternity. These 
" questions appear sublime ; what are they ? Questions of blind men asking one 
" another— What is light?"— E. 

t Previous existence, of which we are entirely unconscious, is tantamount to 
non-existence, and the belief in it has never gained ground, though sanctioned by 
great names. The growth of the intellectual principle through the successive 
stages of spirit, mind, and soul, is taught us by the combined lessons of nature, 
experience, and religion.— Eng. Ch. 



THE PHANTASTIC SYSTEM 635 

chain, of angels, or daemons, or deities, or aeons, or emana- 
tions, issuing from the throne of light. Nor could it seem 
strange or incredible, that the first of these aeons, the 
Logos, or word of God, of the same substance with the 
Father, should descend upon earth, to deliver the human 
race from vice and error, and to conduct them in the paths 
of life and immortality. But the prevailing doctrine of the 
eternity and inherent pravity of matter infected the primitive 
churches of the East. Many among the Gentile proselytes 
refused to believe that a celestial spirit, an undivided portion 
of the first essence, had been personally united with a mass 
of impure and contaminated flesh : and, in their zeal for 
the divinity, they piously abjured the humanity of Christ 
While his blood was still recent on Mount Calvary, 10 the 
Docetes, a numerous and learned sect of Asiatics, invented 
the phantastic system, which was afterwards propagated by 
the Marcionites, the Manichaeans, and the various names of 
the Gnostic heresy. 11 They denied the truth and authenticity 
of the Gospels, as far as they relate the conception of Mary, 
the birtfi of Christ, and the thirty years that preceded the 
exercise of his ministry. He first appeared on the banks 
of the Jordan in the form of perfect manhood ; but it was a 
form only, and not a substance ; a human figure created by 
the hand of Omnipotence to imitate the faculties and actions 
of a man, and to impose a perpetual illusion on the senses 
of his friends and enemies. Articulate sounds vibrated on 

10 Apostolis adhuc in seculo superstitibus, apud Judaeam Christi sanguine 
recente, Phantasma domini corpus asserebatur. Hieronym. adv. Lucifer, c. 8. 
The epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, and even the Gospel according to 
St. John, are leveled against the growing error of the Docetes, who had obtained 
too much credit in the world, (1 John. iv. 1-5.) 

11 About the year 200 of the Christian era, Irenasus and Hippolytus refuted the 
thirty-two sects, rr/Q ipevduvvuov yvuaeug, which had multiplied to fourscore 
in the time of Epiphanius {Phot. Biblioth. cod. cxx. cxxi. cxxii). The five books 
of Irenaeus exist only in barbarous Latin ; but the original might perhaps be 
found in some monastery of Greece.* 

* It is very doubtful whether there ever was a Greek original of them. The 
opinion of Erasmus, that they were written in Latin, although generally dissented 
from, is highlv probable. They were designed by Irenaeus to check the progress 
of Gnosticism in the Western provinces, where it had been introduced by Valen- 
tine, when he visited Rome, and against whom all the arguments are particularly 
directed. If Irenaenus had addressed the Christians around him in Greek, not 
one in a thousand would have understood him, nor could his work have made 
the impression which it is said to have produced in his diocese. Its " barbarous 
" Latin " is what might have been expected from a Greek, who had learned it at 
Lyons; and the apology, in his preface, for the inaccuracies of a style, formed 
amid so rude a population, would never have been applied by him to a com- 
position in his mother-tongue, which he had acquired in all its purity by a 
careful Ionian education, Fragments of letters in Greek, to some of his friends, 
prove nothing ; and the passages in the books Adv. Hcer. which are used by 
Eusebius and others, were, no doubt, translated by them.— Eng Ch. 



636 SYSTEM OF THE DOCETES. 

the ears of the disciples ; but the image, which was impressed 
on their optic nerve, eluded the more stubborn evidence of 
the touch; and they enjoyed the spiritual, not the corporeal, 
presence of the Son of God. The rage of the Jews was idly 
wasted against an impassive phantom ; and the mystic scenes 
of the passion and death, the resurrection and ascension of 
Christ, were represented on the theatre of Jerusalem for the 
benefit of mankind. If it were urged, that such ideal mimicry, 
such incessant deception, was unworthy of the God of truth, 
the Docetes agreed with too many of their orthodox brethren 
in the justification of pious falsehood. In the system of the 
Gnostics, the Jehovah of Israel, the Creator of this lower 
world, was a rebellious, or at least an ignorant, spirit. The 
Son of God descended upon earth to abolish his temple 
and his law ; and, for the accomplishment of this salutary 
end, he dexterously transferred to his own person the hope 
and prediction of a temporal Messiah. 

His incor- One of the most subtle disputants of the 

ruptibie body. Manichsean school, has pressed the danger and 
indecency of supposing, that the God of the Christians, in 
the state of a human foetus, emerged at the end of nine 
months from a female womb. . The pious horror of his 
antagonists provoked them to disclaim all sensual circum- 
stances of conception and delivery ; to maintain, that the 
divinity passed through Mary like a sun-beam through a 
plate of glass ; and to assert, that the seal of her virginity 
remained unbroken even at the moment when she became 
the mother of Christ. But the rashness of these concessions 
has encouraged a milder sentiment of those of the Docetes, 
who taught, not that Christ was a phantom, but that he was 
clothed with an impassible and incorruptible body. Such, 
indeed, in the more orthodox system, he has acquired 
since his resurrection, and such he must have always 
possessed, if it were capable of pervading, without resistance 
or injury, the density of intermediate matter. Devoid of 
its most essential properties, it might be exempt from the 
attributes and infirmities of the flesh. A foetus that could 
increase from an invisible point to its full maturity ; a child, 
that could attain the stature of perfect manhood, without 
deriving any nourishment from the ordinary sources, might 
continue to exist without repairing a daily waste by a daily 
supply of external matter. Jesus might share the repasts 
of his disciples without being subject to the calls of thirst 
or hunger ; and his virgin purity was never sullied by the 



THE ANTHROPOMORPHITES. 637 

involuntary stains of sensual concupiscence. Of a body- 
thus singularly constituted, a question would arise, by 
what means, and of what materials, it was originally framed ; 
and our sounder theology is startled by an answer which 
was not peculiar to the Gnostics, that both the form and 
the substance proceeded from the divine essence. The idea 
of pure and absolute spirit is a refinement of modern 
philosophy : the incorporeal essence, ascribed by the ancients 
to human souls, celestial beings, and even the Deity him- 
self, does not exclude the notion of extended space ; and 
their imagination was satisfied with a subtle nature of air, 
or fire, or aether, incomparably more perfect than the 
grossness of the material world. If we define the place, we 
must describe the figure of the Deity. Our experience, 
perhaps our vanity, represents the powers of reason and 
virtue under a human form. The Anthropomorphites, who 
swarmed among the monks of Egypt and the Catholics of 
Africa, could produce the express declaration of Scripture, 
that man was made after the image of his Creator. 12 The 
venerable Serapion, one of the saints of the Nitrian desert, 
relinquished, with many a tear, his darling prejudice ; and 
bewailed, like an infant, his unlucky conversion, which had 
stolen away his God, and left his mind without any visible 
object of faith or devotion. 13 

III. Such were the fleeting shadows of the m Double 
Docetes. A more substantial, though less simple, nature of 
hypothesis, was contrived by Cerinthus of Asia, 14 Cennthu3 - 
who dared to oppose the last of the apostles. Placed on 
the confines of the Jewish and Gentile world, he labored to 

12 The pilgrim Cassian, who visited Egypt in the beginning of the fifth century, 
observes and laments the reign of anthropomorphism among the monks, who 
were not conscious that they embraced the system of Epicurus, (Cicero, de Nat. 
Deorum, i. 18, 34). Ab universo propemodum genere monachorum, qui per 
totam provinciam Egyptura morabantur, pro simplicitatis errore susceptum est, 
ut e contrario memoratum pontificem {Theopkilus) velut hseresi gravissima 
depravatum, pars maxima seniorum ab universo fraternitatis corpore decerneret 
detestandum. (Cassian, Collation, x. 2.) As long as St. Augustin remained a 
Manichaean, he was scandalized by the anthropomorphism of the vulgar Catholics. 

is Ita est in oratione senex mente confusus, eo quod illam dvdpco-ouop$9V 
imagiuem Deitatis, quam proponere sibi in oratione consueverat, aboleri de suo 
corde sentiret, ut in amarissimos fletus, crebrosque singultus repente prorumpens, 
in terram prostratus, cum ejulatu validissimo proclamaret ; " Heu me miserum ! 
" tulerunt a me Deum meum, et quern nunc teneam nonhabeo, vel quem adorem, 
" aut interpellam jam nescio." Cassian. Collat. x. 2. 

I* St. John and Cerinthus, (a. d. So. Cleric. Hist. Eccles p. 493), accidentally 
met in the public bath of Ephesus ; but the apostle fled from the heretic, lest the 
building should tumble on their heads. This foolish story, reprobated bv Dr. 
Middleton, (Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii.), is related, however, by Irenaeus, (iii. 
3). on the evidence of Polycarp, aud was probably suited to the time and resi- 
dence of Cerinthus. The obsolete, yet probably the true reading of/ yohn.iv. 3 — 
6 ?.vec rov '1t]Govv — alludes to the double nature of that primitive heretic* 

* Griesbach asserts that all the Greek MSS.. all the translators, and all"the 
Greek fathers, support the common reading.— Nov. Test, in loc— Milman. 



638 DOCTRINE OF CERINTHUS. 

reconcile the Gnostic with the Ebionite, by confessing in 
the same Messiah the supernatural union of a man and a 
God : and this mystic doctrine was adopted with many 
fanciful improvements by Carpocrates, Basilides, and Valen- 
tine, 15 the heretics of the Egyptian school. In their eyes, 
Jesus of Nazareth was a mere mortal, the legitimate son 
of Joseph and Mary : but he was the best and wisest of the 
human race, selected as the worthy instrument to restore 
upon earth the worship of the true and supreme Deity. 
When he was baptized in the Jordan, the Christ, the first 
of the aeons, the Son of God himself, descended on Jesus 
in the form of a dove, to inhabit his mind and direct his 
actions, during the allotted period of his ministry. When 
the Messiah was delivered into the hands of the Jews, the 
Christ, an immortal and impassible being, forsook his 
earthly tabernacle, flew back to the pleroma, or world of 
spirits, and left the solitary Jesus to suffer, to complain, 
and to expire. But the justice and generosity of such a 
desertion are strongly questionable; and the fate of an 
innocent martyr, at first impelled, and at length abandoned, 
by his divine companion, might provoke the pity and 
indignation of the profane. Their murmurs were variously 
silenced by the sectaries who espoused and modified the 
double system of Cerinthus. It was alleged, that when 
Jesus was nailed to the cross, he was endowed with a 
miraculous apathy of mind and body, which rendered him 
insensible of his apparent sufferings. It was affirmed, that 
these momentary, though real pangs, would be abundantly 
repaid by the temporal reign of a thousand years reserved 
for the Messiah in his kingdom of the new Jerusalem. It 
was insinuated, that if he suffered, he deserved to suffer; 
that human nature is never absolutely perfect ; and that the 
cross and passion might serve to expiate the venial trans- 
gressions of the son of Joseph, before his mysterious union 
with the Son of God. 16 

15 The Valentinians embraced a complex, and almost incoherent, system. 
— 1. Both Christ and Jesus were aeons, though of different degrees ; the one acting 
as the rational soul, the other as the divine spirit, of the Savior. 2. At the time 
of the passion, they both retired, and left only a sensitive soul and a human body. 
3. Even that body was ethereal and perhaps apparent. — Such are the laborious 
conclusions of Mosheim. But I much doubt whether the Latin translator under- 
stood Irenasus, and whether Irenaeus and the Valentinians understood themselves. 

16 The heretics abused the passionate exclamation of " My God, my God, why 
" hast thou forsaken me ? " Rousseau, who has drawn an eloquent, but indecent, 
parallel between Christ and Socrates, forgets that not a word of impatience or 
despair escaped from the mouth of the dying philosopher. In the Messiah, such 
sentiments could only be apparent ; and such ill-sounding words are properly- 
explained as the application of a psalm and prophecy.* 

* See IngersoWs Interviews on Talmage, p. 443, for an impressive application 
of this text.— E. 



INCARNATION OF AN ^EON. 639 

IV. All those who believe the immateriality 
of the soul, a specious and noble tenet, must g^SkX of 
confess, from their present experience, the incom- Apoiimaris. 
prehensible union of mind and matter. A similar 
union is not inconsistent with a much higher, or even with 
the highest, degree of mental faculties ; and the incarnation 
of an aeon or arch -angel, the most perfect of created spirits, 
does not involve any positive contradiction or absurdity. 
In the age of religious freedom, which was determined by 
the council of Nice, the dignity of Christ was measured by 
private judgment, according to the indefinite rule of Scrip- 
ture, or reason, or tradition. But when his pure and proper 
divinity had been established on the ruins of Arianism, the 
faith of the Catholics trembled on the edge of a precipice, 
where it was impossible to recede, dangerous to stand, 
dreadful to fall ; and the manifold inconveniences of their 
creed were aggravated by the sublime character of their 
theology. They hesitated to pronounce ; that God himself, 
the second person of an equal and consubstantial trinity, 
was manifested in the flesh ; 17 that a being who pervades 

l" This strong expression might be justified by the language of St. Paul, (r Tim. 
iii. 16); but we are deceived by our modern Bibles. The word b * which) % was 
altered to &eoc (God ) at Constantinople in the beginning of the sixth century : 
the true reading, which is visible in the Latin and Syriac versions, still exists in 
the reasoning of the Greek, as well as of the Latin fathers ; and this fraud, with 
that of the three witnesses of St. John, is admirably detected by Sir Isaac Newton. 
(See his two letters translated by M. de Missy, in the Journal Britannique, torn, 
xv. pp. 148-190, 351-390.) I have weighed the arguments, and may yield to the 
authority of the first of philosophers, who was deeply skilled in critical and theo- 
logical studies. — 

* It should be of- Griesbach in loc. The weight of authority is so much 
against the common reading on both these points, that they are no longer urged 
by prudent controversialists. Would Gibbon's deference for the first of philoso- 
phers have extended to all his theological conclusions? — Milman.t 

t Sir Isaac Newton detected and exposed a pious fraud in the translation of the 
New Testament, and Edward Gibbon worthily seconded his efforts in ex- 
posing the falsehood. For this service, they deserve the thanks of every 
friend of truth ; and if Dean Milman, the learned Prebendary of St. Peter's, and 
Rector of St. Margaret's, Westminster, was not willing to assist in this good 
work, it would have been greatly to his credit to have observed the dignified 
silence of the English Churchman, and not to have betrayed his annoyance by 
this puerile question. — E. 

t The revisers of the New Testament have substituted in the place of " which," 
the words " He who," and the text now reads in the Revised Version, " He who 
" was manifested in the flesh," instead of the Trinitarian formula of the King 
James' version, " God was manifest in the flesh." 

The word " fraud," which Gibbon here applies to the zealous Christians of the 
sixth century, who did not scruole to commie the outrageous crime of falsifying 
the Scriptures, is fully justified by the facts; and the learned editors of the' old 
King James' version who adopted the corrupted text, and the religious teachers 
and preachers who succeeded them and have not protested against the fraud, 
and the Christian scholars of to-day, who still print, and circulate, and uphold this 
King J antes' Bible, knowing it to be tainted with positive error, are as guilty as 
the first zealots of Constantinople who consummated the iniquity. Let us hope 
that all bible publishers and zealous Christians may yet realize,' that it is wiser 
and nobler to publish the truth than to uphold established errors, and that it is 
incomparably better that even the Arian doctrine of the Unity of God should 



640 



DOCTRINE OF APOLLINARIS. 



the universe had been confined in the womb of Mary ; that his 
eternal duration had been marked by the days, and months, 
and years, of human existence ; that the Almighty had been 
scourged and crucified ; that his impassible essence had 
felt pain and anguish ; that his omniscience was not exempt 
from ignorance ; and that the source of life and immortality 
expired on Mount Calvary.* These alarming consequences 
were affirmed with unblushing simplicity by Apollinaris, 18 
bishop of Laodicea, and one of the luminaries of the church. 
The son of a learned grammarian, he was skilled in all the 
sciences of Greece ; eloquence, erudition, and philosophy, 
conspicuous in the volumes of Apollinaris, were humbly 
devoted to the service of religion. The worthy friend of 
Athanasius, the worthy antagonist of Julian, he bravely 
wrestled with the Arians and polytheists, and, though he 
affected the rigor of geometrical demonstration, his com- 
mentaries revealed the literal and allegorical sense of the 
Scriptures. A mystery, which had long floated in the 
looseness of popular belief, was defined by his perverse 

is For Apollinaris and his sect, see Socrates, 1. ii, c. 46, 1. iii. c. 16. Sozomen,* 
I. v. c. iS, 1. vi. c. 25, 27. Theodoret. 1. v. 3, 10, 11. Tillemont, Mi mo ires Ecclesi- 
astiques, torn. vii. pp. 602-638. Not. pp. 789-794, in 4to., Venise, 1732. The con- 
temporary saints always mention the bishop of Laodicea as a friend and brother. 
The style of the more recent historians is harsh and hostile; yet Philostorgius 
compares him, (1. viii. c. 11-15) to Basil and Gregory.! 

prevail, than that the orthodox Trinitarian dogma of the Incarnation should be 
upheld by fraud and forgery. 

With some noble exceptions, clergymen are prone to conceal errors and to 
condone frauds, if the errors are contained in their creeds, and if the frauds 
are published as the word of God. How seldom do we hear these reverend men 
denounce St. Paul for lying for " the truth of God." as he boldly claimed to have 
done, {Rom. iii. 7). How seldom do we hear them denounce the interpolations 
in the Scriptures, with which every scholar is familiar, and by which the great 
mass of believers are deceived. Even the revisers of the New Testament treat 
these errors tenderly and cautiously, fearful " lest they should give offence." 
Dr. Roberts, the pious and learned editor of the Companion to the Revised Version, 
denounces in the daintiest language the gravest offences. Observe his arraign- 
ment of the illustrious Erasmus, who edited one of the first editions of the Greek 
Nezv Testament, and the reader will understand the force ot the Weaver's remark 
in Midsummer -Night ' s Dream : 

" I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove." 
After stating that Erasmus, for want of documentary materials, had recourse 
to the Latin Vulgate, and had " conjecturally re-translated the Latin into 
'' Greek." Dr. Roberts continues, (p. 41, Companion to the Revised Version) : 
' Hence has arisen the remarkable fact that in the text from which our Authorized 
' Version was formed, and in the ordinary uncritical editions of the Greek cur- 
' rent at the present day, there were, and are, words in the professed original 
' for which no Divine authority can be pleaded, but which are entirely due to the 
' learning and imagination of Erasmus," 

Thus we are indebted to the "learning and imagination of Erasmus" for at 
least a portion of the sacred Scriptures, and how much of the remaining portion 
of that great work we are indebted for to the learning and imagination of other 
parties, it would be hazardous to conjecture. — E. 

* This passage deserves a careful perusal by Trinitarians. The Unitarian 
doctrine is more rational. — E. 

t Neander, {Hist, of Christ. 4. pp. 9S-106), has given an elaborate summary of 
the opinions of Apollinaris, usefully tracing the first form of those abtruse specu- 
lations which were perverted to such evil ends.— Eng. Ch. 



INCARNATE NATURE OF CHRIST. 641 

diligence in a technical form ; and he first proclaimed the 
memorable words, " One incarnate nature of Christ," which 
are still re-echoed with hostile clamors in the churches of 
Asia, Egypt, and Ethiopia. He taught that the Godhead 
was united or mingled with the body of a man ; and that 
the Logos, the eternal wisdom, supplied in the flesh the 
place and office of a human soul. Yet as the profound 
doctor had been terrified at his own rashness, Apollinaris 
was heard to mutter some faint accents of excuse and 
explanation. He acquiesced in the old distinction of the 
Greek philosophers, between the rational and sensitive soul 
of man, that he might reserve the Logos for intellectual 
functions, and employ the subordinate human principle in 
the meaner actions of animal life. With the moderate 
Docetes, he revered Mary as the spiritual, rather than as the 
carnal, mother of Christ, whose body either came from 
heaven, impassible and incorruptible, or was absorbed, and 
as it were transformed, into the essence of the Deity. The 
system of Apollinaris was strenuously encountered by the 
Asiatic and Syrian divines, whose schools are honored by 
the names of Basil, Gregory, and Chrysostom, and tainted 
by those of Diodorus, Theodore, and Nestorius. But the 
person of the aged bishop of Laodicea, his character and 
dignity, remained inviolate ; and his rivals, since we may 
not suspect them of the weakness of toleration, were 
astonished, perhaps, by the novelty of the argument, and 
diffident of the final sentence of the Catholic church. Her 
judgment at length inclined in their favor ; the heresy of 
Apollinaris was condemned, and the separate congregations 
of his disciples were proscribed by the imperial laws. But 
his principles were secretly entertained in the monasteries 
of Egypt, and his enemies felt the hatred of Theophilus and 
Cyril, the successive patriarchs of Alexandria. 

V. The groveling Ebionite, and the fantastic orthodox 
Docetes, were rejected and forgotten : the recent consent and 
zeal against the errors of Apollinaris, reduced disputes 
the Catholics to a seeming agreement with the 
double nature of Cerinthus. But, instead of a temporary 
and occasional alliance, they established, and we still 
embrace, the substantial, indissoluble, and everlasting union 
of a perfect God with a perfect man, of the second person 
of the Trinity with a reasonable soul and human flesh. In 
the beginning of the fifth century the unity of the two natures 



642 ORTHODOX VERBAL DISPUTES. 

was the prevailing doctrine of the church. On all sides, it 
was confessed that the mode of their co-existence could 
neither be represented by our ideas, nor expressed by our 
language. Yet a secret and incurable discord was cherished, 
between those who were most apprehensive of confounding, 
and those who were more fearful of separating, the divinity 
and the humanity of Christ. Impelled by religious frenzy, 
they fled with adverse haste from the error which they 
mutually deemed most destructive of truth and salvation. 
On either hand they were anxious to guard, they- were 
jealous to defend, the union and the distinction of the two 
natures, and to invent such forms of speech, such symbols 
of doctrine, as were least susceptible of doubt or ambiguity. 
The poverty of ideas and language tempted them to ransack 
art and nature for every possible comparison, and each 
comparison misled their fancy in the explanation of an 
incomparable mystery. In the polemic microscope, an atom 
is enlarged to a monster, and each party was skillful to 
exaggerate the absurd or impious conclusions that might 
be extorted from the principles of their adversaries. To 
escape from each other, they wandered through many a 
dark and devious thicket, till they were astonished by the 
horrid phantoms of Cerinthus and Apollinaris, who guarded 
the opposite issues of the theological labyrinth. As soon 
as they beheld the twilight of sense and heresy, they started, 
measured back their steps, and were again involved in the 
gloom of impenetrable orthodoxy. To purge themselves 
from the guilt or reproach of damnable error, they disavowed 
their consequences, explained their principles, excused their 
indiscretions, and unanimously pronounced the sounds of 
concord and faith. Yet a latent and almost invisible spark 
still lurked among the embers of controversy ; by the 
breath of prejudice and passion, it was quickly kindled to 
a mighty flame, and the verbal disputes 19 of the oriental 
sects have shaken the pillars of the church and state. 
a. d. 412, The name of Cyril of Alexandria is famous 

a° c d. 444, m controversial story, and the title of saint is a 
June 27. mark that his opinions and his party have finally 

is I appeal to the confession of two Oriental prelates, Gregory Abulpharagius 
the Jacobite primate of the East, and Elias the Nestorian metropolitan of Da- 
mascus (see Asseman. Bibliothec. Oriental, torn. ii. p. 291, torn. iii. p. 514, &c), that 
the Melchites, Jacobites, Nestorians, &c, agree in the doctrine, and differ only 
in the expression. Our most learned and rational divines— Basnage, Le Clerc, 
Beausobre, La Croze, Mosheim. Jablonski — are inclined to favor this charitable 
judgment ; but the zeal of Petavius is loud and angry, and the moderation of 
Dupin is conveyed in a whisper. 



CYRIL PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 643 

prevailed. In the house of his uncle, the archbishop Theo- 
philus, he imbibed the orthodox lessons of zeal and 
dominion, and five years of his youth were profitably spent 
in the adjacent monasteries of Nitria. Under the tuition 
of the abbot Serapion, he applied himself to ecclesiastical 
studies with such indefatigable ardor, that in the Cvril 
course of one sleepless night he has perused the patriarch of 
four Gospels, the Catholic Epistles, and the Alexandna - 
Epistle to the Romans. Origen he detested ; but the 
writings of Clemens and Dionysius, of Athanasius and Basil, 
were continually in his hands : by the theory and practice 
of dispute, his faith was confirmed and his wit was sharpened ; 
he extended round his cell the cobwebs of scholastic 
theology,* and meditated the works of allegory and meta- 
physics, whose remains, in seven verbose folios, now 
peaceably slumber by the side of their rivals. 20 Cyril 
prayed and fasted in the desert, but his thoughts (it is the 
reproach of a friend 21 ) were still fixed on the world ; and 
the call of Theophilus, who summoned him to the tumult 
of cities and synods, was too readily obeyed by the aspiring 
hermit. With the approbation of his uncle he assumed the 
office, and acquired the fame, of a popular preacher. His 
comely person adorned the pulpit, the harmony of his 

20 La Croze, {Hist, du Christianisme des Indes, torn. i. p. 24), avows his con- 
tempt for the genius and writings of Cyril. De tous les ouvrages des anciens il y 
en a peu qu'on lise avec moins d'utilite : and Dupin, {Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, 
torn. iv. pp. 42-52), in words of respect, teaches us to despise them. 

2L Of Isidore of Pelusium, (1. i. epist. 25, p. 8). As the letter is not of the most 
creditable sort, Tillemont, less sincere than the Bollandists, affects a doubt whether 
this Cyril is the nephew of Theophilus, {Mem. Eccles. torn. xiv. p. 268). f 

* Philosophers and laymen cannot expect to entirely comprehend the mystery 
of theology, which is of so intricate and abtruse a nature as to perplex and con- 
fuse the minds of the very elect. No writer of ancient or modern times has 
equaled in interest and vivacity the clearly expressed ideas of M. de Voltaire 
on theological subjects, and his explanations, will please and instruct the ortho- 
dox reader. "The theologian," says the witty Frenchman, " knows perfectly that, 
" according to St. Thomas, angels are corporeal with relation to God ; that the 
" soul receives its being iu the body ; and that man has a vegatative, sensitive, 
•' and intellectual soul. 

" That the soul is all in all, and all in every part. 

" That it is the efficient and formal cause of the body. 

" That it is the greatest in nobleness of form. 

" That the appetite is a passive power. 

" That archangels are the medium between angels and principalities. 

" That baptism regenerates of itself and by chance. 

" That the catechism is not a sacrament but sacramental. 

" That certainty springs from the cause and subject. 

" That concupiscence is the appetite of sensitive delectation. 

" That conscience is an act and not a power. 

" The angel of the schools has written about 4,000 fine pages in this style, and 
" a shaven-crowned young man passes three years in filling his brains with this 
" sublime knowledge, after which he receives the bonnet of a doctor of Sorbonne, 
" instead of going to Bedlam." — E. 

t The character and proceedings of Cyril have already been considered, (ch. 
32, vol. iii. p. 514.— Eng. Ch. 



644 TYRANNY OF CYRIL. 

voice resounded in the cathedral, his friends were stationed 
to lead or second the applause of the congregation, 22 and 
the hasty notes of the scribes preserved his discourses, 
which, in their effect, though not in their composition, 
might be compared with those of the Athenian orators. 
The death of Theophilus expanded and realized the hopes 
of his nephew. The clergy of Alexandria was divided ; the 
soldiers and their general supported the claims of the arch- 
deacon ; but a resistless multitude, with voices and with 
hands, asserted the cause of their favorite ; and, after a 
period of thirty-nine years, Cyril was seated on the throne 
of Athanasius. 2 * 

His tyranny, The prize was not unworthy of his ambition. 
a. b/413, 414. At a distance from the court, and at the head 
of an immense capital, the patriarch, as he was 
now styled, of Alexandria, had gradually usurped the state 
and authority of a civil magistrate. The public and private 
charities of the city were managed by his discretion ; his 
voice inflamed or appeased the passions of the multitude ; 
his commands were blindly obeyed by his numerous and 
fanatic parabolani™ familiarized in their daily office with 
scenes of death ; and the prsefects of Egypt were awed or 
provoked by the temporal power of these Christian pontiffs. 
Ardent in the prosecution of heresy, Cyril auspiciously 
opened his reign by oppressing the Novatians, the most 
innocent and harmless of the sectaries. The interdiction 
of their religious worship appeared in his eyes a just and 
meritorious act ; and he confiscated their holy vessels, 
without apprehending the guilt of sacrilege. The toleration, 
and even the privileges, of the Jews, who had multiplied to 
the number of forty thousand, were secured by the laws of 
the Caesars and Ptolemies, and a long prescription of seven 
hundred years since the foundation of Alexandria. Without 

22 A grammarian is named by Socrates, (1. vii. c. 13), diuTrvpoc 6t aKpoarijc 
tou ercL'jK.oTTOv YLvpi'AAov KaOeaTur, ko.1 nepl to nporovg tv rale diAaoKa/Jiaic 
avrov eyeipeiv ?/v arroi'SacoraToc. 

2" See the youth and promotion of Cyril, in Socrates, (1. vii. c. 7), and Renaudot 
(Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. pp. 106, 10S). The Abbe Renaudot drew his mate- 
rials from the Arabic History of Severus, bishop of Hermopolis Magna, or Ash- 
munein, in the tenth century, who can never be trusted, unless our assent is ex- 
torted by the internal evidence of facts. 

24 The Parabolani of Alexandria were a charitable corporation, instituted 
during the plague of Gallienus, to visit the sick and to bury the dead. They 
gradually enlarged, abused, and sold the privileges of their order. Their out- 
rageous conduct during the reign of Cyril provoked the emperor to deprive the 
patriarch of their nomination, and to restrain their number to five or six hun- 
dred. But these restraints were transient and ineffectual. See the Theodosian 
Code, 1. xvi. tit. ii, and Tillemont, Mem Eccles. torn. xiv. pp. 276-278. 



PLUNDER OF THE ALEXANDRIAN JEWS. 645 

any legal sentence, without any royal mandate, the patriarch, 
at the dawn of day, led a seditious multitude to the attack 
of the synagogues. Unarmed and unprepared, the Jews 
were incapable of resistance ; their houses of prayer were 
leveled with the ground, and the episcopal warrior, after 
rewarding his troops with the plunder of their goods, ex- 
pelled from the city the remnant of the unbelieving nation. 
Perhaps he might plead the insolence of their prosperity, 
and their deadly hatred of the Christians, whose blood they 
had recently shed in a malicious or accidental tumult. Such 
crimes would have deserved the animadversion of the 
magistrate ; but in this promiscuous outrage, the innocent 
were confounded with the guilty, and Alexandria was 
impoverished by the loss of a wealthy and industrious 
colony. The zeal of Cyril exposed him to the penalties of 
the Julian law ; but in a feeble government, and a super- 
stitious age, he was secure of impunity, and even of praise, 
Orestes complained ; but his just complaints were too 
quickly forgotten by the ministers of Theodosius, and too 
deeply remembered by a priest who affected to pardon, 
and continued to hate, the prsefect of Egypt. As he passed 
through the streets, his chariot was assaulted by a band of 
five hundred of the Nitrian monks ; his guards fled from 
the wild beasts of the desert ; his protestations that he was 
a Christian and a Catholic, were answered by a volley of 
stones, and the face of Orestes was covered with blood. 
The loyal citizens of Alexandria hastened to his rescue ; he 
instantly satisfied his justice and revenge against the monk 
by whose hand he had been wounded, and Ammonius 
expired under the rod of the lictor. At the command of 
Cyril his body was raised from the ground, and transported 
in solemn procession to the cathedral ; the name of 
Ammonius was changed to that of Thaumasius the wonder- 
ful; his tomb was decorated with the trophies of martyrdom, 
and the patriarch ascended the pulpit to celebrate the 
magnanimity of an assassin and a rebel. Such honors 
might incite the faithful to combat and die under the 
banners of the saint ; and he soon prompted, or accepted, 
the sacrifice of a virgin, who professed the religion of the 
Greeks, and cultivated the friendship of Orestes. Hypatia, 
the daughter of Theon the mathematician, was initiated in 
her father's studies : her learned comments have elucidated 
the geometry of Apollonius and Diophantus, and she 



646 MURDER OF HYPATIA. 

publicly taught, both at Athens and Alexandria, the 
philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. 25 In the bloom of beauty, 
and in the maturity of wisdom, the modest maid refused 
her lovers and instructed her disciples ; the persons most 
illustrious for their rank or merit were impatient to visit the 
female philosopher ; and Cyril beheld, with a jealous eye, 
the gorgeous train of horses and slaves who crowded the 
door of her academy. A rumor was spread among the 
Christians, that the daughter of Thedn was the only obstacle 
to the reconciliation of the praefect and the archbishop; 
and that obstacle was speedily removed. On a fatal day, 
in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her 
chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and 
inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader, and 
a troop of savage and merciless fanatics : her flesh was 
scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells, 26 and her 
quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The just 
progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by 
seasonable gifts ; but the murder of Hypatia has imprinted 
an indelible stain on the character and religion* of Cyril of 
Alexandria. 27 
Nestorius, Superstition, perhaps, would more gently 
patriarch of expiate the blood of a virgin, than the banish- 
a. d. 428. ment of a saint ; and Cyril had accompanied his 
Apni 10. unc i e to t he iniquitous synod of the Oak. When 
the memory of Chrysostom was restored and consecrated, 
the nephew of Theophilus, at the head of a dying faction, 
still maintained the justice of his sentence; nor was it till 
after a tedious delay and an obstinate resistance, that he 

25 For Theon and his daughter Hypatia, see Fabricius, Bibliothec. torn viii. 
pp. 210, 211. Her article in the Lexicon of Suidas is curious and original. 
Hesychius, {Meursii Opera, torn. vii. pp.295, 296), observes, that she was per- 
secuted Slu T7/v vrrepj3d\?,ovaav ooQiav ; and an epigram in the Greek Anthology 
(1. i c, 76, p. 159, edit. Brodaei), celebrates her knowledge and eloquence. She is 
honorably mentioned, (Epist. 10, 15, 16, 33-80, 124, 135, 153), by her friend and 
disciple the philosophic bishop Synesius.t 

26 'OnrpuKOiQ dvel?iOv, icai [ie7^r]6bv diaoTrueavrer, &c., Oyster shells were 
plentifully strewed on the sea beach before the Caesareum. I may therefore pre- 
fer the literal sense, without rejecting the metaphorical version of tegultr, tiles, 
which is used by M. de Valois. I am ignorant, and the assassins were probably 
regardless, whether their victim was yet alive. 

27 These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by Socrates, (1. vii. c. 13. 14, 15), and 
the most reluctant bigotry is compelled to copy an historian who cooly styles the 
murderers of Hypatia dvdpec to (f>p6v7/jua evOep/uoi. At the mention of that in- 
jured name, I am pleased to observe a blush even on the cheek of Baronius, 
(a. d. 415, No. 48). 

* Was Paganism ever guilty of such barbarism and intolerance ? — E. ' 
f Suidas savs that Hypatia was married to the philosopher Isidorus. Clinton, 
F. R. i 589.— Eng. Ch. 



NESTORIUS, PATRIARCH OF ALEXANDRIA. 647 

yielded to the consent of the Catholic world. 28 His enmity 
to the Byzantine pontiffs 29 was a sense of interest, not a 
sally of passion : he envied their fortunate station in the 
sunshine of the imperial court ; and he dreaded their upstart 
ambition, which oppressed the metropolitans of Europe 
and Asia, invaded the provinces of Antioch and Alexandria, 
and measured their diocese by the limits of the empire. 
The long moderation of Atticus, the mild usurper of the 
throne of Chrysostom, suspended the animosities of the 
Eastern patriarchs ; but Cyril was at length awakened by 
the exaltation of a rival more worthy of his esteem and 
hatred. After the short and troubled reign of Sisinnius, 
bishop of Constantinople, the factions of the clergy and 
people were appeased by the choice of the emperor, who, 
on this occasion, consulted' the voice of fame, and invited 
the merit of a stranger. Nestorius, 30 a native of Germanicia, 
and a monk of Antioch, was recommended by the austerity 
of his life, and the eloquence of his sermons ; but the first 
homily which he preached before the devout Theodosius 
betrayed the acrimony and impatience of his zeal. " Give 
" me, O Caesar ! " he exclaimed, " give me the earth purged 
" of heretics, and I will give you in exchange the kingdom 
" of heaven. Exterminate with me, the heretics ; and with 
" you, I will exterminate the Persians." On the fifth day, 
as if the treaty had been already signed, the patriarch of 
Constantinople discovered, surprised, and attacked, a secret 
conventicle of the Arians : they preferred death to sub- 
mission ; the flames that were kindled by their despair, 
soon spread to the neighboring houses, and the triumph 
of Nestorius was clouded by the name of incendiary. On 
either side of the Hellespont, his episcopal vigor imposed 
a rigid formulary of faith and discipline ; a chronological 
error concerning the festival of Easter was punished as an 
offence against the church and state. Lydia and Caria, 

as He was deaf to the entreaties of Atticus of 'Constantinople, and of Isidore 
of Pelusium, and yielded only (if we may believe Nicephorus, 1. xiv. c. 18), to the 
personal intercession of the Virgin. Yet in his last years he still muttered, that 
John Chrysostom had been justly condemned, (Tillemont, Mem Eccles. torn. xiv. 
pp. 278-282. Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A. D. 412, No. 46-64).* 

2a See their characters in the history of Socrates, (1. vii. c. 25-28) ; their power 
and pretensions, in the huge compilation of Thomassin, {Discipline de r Eglise, 
torn. i. pp. 80-91). 

so His elevation and conduct are described by Socrates, (1. vii. c. 29, 31) : and 
Marcellinus seems to have applied the eloquentiae satis, sapientiae parum, of 
Sallust. 

* For the synod of the Oak and the fate of Chrysostom, see ch. 32, vol. iii, p. 505. 
—English Churchman. 



648 HERESY OF NESTORIUS. 

Sardes and Miletus, were punned with the blood of the obsti- 
nate Quartodecimans ; and the edict of the emperor, or rather 
of the patriarch, enumerates three and twenty degrees and 
denominations in the guilt and punishment of heresy. 31 But 
the sword of persecution which Nestorius so furiously wielded 
was soon turned against his own breast Religion was the 
pretence ; but, in the judgment of a contemporary saint, 
ambition was the genuine motive of episcopal warfare. 32 

In the Syrian school, Nestorius had been 
A H D. h 4 e 2^43i. taught to abhor the confusion of the two natures, 
and nicely to discriminate the humanity of his 
master Christ from the divinity of the Lord Jesus. 33 The 
Blessed Virgin he revered as the mother of Christ, but his 
ears were offended with the rash and recent title of mother 
of God, 31 which had been insensibly adopted since the 
origin of the Arian controversy. From the pulpit of Con- 
stantinople, a friend of the patriarch, and afterwards the 
patriarch himself, repeatedly preached against the use, or 
the abuse, of a word 35 unknown to the apostles, unauthorized 

31 Cod. Theodos. 1. xvi. tit. v. leg. 65, with the illustrations of Baronius, (a. d. 
42S, No. 25, &c), Godefroy, (ad locum , and Pagi, {Critica, torn. ii. p. 208). 

82 Isidore of Pelusium, (1. iv. Epist. 57). His words are strong and scandalous 
— tl davudZeic, ei icai vvv irepi Trpuyfia delov kcli yoyov Kpeirrov diatyuvelv 
npoanoiovvraL v~b <pi?.apxtac eK)3anxev6fievGi. Isidore is a saint, but he never 
became a bishop ; and I half suspect that the pride of Diogenes trampled on the 
pride of Plato.* 

33 La Croze, ( Christianisme des hides, torn. i. pp. 44-53. Thesaurus Epistolicus, 
{La Crozianus, torn. iii. pp. 276-280), has detected the use of 6 deoTorrjc and 
o KVpior Irjrsovc, which, in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, discriminates 
the school of Diodorus of Tarsus and his Nestorian disciples. 

34 'QeoTnnor—Deipara ; as in zoology, we familiarly speak of oviparous and 
viviparous animals. It is not easy to fix the invention of this word, which 
La Croze, {Christianisme des fades, torn. i. p. 16), ascribes to Eusebius of Caesarea 
and the Arians. The orthodox testimonies are produced by Cyril and Petavius 
{Dogmat. Theolog. torn. v. 1. v. c. 15, p. 254, &c.) ; but the veracity of the saint is 
questionable, and the epithet of deoTOKOC so easily slides from the margin to the 
text of a Catholic MS. 

3"> Basnage, in his Histoire de VEglise, a work of controversy, (torn. i. p. 505), 
justifies the mother, by the blood, of God, {Acts, xx. 28, with Mill's various read- 
ings). But the Greek MSS. are far from unanimous ; and the primitive style of 
the blood of Christ is preserved in the Syriac version, even in those copies which 
were used by the Christians of St. Thomas on the coast of Malabar. (La Croze, 
Christianisme des Indes, torn. i. p. 347). The jealousy of the Nestorians and 
Monophysites has guarded the purity of their text. 

* Isidore was an abbot. He wisely kept aloof from the turmoil around him, 
but from his retreat he observed it calmy and stated his sentiments franklv to all 
parties. These were always expressed in the private communications of letters, of 
which he is said to have written ten thousand; twelve hundred have been Dre- 
served. In one of these, (1. 2, ep. 127), he even imputed to Cyril the sale* of 
bishoprics. Had he aspired to episcopal power, and spoken in svnods and coun- 
cils, as he wrote in his correspondence, he would have been the object of furious 
Eersecution. By his fearless censures, he incurred the hostility of Eusebius, 
ishop of Pelusium, and the presbyter Zosimus, from whom he had much to en- 
dure (1. 2, ep. 22) ; and some wanted to render him odious as a follower of Origen. 
But never having been a public accuser or dangerous competitor, he escaped the 
anger of celestial minds."— Eng. Ch. 



CYRIL DENOUNCES NESTORIUS. 649 

by the church, and which could only tend to alarm the 
timorous, to mislead the simple, to amuse the profane, and 
to justify, by a seeming" resemblance, the old genealogy of 
Olympus. 36 In his calmer moments Nestorius confessed, 
that it might be tolerated or excused by the union of the 
two natures, and the communication of their idioms :^ but 
he was exasperated, by contradiction, to disclaim the 
worship of a new-born, an infant Deity, to draw his 
inadequate similes from the conjugal or civil partnerships 
of life, and to describe the manhood of Christ as the robe, 
the instrument, the tabernacle of his Godhead. At these 
blasphemous sounds, the pillars of the sanctuary were 
shaken. The unsuccessful competitors of Nestorius indulged 
their pious or personal resentment, the Byzantine clergy 
were secretly displeased with the intrusion of a stranger : 
whatever is superstitious or absurd, might claim the pro- 
tection of the monks ; and the people were interested in 
the glory of their virgin patroness. 38 The sermons of the 
archbishop, and the service of the altar, were disturbed by 
seditious clamor; his authority and doctrine were renounced 
by separate congregations ; every wind scattered round the 
empire the leaves of controversy; and the voice of the 
combatants on a sonorous theatre re-echoed in the cells of 
Palestine and Egypt. It was the duty of Cyril to enlighten 
the zeal and ignorance of his innumerable monks : in the 
school of Alexandria, he had imbibed and professed the 
incarnation of one nature ; and the successor of Athanasius 
consulted his pride and ambition, when he rose in arms 
against another Arius, more formidable and more guilty, 
on the second throne of the hierarchy. After a short 
correspondence, in which the rival prelates disguised their 
hatred in the hollow language of respect and charity, the 
patriarch of Alexandria denounced to the prince and 
people, to the East and to the West, the damnable errors 

36 The Pagans of Egypt already laughed at the new Cybele of the Christians,* 
{Isidor. 1. i. epist. 54), a letter was forged in the name of'Hypatia, to ridicule the 
theology of her assassin, (Synodicon, c. 216, in iv. torn. Concil. p. 484) In the 
article of Nestorius, Bayle has scattered some loose philosophy on the worship 
of the Virgin Mary. 

37 The avrVkoatq of the Greeks, a mutual loan or transfer of the idioms or 
properties of each nature to the other— of infinity to man, passibility to God, &c. 
Twelve rules on this nicest of subjects compose the Tlieological Grammar of 
Petavius, (Dogmat. Theolog. torn. v. 1. iv. c. 14, 15, p. 209, &c.) 

38 See Ducange, C. P. Christiana, 1. i. p. 30, &c. 

* The reader will remember the remark of Ammonius Saccus, (the teacher of 
Origen,) who, in the second century, taught "that Christianity and Paganism, 
" when rightly understood, differed in no essential points, but had a common 
" origin, and really were one and the same religion."— E. 



650 FIRST COL^CIL OF EPHESUS. 

of the Byzantine pontiff. From the East, more especially 
from Antioch, he obtained the ambiguous counsels of 
toleration and silence, which were addressed to both parties 
while they favored the cause of Nestorius. But the Vatican 
received with open arms the messengers of Egypt. The 
vanity of Celestine was flattered by the appeal ; and the 
partial version of a monk decided the faith of the pope, 
who, with his Latin clergy, was ignorant of the language, 
the arts, and the theology of the Greeks. At the head of 
an Italian synod, Celestine weighed the merits of the cause, 
approved the creed of Cyril, condemned the sentiments and 
person of Nestorius, degraded the heretic from his episcopal 
dignity, allowed a respite of ten days for recantation and 
penance, and delegated to his enemy the execution of this 
rash and illegal sentence. But the patriarch of Alexandria, 
whilst he darted the thunders of a god, exposed the errors 
and passions of a mortal ; and his twelve anathemas 39 still 
torture the orthodox slaves, who adore the memory of 
a saint, without forfeiting their allegiance to the synod of 
Chalcedon. These bold assertions are indelibly tinged 
with the colors of the Apollinarian heresy; but the serious, 
and perhaps the sincere, professions of Nestorius have 
satisfied the wiser and less partial theologians of the 
present times. 40 

Yet neither the emperor nor the primate of 
o^Ephesus! the East were disposed to obey the mandate of 
t A ' R' f 3 l' an Italian priest ; and a synod of the Catholic, 

June-October. f _ > , . J . . ' 

or rather of the Greek, church was unanimously 
demanded, as the sole remedy that could appease or decide 
this ecclesiastical quarrel. 41 Ephesus, on all sides accessible 
by sea and land, was chosen for the place, the festival of 
Pentecost for the day, of the meeting ; a writ of summons 
was despatched to each metropolitan, and a guard was 

39 Concil. torn. iii. p. 943. They have never been directly approved by the 
church, (Tillemont, Mem Eccles. torn. xiv. pp. 36S-372). I almost pity the agony 
of rage and sophistry with which Petavius seems to be agitated in the sixth book 
of his Dogmata Theologica. 

40 Such as the rational Basnage, (ad torn. i. Variar. Lection. Canisii in Prafat. 
c. 2, pp. 11-23), an d La Croze, the universal scholar, Christianismed.es Indes, torn. 
i. pp. 16-20. De T Ethiopie, pp. 26-27. Thesaur. Epist. p. 176. &c, 283, 285). His 
free sentence is confirmed by that of his friends Jablonski, ( Thesaur. Epist. torn. 
i. pp. 193-201) and Mosheim, (idem, p. 304. Nestorium crimine caruisse est et mea 
sententia) ; and three more respectable judges will not easily be found. Asseman, 
a learned and modest slave, can hardly discern, {Bibliothec Orient, torn. iv. pp. 
190-224) theguiltand error of the Nestorians. 

. 4i The origin and progress of the N^storian controversy, till the synod of 
Epfiesus, may be found in Socrates. (1. vii. c. 32), Evagrius, (1. i. c. 1, 2), Liberatns 
(Brew c. 1-4), the original Acts, (Concil. torn. iii. pp. 551-991, edit. Venise, 1728), 
the A:mals of Baronius and Pagi, and the faithful collections of Tillemont, {Mint. 
Eccles. torn. xiv. pp. 283-377;. 



FIRST COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 65 1 

stationed to protect and confine the fathers till they should 
settle the mysteries of heaven, and the faith of the earth. 
Nestorius appeared, not as a criminal, but as a judge ; he 
depended on the weight rather than the number of his 
prelates, and his sturdy slaves from the baths of Zeauxippus, 
were armed for every service of injury or defence. But his 
adversary Cyril was more powerful in the weapons both 
of the flesh and of the spirit. Disobedient to the letter, or 
at least to the meaning, of the royal summons, he was 
attended by fifty Egyptian bishops, who expected from 
their patriarch's nod the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. He 
had contracted an intimate alliance with Memnon, bishop 
of Ephesus. The despotic primate of Asia disposed of the 
ready succors of thirty or forty episcopal votes ; a crowd 
of peasants, the slaves of the church, was poured into the 
' city to support with blows and clamors a metaphysical 
argument ; and the people zealously asserted the honor of 
the Virgin, whose body reposed within the walls of 
Ephesus. 42 The fleet, which had transported Cyril from 
Alexandria, was laden with the riches of Egypt : and he 
disembarked a numerous body of mariners, slaves, and 
fanatics, enlisted with blind obedience under the banner of 
St. Mark and the mother of God. The fathers, and even 
the guards, of the council were awed by this martial array; 
the adversaries of Cyril and Mary were insulted in the 
streets, or threatened in their houses ; his eloquence and 
liberality made a daily increase in the number of his 
adherents ; and the Egyptian soon computed that he might 
command the attendance and the voices of two hundred 
bishops. 43 But the author of the twelve anathemas foresaw 
and dreaded the opposition of John of Antioch, who, with 
a small, though respectable, train of metropolitans and 
divines, was advancing by slow journeys from the distant 
capital of the East. Impatient of a delay, which he 
stigmatized as voluntary and culpable, 44 Cyril announced 

42 The Christians of the four first centuries were ignorant of the death and 
burial of Mary. The tradition of Ephesus is affirmed by the synod, evda 6 
SeoXoyot; 'loavvris, nal f) Ssotokoc ■KapOkvoq 1) ayia Mapia. Condi, torn. iii. 
p. 1102), yet it has been superseded by the claim of Jerusalem; and her empty 
sepulchre, as it was shown to the pilgrims, produced the fable of her resurrection 
and assumption, in which the Greek and Latin churches have piously acquiesced. 
See Baronius, (Annul. Eccles. A. d. 48, No. 6, &c), and Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. 
torn, i, p. 467-477). 

43 The Acts of Chalcedon, (Concil. torn. iv. pp. 1405, 1408), exhibit a lively pic- 
ture of the blind, obstinate servitude of the bishops of Egypt to their patriarch. 

« Civil or ecclesiastic business detained the bishops at Antioch till the 18th 
of May. Ephesus was at the distance of thirty days' journey ; and ten days more 
may be fairly allowed for accidents and repose. The march of Xenophon over 



652 CONDEMNATION OF NESTORIUS. 

the opening of the synod sixteen days after the festival of 
Pentecost. Nestorius, who depended on the near approach 
of his Eastern friends, persisted, like his predecessor 
Chrysostom, to disclaim the jurisdiction, and to disobey 
the summons, of his enemies : they hastened his trial, and 
his accuser presided in the seat of judgment. Sixty-eight 
bishops, twenty-two of metropolitan rank, defended his 
cause by a modest and temperate protest : they were 
excluded from the councils of their brethren. Candidian, 
in the emperor's name, requested a delay of four days : the 
Condemnation P ro ^ ane magistrate was driven with outrage and 
ofNestorius, insult from the assembly of the saints. The 

June 2: whole of this momentous transaction was 
crowded into the compass of a summer's day : the bishops 
delivered their separate opinions; but the uniformity of 
style reveals the influence or the hand of a master, who has 
been accused of corrupting the public evidence of their 
acts and subscriptions. 45 Without a dissenting voice, they 
recognized in the epistles of Cyril, the Nicene creed and 
the doctrine of the fathers : but the partial extracts from 
the letters and homilies of Nestorius were interrupted by 
curses and anathemas ; and the heretic was degraded from 
his episcopal and ecclesiastical dignity. The sentence, 
maliciously inscribed to the new Judas, was affixed and 
proclaimed in the streets of Ephesus : the weary prelates, 
as they issued from the church of the mother of God, were 
saluted as her champions : and her victory was celebrated 
by the illuminations, the songs, and the tumult of the night. 
. . On the fifth day, the triumph was clouded by 

P of the 0n the arrival and indignation of the Eastern 

juneT^&c bishops- In a chamber of the inn, before he had 

wiped the dust from his shoes, John of Antioch 

the same ground enumerates above 260 parasangs or leagues ; and this measure 
might be illustrated from ancient and modern itineraries, if I knew how to com- 
pare the speed of an army, a synod, and a caravan. John of Antioch is reluct- 
antly acquitted by Tillemont himself, {Mem. Eccles. torn. xiv. pp. 386-389).* 

45 M.e/j,<p5/j.evov ur/ Kara to deov tu ev 'E^iaot ovvredi/vai v7rovv7jfiara, 
navovpyia 61 nat tlvi udeanu KaivoTopua KvpiXXov TF.xvd^ovror. Evagrius, 
1. i. c. 7. The same imputation was urged by count Irenaeus, (torn. iii. p. 1249), and 
the orthodox critics do not find it an easy task to defend the purity of the Greek or 
Latin copies of the Acts. 

* The boldness with which Cyril carried his measures at the council of 
Ephesus, is well exhibited by Neander, {Hist, of Chris. 4. 151-169). His " arbitrary 
" and illegal conduct had created an impression very unfavorable to him in the 
" imperial court at Constantinople." This caused his summons to be accom- 
panied by the special letter to which Gibbon has alluded, and which Neander 
says, " was drawn up with more good sense than could have been expected from 
" Theodosius, and we can scarcely be mistaken in supposing that it was dictated 
" by a wiser bead." Yet Cyril disregarded the emperor's censures and com- 
mands, and, with daring defiance, made his own will paramount.— Eng. Ch. 



OPPOSITION OF THE ORIENTALS. 653 

gave audience to Candidian the imperial minister; who 
related his ineffectual efforts to prevent or to annul the 
hasty violence of the Egyptian. With equal haste and 
violence, the Oriental synod of fifty bishops degraded Cyril 
and Memnon from their episcopal honors, condemned, in 
the twelve anathemas, the purest venom of the Apollinarian 
heresy, and described the Alexandrian primate as a monster, 
born and educated for the destruction of the church. 46 His 
throne was distant and inaccessible ; but they instantly 
resolved to bestow on the flock of Ephesus the blessing of 
a faithful shepherd. By the vigilance of Memnon, the 
churches were shut against them, and a strong garrison 
was thrown into the cathedral. The troops, under the 
command of Candidian, advanced to the assault ; the out- 
guards were routed and put to the sword, but the place 
was impregnable : the besiegers retired ; their retreat was 
pursued by a vigorous sally ; they lost their horses, and 
many of the soldiers were dangerously wounded with clubs 
and stones. Ephesus, the city of the Virgin, was defiled 
with rage and clamor, with sedition and blood; the rival 
synods darted anathemas and excommunications from their 
spiritual engines ; and the court of Theodosius was per- 
plexed by the adverse and contradictory narratives of the 
Syrian and Egyptian factions. During a busy period of 
three months, the emperor tried every method, except the 
most effectual means of indifference and contempt, to 
reconcile this theological quarrel. He attempted to remove 
or intimidate the leaders by a common sentence of acquittal 
or condemnation; he invested his representatives at Ephesus 
with ample power and military force : he summoned from 
either party eight chosen deputies to a free and candid 
conference in the neighborhood of the capital, far from the 
contagion of popular frenzy. But the Orientals refused to 
yield, and the Catholics, proud of their numbers and of 
their Latin allies, rejected all terms of union or toleration. 
The patience of the meek Theodosius was provoked, and 
he dissolved in anger this episcopal tumult, which at the 
distance of thirteen centuries, assumes the venerable aspect 
of the third oecumenical council. 47 " God is my witness," 

46 f O 6t hi? b2,ldp(f) tuv EKKhrjoLuv rexdslg K-CLi rpacpeic. After the coalition 
of John and Cyril, these invectives were mutually forgotten. The style of 
declamation must never be confounded with the genuine sense which respectable 
enemies entertain of each other's merit, (Concil. torn. iii. p. 1244). 

4" See the acts of the synod of Ephesus in the original Greek, and a Latin ver- 
sion almost contemporary, {Concil. torn. iii. pp. 991-1332, with the Synodicon 
adversus Tragcedian Irencsi, torn. iv. pp. 235-497), tn e Ecclesiastical Histories of 



654 VICTORY OF CYRIL. 

said the pious prince, "that I am not the author of this 
" confusion. His providence will discern and punish the 
" guilty. Return to your provinces, and may your private 
" virtues repair the mischief and scandal of your meeting." 
They returned to their provinces ; but the same passions 
which had distracted the synod of Ephesus were diffused 
over the Eastern world. After three obstinate and equal 
campaigns, John of Antioch and Cyril of Alexandria con- 
descended to explain and embrace : but their seeming 
re-union must be imputed rather to prudence than to 
reason, to the mutual lassitude, rather than to the Christian 
charity, of the patriarchs. 

Victory of The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the 
Cyril, royal ear a baleful prejudice against the character 

• • 431-435. anc j conc [ uc t f 1^3 Egyptian rival. An epistle 
of menace and invective, 48 which accompanied the summons, 
accused him as a busy, insolent, and envious priest, who 
perplexed the simplicity of the faith, violated the peace of 
the church and state, and, by his artful and separate 
addresses to the wife and sister of Theodosius, presumed 
to suppose, or to scatter, the seeds of discord in the imperial 
family. At the stern command of his sovereign, Cyril had 
repaired to Ephesus, where he was resisted, threatened, 
and confined, by the magistrates in the interest of Nestorius 
and the Orientals ; who assembled the troops of Lydia and 
Ionia to suppress the fanatic and disorderly train of the 
patriarch. Without expecting the royal license, he escaped 
from his guards, precipitately embarked, deserted the 
imperfect synod, and retired to his episcopal fortress of 
safety and independence. But his artful emissaries, both 
in the court and city, successfully labored to appease the 
resentment, and to conciliate the favor, of the emperor. 
The feeble son of Arcadius was alternately swayed by his 
wife and sister, by the eunuchs and women of the palace : 
superstition and avarice were their ruling passions ; and 
the orthodox chiefs were assiduous in their endeavors to 

Socrates, (1. vii. c. 34), and Evagrius, (1. i. c. 3,4, 5), and the Breviary ofLiberatus 
(in Concil. torn. vi. pp. 419-459, c. 5, 6), and Memoires Eccles. of Tillemont, 
(torn. xiv. pp^. 377-487.) 

48 Tapax?jv, ( savs the emperor in pointed language), to ye ettI gclvtc) nal 
X^piojiov ralq EKKAyaiatg E/ipEpATjiiac * * * uc tipaovTEpag opfifjg irpeirovarig 
\loXKov r} dicpifteiais * * * Ka \ TtoiKikiaq fia7Jkov tovtuv ?j/j.Iv vcrjg f/nep 
uttAottjtoc * * * navTbg jiuaaov fj Upeuq * * * rd re tQv inKArjoitiv, rd 
re tuv PaoiTieov /j.e?i?.eiv x^P' L ^ LV fiovheadai, wf ova ovarii d<pop/u?)<; tripaq 
evdoKifi?]OEG)g. I should be curious to know how much Nestorius paid for these 
expressions, so mortifying to his rival. 



THE THRONE ASSAULTED WITH GOLD. 655 

alarm the former, and to gratify the. latter. Constantinople 
and the suburbs were sanctified with frequent monasteries, 
and the holy abbots, Dalmatius and Eutyches, 49 had devoted 
their zeal and fidelity to the cause of Cyril, the worship of 
Mary, and the unity of Christ. From the first moment of 
their monastic life, they had never mingled with the world, 
or trod the profane ground of the city. But in this awful 
moment of the danger of the church, their, vow was 
superseded by a more sublime and indispensable duty. At 
the head of a long order of monks and hermits, who carried 
burning tapers in their hands, and chanted litanies to the 
mother of God, they proceeded from their monasteries to 
the palace. The people were edified and inflamed by this 
extraordinary spectacle, and the trembling monarch listened 
to the prayers and adjurations of the saints, who boldly 
pronounced, that none could hope for salvation, unless they 
embraced the person and the creed of the orthodox 
successor of Athanasius. At the same time every avenue 
of the throne was assaulted with gold. Under the decent 
names of eulogies and be7ie dictions, the courtiers of both 
sexes were bribed according to the measure of their power 
and rapaciousness. But their incessant demands despoiled 
the sanctuaries of Constantinople and Alexandria ; and the 
authority of the patriarch was unable to silence the just 
murmur of his clergy, that a debt of sixty thousand pounds 
had already been contracted to support the expense of 
this scandalous corruption. 50 Pulcheria, who relieved her 

49 Eutyches, the heresiarch Eutyches, is honorably named by Cyril as a friend, 
a saint, and the strenuous defender of the faith. His brother, the abbot Dalmatius, 
is likewise employed to bind the emperor and all his chamberlains terribili con- 
juratione. Synodicon, c. 203, in Concil. torn. iv. p. 467.* 

50 Clerici qui hie sunt contristantur, quod ecclesia Alexandrina nudata sit 
hujus causa turbelse ; et debet prseter ilia quae hinc transmissa sint auri libras 
mille quingentas. Et nunc ei scriptum est ut prsestet ; sed de tua ecclesia prsesta 
avaritiae quorum nosti, &c. This curious and original letter from Cyril's arch- 
deacon to his creature, the new bishop of Constantinople, has been unaccountably 
preserved in an old Latin version, (Synodicon, c. 203, Concil. torn. iv. pp. 465-468). 
The mask is almost dropped, and the saints speak the honest language of interest 
and confederacv.f 



* Neander, 'Hist, of Chris. 4. 164), quoting Harduin, says, that " Dalmatius 
" was a writer in one of the imperial bureaux, and had a wife and children." He 
was persuaded by a venerated monk, Isacios, to join the fraternity, in which he 
obtained great influence and became Archimandrite. The emperor sometimes 
visited him in his cell ; but never could prevail upon him to leave his solitude, 
even to take part in the public penitential processions, when the frequent earth- 
quakes filled Constantinople with alarm. It was usual for new patriarchs to pay 
their respects to him. But Dalmatius refused to admit Nestorius, of whom he 
said, " An evil beast has come among us, to injure many by his doctrines." For 
eight and forty years he had never left his cell, till his hatred of the patriarch and 
the influence of Cyril moved him to the extraordinary effort here exhibited.— E. C. 

t This letter from Euiphanius to Maximianus was preserved by Theodoret. 
{.Neander. 4, 173.) — Eng. Ch. 



656 EXILE OF NESTORIUS. 

brother irom the weight of an empire, was the firmest pillar 
of orthodoxy ; and so intimate was the alliance between the 
thunders of the synod and the whispers of the court, that 
Cyril was assured of success if he could displace one 
eunuch, and substitute another in the favor of Theodosius. 
Yet the Egyptian could not boast of a glorious or decisive 
victory. The emperor, with unaccustomed firmness, adhered 
to his prcmiise of protecting the innocence of the Oriental 
bishops ; and Cyril softened his anathemas, and confessed, 
with ambiguity and reluctance, a two-fold nature of Christ, 
before he was permitted to satiate his revenge against the 
unfortunate Nestorius. 51 
Exile of The rasn aR d obstinate Nestorius, before the 

Nestorius, end of the synod, was oppressed by Cyril, be- 
• i>- 435- trayed by the court, and faintly supported by 
his Eastern friends. A sentiment of fear or indignation 
prompted him, while it was yet time, to affect the glory of 
a voluntary abdication; 52 his wish, or at least his request, 
was readily granted ; he was conducted with honor from 
Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch ; and, after a 
short pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus, were 
acknowledged as the lawful bishops of Constantinople. But 
in the silence of his cell, the degraded patriarch could no 
longer resume the innocence and security of a private 
monk. The past he regretted, he was discontented with 

r, i The tedious negotiations that succeeded the synod of Ephesus are diffusely 
related in the original Acts, {Concii. torn. iii. pp. 1339-1771, ad fin. vol. and the 
Synodicon, in torn. iv.). Socrates, (1. vii. c. 28, 35, 40, 41,), Evagrius, (1. i. c. 6, 7,8, 
121, Liberatus, (c. 7-10), Tillernont, (Mem. Eccles. torn. xiv. pp. 487-676). The most 
patient reader will thank me for compressing so much nonsense and falsehood in 
a few lines. 

52 Avroi) re av 6etjBevto^, eTrerpdrnj /card, to olkeiov ETrava^ev^at fiovaarTjpLOv. 
Evagrius, 1. i. c. 7. The original letters in the Synodicon, (c. 15, 24, 25, 26), justify 
the appearance of a voluntary resignation, which is asserted by Ebed-Jesu, a Nesto- 
rian writer, apud Asseman, Bibliot. Oriental, torn. iii. pp. 299, 302.* 

* Nestorius was deposed by an imperial edict ; and, at his own humble request, 
was permitted to return to his monastery at Antioch — Germ. Ed. 

The circumstantial narrative of Neander, (4, 166-170), gives a very different 
aspect to the fall of Nestorius. Wearied and harassed by the restless hostility of 
Cyril, he wrote to the imperial chamberlain, Scholasticus, saying, that if " the 
'" maintenance of the true faith could be secured, he would gladly return to his 
" cloister and its blessed tranquillity." Obeying his sister Pulcheria and dis- 
turbed, by the insinuations of Cyril's bribed advocates, the weak Theodosius 
availed himself of this letter, and through the praetorian prefect informed 
Nestorius, but without any manifestation of unfriendly feeling, that " the neces- 
" sary orders had been given for his returning, in the most convenient and de- 
" sirable manner, to his cloister." In reply to this, the patriarch resigned his 
office, again commending to the emperor " the care of maintaining pure doctrine." 
There are no proofs of his having engaged in any intrigues after his retirement ; 
but he had many friends in Constantinople; and after the death of his successor 
Maximianus the populace clamored for his restoration. This induced his enemies 
to obtain an order for his removal to a greater distance, and his subsequent 
persecution.— Eng. Ch. 



EXILE AND DEATH OF NESTORIUS. 657 

the present, and the future he had reason to dread: the 
oriental bishops successively disengaged their cause from 
his unpopular name, and each day decreased the number 
of the schismatics who revered Nestorius as the confessor 
of the faith. After a residence at Antioch of four years, the 
hand of Theodosius subscribed an edict, 53 which ranked 
him with Simon the magician, proscribed his opinions and 
followers, condemned his writings to the flames, and banished 
his person first to Petra in Arabia, and at length to Oasis, 
one of the islands of the Libyan desert. 54 Secluded from 
the church and from the world, the exile was still pursued 
by the rage of bigotry and war. A wandering tribe of the 
Blemmyes or Nubians invaded his solitary prison : in their 
retreat they dismissed a crowd of useless captives ; but no 
sooner had Nestorius reached the banks of the Nile, than 
he would gladly have escaped from a Roman and orthodox 
city to the milder servitude of the savages. His flight was 
punished as a new crime : the soul of the patriarch inspired 
the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Egypt ; the magistrates, 
the soldiers, the monks, devoutly tortured the enemy of 
Christ and St. Cyril ; and, as far as the confines of /Ethiopia, 
the heretic was alternately dragged and recalled, till his 
aged body was broken by the hardships and accidents of 

53 See the imperial letters in the Acts of the Synod of Ephesus, {Concil. torn, 
iii. pp. 1730-1735). The odious name of Simonians, which was affixed to the dis- 
ciples of this reparudovc dcdaaKa'- iar, was designed &q av ovecdeai rzpo^lrjdevreg 
alcoviov VTTOiitvoiev TLfiupiav tcjv dfiaprrjaaTuv, kcll /LtrjTE favrac rificopia^, 
fir]T£ tiavovrac urtfuac euros Vnupxetv. Yet these were Christians ! who dif- 
fered only in names and in shadow. 

54 The metaphor of islands is applied bv the grave civilians, (Pandect. 1. xlviii. 
tit. 22. leg. 7), to those happy spots which are discriminated by water and verdure 
from the Libyan sands. Three of these under the common name of Oasis, or 
Alvahat: 1. The temple of Jupiter Ammon. 2. The middle Oasis, three davs' 
journey to the west of Lycopolis. 3. The southern where Nestorius was ban- 
ished, in the first climate, and only three davs' journev from the confines of 
Nubia. See a learned note of Michaelis, (ad Descript. JEgypt. Abulfedce,?. 21-34).* 

* 1 The Oasis of Sivah has been visited bv Mons. Drovetti and Mr. Browne. 
2. The little Oasis, that of El Kassar, was visited and described bv Belzoni. 3. 
The great Oasis, and its splendid ruins, have been well described 'in the travels 
of Sir A. Edmonstone. To these must be added another Western Oasis, also 
visited by Sir A. Edmonstone.— Milman. 

The most sensible meaning, assigned to the word Oasis, derives it from Ouah, 
u fj lural of Wah > Arab, for a dwelling; so that it denotes an inhabited spot in 
the desert. Herodotus mentions but one, which he calls an " island of the blest." 
The three named by Gibbon, were known in the time of Strabo. Many more 
have since been discovered, which Browne, Burckhardt, Belzoni and other 
travelers have described. There is no satisfactory evidence that thev were ever 
used a^ penal solitudes, prior to the building of Constantinople. The first on 
record who sent refractory opponents there is Constantius, and the emperor 
Julian is said to have imitated him From that time, deportation to them was a 
punishment held to be second only to that of death. Justinian relaxed its 
seventy into a " relegatio ad tempus." The Notitia Imperii proves that Roman 
garrisons were kept there.— Eng. Ch. 



658 HERESY OF EUTYCHES. 

these reiterated journeys. Yet his mind was still independent 
and erect ; the president of Thebais was awed by his pastoral 
letters ; he survived the Catholic tyrant of Alexandria, and, 
after sixteen years' banishment, the synod of Chalcedon 
would perhaps have restored him to the honors, or at least 
to the communion, of the church. The death of Nestorius 
prevented his obedience to their welcome summons j 55 and 
his disease might afford some color to the scandalous 
report, that his tongue, the organ of blasphemy, had been 
eaten by the worms. He was buried in a city of Upper 
Egypt, known by the names of Chemnis, or Panopolis, or 
Akmim ; 56 but the immortal malice of the Jacobites has 
persevered for ages to cast stones against his sepulchre, 
and to propagate the foolish tradition, that it was never 
watered by the rain of heaven, which equally descends on 
the righteous and the ungodly. 57 Humanity may drop a 
tear on the fate of Nestorius ; yet justice must observe, that 
he suffered the persecution which he had approved and 
inflicted. 58 
Heresy of The death of the Alexandrian primate, after a 
Eutyches, reign of thirty-two years, abandoned the Catholics 
' u ' to the intemperance of zeal and the abuse of 

K The invitation of Nestorius to the synod of Chalcedon is related by Zacharias, 
bishop of Melitene, (Evagrius, 1. ii. c. 2'. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. p. 55), 
and the famous Xenaias or Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, (Asseman. Bibliot. 
Orient, torn. ii. p. 40, &c), denied by Evagrius and Asseman, and stoutly main- 
tained by La Croze. (Thesaur. Epistol. torn. iii. p. 181, 8cc.) The fact is not 
improbable : yet it was the interest of the Monophysites to spread the invidious 
report; and Eutychius, torn. ii. p. 12), affirms, that Nestorius died after an exile 
of seven years, and consequently ten years before the synod of Chalcedon. 

56 Consult D'Anville, (Me/noire sur l' Egypt e, p. 191), Pocock (Description of the 
East,- vol. i. p. 76), Abulfeda (Descnpt. sEgypt, p. 14), and his commentator 
Michaelis (Not. pp. 78-83), and the Nubian Geographer, (p. 42), who mentions, 
in the twelfth century, the ruins and the sugar-canes of Akmin.* 

57 Eutychius, (Annal. torn. iii. p. 12), and Gregory Bar Hebrseus, orAbulphara- 
gius, (Asseman. torn ii. p. 316), represent the credulity of the tenth and twelfth 
centuries. 

58 We are obliged to Evagrius, (I. i. c. 7), for some extracts from the letters of 
Nestorius ; but the lively picture of his sufferings is treated with insult by the 
hard and stupid fanatic. t 



* The ancient accounts ofthis place have been supposed to refer to two different 
towns. (Cei/arius,2.%22.) Chemmis was its original designation. New settlers 
under the Ptolemys. finding their Pan, or some deity like him, worshiped there, 
gave the place its Greek name. Diodorus Siculus, (1. 18.) says that both have the 
same meaning, and Dr. Lepsius says that Chem was the Pan of the Egyptians, 
but doubts whether the place had its original name from this. Letters from 
Egypt, p. 115, edit. Bohn.) Most writers mention it only as Panopolis, and the 
district around it was denominated Nomos Panopolitos. Strabo says, that, in his 
time, it was inhabited chiefly by linen-weavers and lapidaries. Akmim, or, 
according to Lepsius, Echmim, is the Arabian form given to its old name.— E. C 

t In this sentiment Neander concurs. " The heart of Evagrius," he says (4. 182), 
" was so steeled by the power of dogmatic fanaticism, that he had no sense to 
" perceive the composure and dignity of Nestorius ; and could see nothing but 
" pride and obstinacy, in the expressions of a noble spirit, unbowed to servility 
" bv al! its misfortunes." — Exg. Ch. 



SECOND COUNcfL OF EPHESUS. 659 

victory. 59 The Monophysite doctrine (one incarnate nature) 
was rigorously preached in the churches of Egypt and the 
monasteries of the East ; the primitive creed of Apollinaris 
was protected by the sanctity of Cyril ; and the name of 
Eutyches, his venerable friend, has been applied to the 
sect most adverse to the Syrian heresy of Nestorius. His 
rival Eutyches was the abbot, or archimandrite, or superior, 
of three hundred monks, but the opinions of a simple and 
illiterate recluse might have expired in the cell, where he 
had slept above seventy years, if the resentment or indis- 
cretion of Flavian, the Byzantine pontiff, had not exposed 
the scandal to the eyes of the Christian world. His domestic 
synod was instantly convened, their proceedings were sullied 
with clamor and artifice, and the aged heretic was surprised 
into a seeming confession, that Christ had not derived his 
body from the substance of the Virgin Mary. From their 
partial decree, Eutyches appealed to a general council, and 
his cause was vigorously asserted by his godson Chrys- 
aphius, the reigning eunuch of the palace, and his accomplice 
Dioscorus, who had succeeded to the throne, the creed, 
the talents, and the vices of the nephew of Theo- second 
philus. By the special summons of Theodosius, ^"iiesiis* 
the second synod of Ephesus was judiciously a. d. 449, 
composed of ten metropolitans and ten bishops Aug - 8 ~ 11 * 
from each of the six dioceses of the Eastern empire : some 
exceptions of favor or merit enlarged the number to one 
hundred and thirty-five ; and the Syrian Barsumas, as the 
chief and representative of the monks, was invited to sit 
and vote with the successors of the apostles. But the 
despotism of the Alexandrian patriarch again oppressed the 
freedom of debate : the same spiritual and carnal weapons 
were again drawn from the arsenals of Egypt ; the Asiatic 
veterans, a band of archers, served under the orders of 
Dioscorus ; and the more formidable monks, whose minds 
were inaccessible to reason or mercy, besieged the doors 
of the cathedral. The general, and, as it should seem, the 

59 Dixi Cyrillum dum viveret. auctoritate sua effecisse, ne Eutychianismus et 
Monophysitarum error in nervum erumperet : idque verum puto * * * aliquo 
* * * honesto modo TraALVubiav cecinerat. The learned but catious Jablonski 
did not always speak the whole truth. Cum Cyrillo lenius omnino egi, quam si 
tecum aut cum aliis rei hujus probe gnaris et aequis rerum asstimatoribus sermones 
privatos conferrem. (Thesaur, Epistol. La Crozian, torn. i. pp. 197, 198) ; an excel- 
lent key to his dissertations on the Nestorian controversy! * 

* This Cyril appears to have raised the controversy for the express purpose 
of obtaining the assistance of the court against the bishops who opposed him. In 
this he at first but too well succeeded. — Germ. Ed. 



660 DEATH OF" FLAVIAN. 

unconstrained, voice of the fathers, accepted the faith and 
even the anathemas of Cyril ; and the heresy of the two 
natures was formally condemned in t the persons and 
writings of the most learned orientals. " May fhose who 
" divide Christ be divided with the sword, may they be 
" hewn in pieces, may they be burnt alive ;" were the 
charitable wishes of a Christian synod. 60 The innocence 
and sanctity of Eutyches were acknowledged without hesi- 
tation ; but the prelates, more especially those of Thrace and 
Asia, were unwilling to depose their patriarch for the use 
or even the abuse of his lawful jurisdiction. They embraced 
the knees of Dioscorus, as he stood with a threatening 
aspect on the footstool of his throne, and conjured him to 
forgive the offences, and to respect the dignity, of his 
brother. " Do you mean to raise a sedition?" exclaimed 
the relentless tyrant. " Where are the officers ? " At these 
words a furious multitude of monks and soldiers, with 
staves, and swords, and chains, burst into the church : the 
trembling bishops hid themselves behind the altar, or under 
the benches, and as they were not inspired with the zeal of 
martyrdom, they successively subscribed a blank paper, 
which was afterwards filled with the condemnation of the 
Byzantine pontiff. Flavian was instantly delivered to the 
wild beasts of this spiritual amphitheatre : the monks were 
stimulated by the voice and example of Barsumas to avenge 
the injuries of Christ : it is said that the patriarch of Alex- 
andria reviled, and buffeted, and kicked, and trampled his 
brother of Constantinople : 61 it is certain, that the victim, 

60 'H uyia ovvo6oc elKeu, dpov kcivqov 'Evai(3iov, ovrog £wi> Karj, ovtoc elg 
dvo yevr/rai, ug efiipioe, fiepiadr} * * * el tic liyei 6vo, uvadefia. At the re- 
quest of Dioscorus, those who were not able to roar (ftovoai) stretched out their 
hands. At Chalcedon, the Orientals disclaimed these exclamations : but the 
Egyptians more consistently declared ravra /cat tots eiKOuev nai vvv "Xeyouev, 
{Concil. torn. lv. p. 1012). ' 

61 "E/,eye 6e, Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum), top $la(3iavov re 6ti?Micjc 
dvaipedr/vat npbc Aioonopov udov/xevov re nal 'kaKvi^op.evov : and this testimony 
of Evagrius, (1. ii. c. 2), is amplified by the historian Zonaras, (torn. ii. 1. xiii. p. 
44), who affirms that Dioscorus kicked like a wild ass. But the language of 
Liberatus, {Brev. c. 12, in Concil. torn. vi. p. 438), is more cautious; and the Acts 
of Chalcedon, which lavish the names of homicide, Cain, &c, do not justify so 
pointed a charge. The monk Barsumas is more particularly accused — eo&ai; tov 
[Mwapiov ^avLavov* avrbc iorrjue icai eAeye, ofaltov, {Concil. tom.iv. p. 1423).* 

* Neander relates, (4. 220,) "the high-handed violence of Dioscorus," at the 
second council of Epbesus. The deputies, whom Leo the Great had sent there 
at the invitation of Theodosius, escaped with difficulty, and were obliged to seek a 
safe passage homeward, through unfrequented by-ways. It was from this Roman 
pontiff, that the council received its appellation of " The Robber Synod." Barsumas 
was an abbot in Syria, the head of a faction devoted to Cyril and vehemently op- 
posed to Theodoret, {Neander, 4, 199.) As a staunch supporter of Dioscorus, he 
was allowed to take a seat and vote in this council, to represent the Anti-Nestorian 
monks of that district. A numerous troop of them were introduced as hearers, 
but, in fact, to overpower discussion by their outrageous clamors. — Eng. Ch. 



COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 66l 

before he could reach the place of his exile, expired, on the 
third day, of the wounds and bruises which he had received 
at Ephesus. This second synod has been justly branded 
as a gan^- of robbers and assassins ; yet the accusers of 
Dioscorus would magnify his violence, to alleviate the 
cowardice and inconstancy of their own behavior. 

The faith of Egypt had prevailed : but the „ .' „ 

•uj .. <- J u *t. Council of 

vanquished party was supported by the same chaicedon, 
pope who encountered without fear the hostile A * ^^ 
rage of Attila and Genseric. The theology of 
Leo, his famous tome or epistle on the mystery of the 
incarnation, had been disregarded by the synod of Ephesus : 
his authority, and that of the Latin church, was insulted in 
his legates, who escaped from slavery and death to relate 
the melancholy tale of the tyranny of Dioscorus and the 
martyrdom of Flavian. His provincial synod annulled the 
irregular proceedings of Ephesus ; but as this step was 
itself irregular, he solicited the convocation of a general 
council in the free and orthodox provinces of Italy. From 
his independent throne, the Roman bishop spoke and acted 
without danger, as the head of the Christians, and his 
dictates were obsequiously transcribed by Placidia and her 
son Valentinian ; who addressed their Eastern colleague to 
restore the peace and unity of the church. But the pageant 
of Oriental royalty was moved with equal dexterity by the 
hand of the eunuch ; and Theodosius could pronounce, 
without hesitation, that the church was already peaceful and 
triumphant, and that the recent flame had been extinguished 
by the just punishment of the Nestorians. Perhaps the 
Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the Mono- 
physites, if the emperor's horse had not fortunately 
stumbled ; Theodosius expired ; his orthodox sister, Pul- 
cheria, with a nominal husband, succeeded to the throne ; 
Chrysaphius was burnt, Dioscorus was disgraced, the exiles 
were recalled, and the tome of Leo was subscribed by the 
Oriental bishops. Yet the pope was disappointed in his 
favorite project of a Latin council: he disdained to preside 
in the Greek synod, which was speedily assembled at Nice 
in Bithynia ; his legates required in a peremptory tone the 
presence of the emperor ; and the weary fathers were 
transported to Chaicedon under the immediate eye of 
Marcian and the senate of Constantinople. A quarter of a 
mile from the Thracian Bosphorus, the church of St. 
Euphemia was built on the summit of a gentle though lofty 



662 BANISHMENT OF DIOSCORUS. 

ascent : the triple structure was celebrated as a prodigy of 
art, and the boundless prospect of the land and sea might 
have raised the mind of a sectary to the contemplation of 
the God of the universe. Six hundred and thirty bishops 
were ranged in order in the nave of the church ; but the 
patriarchs of the East were preceded by the legates, of 
whom the third was a simple priest ; and the place of honor 
was reserved for twenty laymen of consular or senatorian 
rank. The gospel was ostentatiously displayed in the 
centre, but the rule of faith was defined by the papal and 
imperial ministers, who moderated the thirteen sessions of 
the council of Chalcedon. 62 Their partial interposition 
silenced the intemperate shouts and execrations, which 
degraded the episcopal gravity ; but, on the formal accusa- 
tion of the legates, Dioscorus was compelled to descend 
from his throne to the rank of a criminal, already condemned 
in the opinion of his judges. The Orientals, less adverse to 
Nestorius than to Cyril, accepted the Romans as their 
deliverers : Thrace, and Pontus, and Asia, were exasperated 
against the murderer of Flavian, and the new patriarchs of 
Constantinople and Antioch secured their places by the 
sacrifice of their benefactor. The bishops of Palestine, 
Macedonia, and Greece, were attached to the faith of Cyril ; 
but in the face of the synod, in the heat of the battle, the 
leaders, with their obsequious train, passed from the right 
to the left wing, and decided the victory by this seasonable 
desertion. Of the seventeen suffragans who sailed from 
Alexandria, four were tempted from their allegiance, and 
the thirteen, falling prostrate on the ground, implored the 
mercy of the council, with sighs and tears, and a pathetic 
declaration, that, if they yielded, they should be massacred 
on their return to Egypt, by the indignant people. A tardy 
repentance was allowed to expiate the guilt or error of the 
accomplices of Dioscorus : but their sins were accumulated 
on his head ; he neither asked nor hoped for pardon, and 
the moderation of those who pleaded for a general amnesty 

62 The acts of the Council of Chalcedon, Concil torn. iv. pp. 761-2071), com- 
prehend those of Ephesus, (pp. 890-1189), which again comprise the synod of Con- 
stantinople under Flavian, (pp. 930,1072); and it requires some attention to 
disengage this double involution. The whole business of Eutyches, Flavian, and 
Dioscorus, is related by Evagrius, (1. i. c. 9-12, and 1. ii. c. 1, 2, 3, 4), and Liberatus 
(Brev. c. 11. 12. 13, 14). Once more, and almost for the last time, I appeal to the 
diligence of Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. torn. xv. pp. 479-719. The annals of Baronius 
and Pagi will accompany me much further on my long and laborious journey.* 

* The village of Kadi-Kiuy now marks the site, on which once stood the 
memorable Chalcedon. Porter's Travels, ii. 737.— Eng. Ch. 



FAITH OF CHALCEDON. 663 

was drowned in the prevailing cry of victory and revenge. 
To. save the reputation of his late adherents, some perso?ial 
offences were skillfully detected ; his rash and illegal ex- 
communication of the pope, and his contumacious refusal 
(while he was detained a prisoner) to attend the summons 
of the synod. Witnesses were introduced to prove the 
special facts of his pride, avarice, and cruelty; and the 
fathers heard with abhorrence, that the alms of the church 
were lavished on the female dancers, that his palace, and 
even his bath, was open to the prostitutes of Alexandria, 
and that the infamous Pansophia, or Irene, was publicly 
entertained as the concubine of the patriarch. 63 

For these scandalous offences Dioscorus was Faith of 
deposed by the synod, and banished by the Chaicedon. 
emperor ; but the purity of his faith was declared in the 
presence, and with the tacit approbation, of the fathers. 
Their prudence supposed, rather than pronounced, the 
heresy of Eutyches, who was never summoned before their 
tribunal; and they sat silent and abashed, when a bold 
Monophysite, casting at their feet a volume cf Cyril, 
challenged them to anathematize in his person the doctrine 
of the saint. If we fairly peruse the acts of Chaicedon as 
they are recorded by the orthodox party, 64 we shall find 
that a great majority of the bishops embraced the simple 
unity of Christ ; and the ambiguous concessions, that he 
was formed of or from two natures, might imply either 
their previous existence, or their subsequent confusion, or 

63 Ma/licrra^ TVEpi^oijrog Uavoocfila, 7) Ka?.ovrjei'ij 'Qpeivr), (perhaps Ef/^v^,) 
irepl r)c xal 6 7ro?.vdv6po)7Tog ryg A'AeSavdpeuv drjfiog uQtjks Suvyv, avTzjg ts 
mat rov kpaarov fiefivrifievoc. {Condi, torn. iv. p. 1276). A specimen of the wit 
and malice of the people is preserved in the Greek Anthology, (1, ii. c. 5, p. 1S8, 
edit. Wechel). although the application was unknown to the editor Brodaeus. The 
nameless epigrammatist raises a tolerable pun, by confounding the episcopal 
salutation of " Peace be to all ! " with the genuine or corrupted name of the 
bishop's concubine : 

~Eup7]VT] TTcivreacnv, eitlcko^oc eIttev ette?Muv, 

ll(3f dvvaraL tzclglv, tjv /uovog evSov £X £l i 
I am ignorant whether the patriarch, who seems to have been a jealous lover, is 
the Cimon of a preceding epigram, whose tteoc ectwkoc was viewed with enw 
and wonder by Priapus himself. 

w Those who reverence the infallibility of synods, may trv to ascertain their 
sense. The leading bishops were attended by partial or careless scribes who 
dispersed their copies round the world. Our Greek MSS. are sullied with the 
false and prescribed reading of £ K ~uv dvascov, {Condi, torn. iii. p. 1460): the 
authentic translation of Pope Leo I, does not seem to have been executed, and the 
old Latin versions materially differ from the present Vulgate, which was 
revised (a. d. 550) by Rusticus, a Roman priest, from the best MSS. of the 
'AicoifjLtjTOi at Constantinople, [Ducange, C. P. Christiana, I. iv. p. 151), a famous 
monastery of Latins, Greeks, and Svrians. See Concil. torn. iv. pp. igsq-2oa.Q 
Pagi, Critica, torn. ii. p. 326. &c. ' 



664 THE CREED OF THE REFORMERS. 

some dangerous interval between the conception of the 
man and the assumption of the God. The Roman theology, 
more positive and precise, adopted the term most offensive 
to the ears of the Egyptians, that Christ existed in two 
natures ; and this momentous particle 65 (which the memory, 
rather than the understanding, must retain) had almost 
produced a schism among the Catholic bishops. The to?ne 
of Leo had been respectfully, perhaps sincerely, subscribed ; 
but they protested, in two successive debates, that it was 
neither expedient nor lawful to transgress the sacred land- 
marks which had been fixed at Nice, Constantinople, and 
Ephesus, according to the rule of Scripture and tradition. 
At length they yielded to the importunities of their masters ; 
but their infallible decree, after it had been ratified with 
deliberate votes and vehement acclamations, was overturned 
in the next session by the opposition of the legates and 
their Oriental friends. It was in vain that a multitude of 
episcopal voices repeated in chorus, " The definition of the 
" fathers is orthodox and immutable ! The heretics are now 
" discovered ! Anathema to the Nestorians ! Let them 
" depart from the synod! Let them repair to Rome!" 66 
The legates threatened, the emperor was absolute, and a 
committee of eighteen bishops prepared a new decree, 
which was imposed on the reluctant assembly. In the name 
of the fourth general council, the Christ in one person, but 
in two natures, was announced to the Catholic world : an 
invisible line was drawn between the heresy of Apollinaris 
and the faith of St. Cyril ; and the road to Paradise, a 
bridge as sharp as a razor, was suspended over the abyss 
by the master-hand of the theological artist. During ten 
centuries of blindness and servitude, Europe received her 
religious opinions from the oracle of the Vatican ; and the 
same doctrine, already varnished with the rust of antiquity, 
was admitted without dispute into the creed of the reformers, 
who disclaimed the supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The 
synod of Chalcedon still triumphs in theprotestant churches ; 
but the ferment of controversy has subsided, and the most 

63 It is darkly represented in the microscope of Petavius (torn. v. 1. iii. c. 5) ; 
yet the subtle theologian is himself afraid — ne quis fortasse supervacaneam, et 
nimis anxiam putet hujusmodi vocularum inquisitionem, et ab instituti theologici 
gravitate alienam, (p. 124). 

66 'Edor/oav, % 6 opog rcpaTEiTcj J} ('nzFpxoueda * * * 01 uvtcXejovtec 
(JHivepol yevuvTcu, 01 avrChiyovTEC, ~Searopiavoi eiaiv, ol dvrt?Jyoreg e'/.g Pcjut/v 
uireMoGlV. (Concil. torn. iv. p. 1449.) Evagrius and Liberatus present only the 
placid face of the synod, and discreetly slide over these embers, suppositos cineri 
doloso. 



DISCORD OF THE EAST. 665 

pious Christians of the present day are ignorant, or careless, 
of their own belief concerning the mystery of the incarnation. 
Far different was the temper of the Greeks Discord of the 
and Egyptians under the orthodox reigns of Leo East, 
and Marcian. Those pious emperors enforced A * D ' 45I ~ 482, 
with asms and edicts the symbol of their faith ; 67 and it was 
declared by the conscience or honor of five hundred bishops, 
that the decrees of the synod of Chalcedon might be lawfully 
supported, even with blood. The Catholics observed with 
satisfaction, that the same synod was odious both to the 
Nestorians and the Monophysites ; 68 but the Nestorians 
were less angry, or less powerful, and the East was dis- 
tracted by the obstinate and sanguinary zeal of the 
Monophysites. Jerusalem was occupied by an army of 
monks ; in the name of the one incarnate nature, they 
pillaged, they burnt, they murdered ; the sepulchre of Christ 
was defiled with blood ; * and the gates of the city were 
guarded in tumultuous rebellion against the troops of the 
emperor. After the disgrace and exile of Dioscorus, the 
Egyptians still regretted their spiritual father ; and detested 
the usurpation of his successor, who was introduced by the 
fathers of Chalcedon. The throne of Proterius was supported 
by a guard of two thousand soldiers ; he waged a five years' 
war against the people of Alexandria; and, on the first 
intelligence of the death of Marcian, he became the victim 
of their zeal. On the third day before the festival of Easter, 
the patriarch was besieged in the cathedral, and murdered 
in the baptistery. The remains of his mangled corpse were 
delivered to the flames, and his ashes to the wind : and the 

6" See, in the Appendix to the Acts of Chalcedon, the confirmation of the synod 
by Marcian, (Concil. torn. iv. pp. 1781, 1783), his letters to the monks of Alex- 
andria, (p. 1791,) of Mount Sinai, (p. 1793,) of Jerusalem and Palestine, (p. 1798,) 
his laws against the Eutychians, (pp. 1809, 1S11, 1831,} the correspondence of Leo 
with the provincial synods on the revolution of Alexandria, (pp. 1835, 1930.) 

es Photius (or rather Eulogius of Alexandria) confesses, in a fine passage, the 
specious color of this double charge against Pope Leo and his synod of Chalcedon. 
{Bibllot. cod. ccxxv. p. 768). He waged a double war against the enemies of the 
church, and wounded either foe with the darts of his adversary — K.a,Tay\i]Aoic 
(3e?iEGL tqvc avTLTTakovQ eTLTpuane. Against Nestorius he seemed to introduce 
the auyxvcJig of the Monophysites ; against Eutyches he appeared to coun- 
tenance the VTToaraaiiov dcutyopa of the Nestorians. The apologist claims a 
charitable interpretation for the saints : if the same had been extended to the 
heretics, the sound of the controversy would have been lost in the air. 



* These zealots warmly discussed the nature of Christ, but paid little heed to 
his example or precepts. " Love your enemies," is the command of Jesus, 
which cannot be obeyed by murdering your friends. " Christ," said the assembled 
bishops, " is of one person, but in two natures ; " and this decree, they asserted, 
might be lawfully supported, even with blood. They saw no incongruity in 
supporting the " g(?spel of glad tidings " at the point of the sword, and in defiling, 
with the blood of their fellow-Christians, the sepulchre of the " God of Peace."— E. 



666 AN ALLEGORICAL PICTURE. 

deed was inspired by the vision of a pretended angel ; an 
ambitious monk, who, under the name of Timothy the Cat, 69 
succeeded to the place and opinions of Dioscorus. This 
deadly superstition was inflamed, on either side, by the 
principle and the practice of retaliation : in the pursuit of 
a metaphysical quarrel, many thousands 70 were sla^n, and 
the Christians of every degree were deprived of the sub- 
stantial enjoyments of social life, and of the invisible gifts 
of baptism and the holy communion. Perhaps an extrava- 
gant fable of the times may conceal an allegorical picture 
of these fanatics, who tortured each other, and themselves. 
" Under the consulship of Venantius and Celer," says a 
grave bishop, " the people of Alexandria, and all Egypt, were 
" seized with a strange and diabolical frenzy : great and 
" small, slaves and freedmen, monks and clergy, the natives 
" of the land, who opposed the synod of Chalcedon, lost 
" their speech and reason, barked like dogs, and tore with 
" their own teeth, the flesh from their hands and arms." 71 
The Henoticon The disorders of thirty years at length pro- 
of zeno, duced the famous Henoticon 72 of the emperor 
Zeno, which in his reign, and in that of Anasta- 

69 kiAovpoc, from his nocturnal expeditions. In darkness and disguise he 
crept round the cells of the monastery, and whispered the revelation to his 
slumbering brethren, {Theodor. Lector. 1. i.) * 

to <&ovov<; te To'A/LL7]d/'/vai fivpiovr, dlfiuTuv tt?J/6fi fio/.vvdr/vai (itj fiovoi tt)v 
v dyrjXXd. ical avrbv rbv uepa. Such is the hyperbolic language of the Henoticon.t 

"i See the Chronicle of Victor Tununensis, in the Lectiones Antiques of 
Canisius, republished by Basnage, torn. i. p. 326. 

"-' The Henoticon is transcribed by Evagrius, (1. iii. c. 13), and translated by 
Liberatus, {Brev. c. 18). Pagi, (Critica, torn. ii. p. 411), and Asseman, {Bibliot. 
Orient, torn. i. p. 343), are satisfied that it is free from heresy; but Petavius, 
(Dogmat. Theolog. torn. v. 1. i. c. 13, p. 40), most unaccountably affirms Chalce- 
donensem ascivit. An adversary would prove that he had never read the 
Henoticon.% 

* The murder of Proterius was perpetrated in 457. The dignity into which 
Timotheus Ailurus had whispered himself, was taken from him three years after- 
wards by the emperor Leo, who banished him to Cherson. During the usurpation 
of Basiliscus in 476, he was reinstated ; and being then far advanced in years, was 
allowed peacefully to hold the patriarchate till his death in 477. {Neander, iv. 
2 33-236. Clinton, F. R. i. 449, ii. 544.)— Eng Ch. 

t While this competition for the rich prize of the Alexandrian patriarchate ex- 
hausted society by perpetuated confusion and carnage, Palestine was equally 
disturbed. " The fanatical monk Theodosius ruled there supreme in the cloisters, 
" and set all in commotion by his vehement fury against such as would not reject 
|| the decrees of the council of Chalcedon. Juvenalis, the patriarch of Jerusalem, 
|| was banished, and his place filled by Theodosius, who deposed and appointed 
" bishops at his will. Similar occurrences were witnessed in other cities. The evil 
!' could not be checked without forcible measures, and provinces were laid waste 
'• by fire and sword." 1 Neander, iv. 232.)— Eng. Ch. 

\ The principal design of the Henoticon was to tranquilize Egypt ; but it was, 
by no means generally accepts i?e to the people of that country.— Germ. Ed. 

This " Concordat." as it is designated by Neander, (4, 239;, embraced wider 
aims; it proposed "' a basis for the peace of the whole church ;" and took a 
middle ground, on which "neither party snould stigmatize the*other as heretical." 
But here again the angry SDirits involuntarily confessed, that peace and truth 
were not their objects. " Far from closing the schism, the Henoticon made it 






THE HENOTICON. 667 

sius, was signed by all the bishops of the East, under the 
penalty of degradation and exile, if they rejected or infringed 
this salutary and fundamental law. The clergy may smile 
or groan at the presumption of a layman who defines the 
articles «of faith ; yet if he stoops to the humiliating task, 
his mind is less infected by prejudice or interest, and the 
authority of the magistrate can only be maintained by the 
concord of the people. It is in ecclesiastical story, that 
Zeno appears least contemptible ; and I am not able to 
discern any Manichsean or Eutychian guilt in the generous 
saying of Anastasius, That it was unworthy of an emperor 
to persecute the worshipers of Christ and the citizens of 
Rome. The Henoticon was most pleasing to the Egyptians ; 
yet the smallest blemish has not been described by the 
jealous, and even jaundiced, eyes of our orthodox school- 
men, and it accurately represents the Catholic faith of the 
incarnation, without adopting or disclaiming the peculiar 
terms or tenets of the hostile sects. A solemn anathema 
is pronounced against Nestorius and Eutyches ; against all 
heretics by whom Christ is divided, or confounded, or 
reduced to a phantom. Without defining the number or 
the article of the word ?iature, the pure system of St. Cyril, 
the faith of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, is respect- 
fully confirmed, but, instead of bowing at the name of the 
fourth council, the subject is dismissed by the censure of 
all contrary doctrines, if any such have been taught either 
elsewhere or at Chalcedon. Under this ambiguous ex- 
pression, the friends and the enemies of the last synod 
might unite in a silent embrace. The most reasonable 
Christians acquiesced in this mode of toleration ; but their 
reason was feeble and inconstant, and their obedience was 
despised as timid and servile by the vehement spirit of their 
brethren. On a subject which engrossed the thoughts and 
discourses of men, it was difficult to preserve an exact 
neutrality ; a book, a sermon, a prayer, rekindled the flame 
of controversy ; and the bonds of communion were alter- 
nately broken and renewed by the private animosity of the 
bishops. The space between Nestorius and Eutyches was 
filled by a thousand shades of language and opinion; the 

'*' wider than it was before. Instead of two parties, there were four— the zealots 
" on either side, and the moderates on both, who accepted the compromise. On 
" the death of Zeno, Anastasius, only desirous of preserving peace, and of 
" silencing the heretic-makers on both sides, would not abandon the treaty or co- 
" alition. But his moderation made him an object of suspicion, and was even 
" represented as persecution. Serious disturbances, proceeding from this struggle, 
"" broke out during his reign in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Constantinople, "-E. C. 



668 THE ACEPHALI. 

acephali'* of Egypt, and the Roman pontiffs, of equal valor, 
though of unequal strength, may be found at the two extremi- 
ties of the theological scale. The acephali, without a king or 
a bishop, were separated above three hundred years from the 
patriarchs of Alexandria, who had accepted tlie communion 
of Constantinople, without exacting a formal condemnation of 
the synod of Chalcedon. For accepting the communion of 
Alexandria, without a formal approbation of the same synod, 
the patriarchs of Constantinople were anathematized by the 
popes. Their inflexible despotism involved the most ortho- 
dox of the Greek churches in this spiritual contagion, denied 
or doubted the validity of their sacraments, 74 and fomented, 
thirty-five years, the schism of the East and West, till they 
finally abolished the memory of four Byzantine pontiffs, who 
had dared to oppose the supremacy of St. Peter. 75 Before that 
period, the precarious truce of Constantinople and Egypt had 
been violated by the zeal of the rival prelates. Macedonius, 
who was suspected of the Nestorian heresy, asserted, in dis- 
grace and exile, the synod of Chalcedon, while the successor 
of Cyril would have purchased its overthrow with a bribe 
of two thousand pounds of gold. 

The In the fever of the times, the sense, or rather 

and'reifSs *he soun d, °f a syllable, was sufficient to disturb 

war, til? the the peace of an empire. The Trisagion, 76 

AnSa h s?us, (thrice holy,) " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of 

a. d. 508-518. " Hosts ! " is supposed, by the Greeks, to be the 

B See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex-, pp. 123, 131, 145, 195, 247). They were 
reconciled by the care of Mark I. (a. d. 799-819) : he promoted their chiefs to the 
bishoprics of Athribis and Talba, (perhaps Tava. See D Anville, p. 82), and sup- 
plied the sacraments, which had failed for want of an episcopal ordination, t 

'* De his quos baptizavit, quos ordinavit Acacius, majorum traditione con- 
fectam et veram, prsecipue religiose solicitudini congruam praebemus sine 
difficultate medicinam (Gelacius, in epist. i. ad Euphemium, Concil. torn. v. 286.) 
The offer of a medicine proves the disease, and numbers must have perished 
before the arrival of the Roman physician. Tillemont himself, {Mem. Eccles. 
torn. xvi. pp. 372, 642, &c.,) is shocked at the proud, uncharitable temper of the 
popes ; they are now glad, says he, to invoke St. Flavian of Antioch, St. Elias of 
Jerusalem, &c, to whom they refused communion whilst upon earth. But 
Cardinal Baronius is firm and hard as the rock of St. Peter. 

75 Their names were erased from the diptych of the church : ex venerabili 
diptycho, in quo piae memoriae transitum ad ccelum habentium episcoporum 
vocabula continentur. (Concil. torn. iv. p. 1846.) This ecclesiastical record was 
therefore equivalent to the book of life. 

"6 Petavius, {Dogmat. Theolog. torn. v. 1. v. c. 2, 3, 4, pp. 217-225), and Tillemont, 
{Mem. Eccles. torn. xiv. p. 713, &c, 799), represent the history and doctrine of the 
Trisagion. In the twelve centuries between Isaiah and St. Proclus's boy, who 
was taken up into heaven before the bishop and the people of Constantinople, the 
song was considerably improved. The boy heard the angels sing, " Holy God ! 
'' Holy Strong ! Holy Immortal ! " 

t The Acephaloi, or " headless sect," were so denominated, because they had 
no chief or leader. (Neander, 4, 239.) They were the most zealous of the 
Monophysite party, and demanded an unqualified renunciation of the Chalce- 
donian council. There was method in their madness, and system in their ex- 
travagance ; or, it might be supposed, that they had received their name from 
wanting the seat of reason. — Eng. Ch. 



THE TRISAGION. 669 

identical hymn which the angels and cherubim eternally- 
repeat before the throne of God, and which, about the 
middle of the fifth century, was miraculously revealed to 
the church of Constantinople. The devotion of Antioch 
soon added, " who was crucified for us !" and this grateful 
address, either to Christ alone, or to the whole Trinity, 
may be justified by the rules of theology, and has been 
gradually adopted by the Catholics of the East and West. 
But it had been imagined by a Monophysite bishop ;" the 
gift of an enemy was at first rejected as a dire and dangerous 
blasphemy, and the rash innovation had nearly cost the 
emperor Anastasius his throne and his life. 78 The people 
of Constantinople were devoid of any rational principles of 
freedom ; but they held, as a lawful cause of rebellion, the 
color of a livery in the races, or the color of a mystery in 
the schools. The Trisagion, with and without this obnox- 
ious addition, was chanted in the cathedral by two adverse 
choirs, and when their lungs were exhausted, they had 
recourse to the more solid arguments of sticks and stones : 
the aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended 
by the patriarch ; and the crown and mitre were staked on 
the event of this momentous quarrel. The streets were 
instantly crowded with innumerable swarms of men, women, 
and children; the legions of monks, in regular array, 
marched, and shouted, and fought at their head, " Christians ! 
" this is the day of martyrdom : let us not desert our 
" spiritual father; anathema to the Manichaean tyrant! he 
" is unworthy to reign." Such was the Catholic cry ; and 
the galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the 
palace, till the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and 
hushed the waves of the troubled multitude. The triumph 
of Macedonius was checked by a speedy exile ; but the 
zeal of his flock was again exasperated by the same question, 
" Whether one of the Trinity had been crucified ? " On this 
momentous occasion, the blue and green factions of Con- 
stantinople suspended their discord, and the civil and 
military powers were annihilated in their presence. The 

'" Peter Gnapheus, the fuller, (a trade which he had exercised in his monas- 
tery), patriarch of Antioch. His tedious story is discussed in the Annals of Pagi, 
(a. d. 477-490), and a dissertation of M. de Valois at the end of his Evagrius. * 

78 The troubles under the reign of Anastasius must be gathered from the Chron- 
icles of Victor, Marcellinus, and Theophanes. As the last was not published in 
the time of Baronius, his critic Pagi is more copious, as well as more correct. 

* The elevation of Peter "the fuller" is wrongly attributed to Zeno by John 
Malalas and Nicephorus. He was appointed by the usurper Basiliscus in 476, 
and displaced on the return of Zeno in 477. After a succession of four patriarchs, 
he was restored in 4S5, and died in 488. {Clinton, H. R. ii. 553-555.)— Eng. Ch. 



670 THE MITRE SUBDUES THE CROWN. W 

keys of the city, and the standards of the guards, were 
deposited in the Forum of Constantine, the principal station 
and camp of the faithful. Day and night they were inces- 
santly busied either in singing hymns to the honor of their 
God, or in pillaging and murdering the servants of their 
prince. The head of his favorite monk, the friend, as they 
styled him, of the enemy of the Holy Trinity, was borne 
aloft on a spear ; and the firebrands, which had been darted 
against heretical structures, diffused the undistinguishing 
flames over the most orthodox buildings. The statues of 
the emperor were broken, and his person was concealed in 
a suburb, till, at the end of three days, he dared to implore 
the mercy of his subjects. Without his diadem, and in the 
posture of a suppliant, Anastasius appeared on the throne 
of the circus. The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed 
their genuine Trisagion ; they exulted in the offer which he 
proclaimed by the voice of a herald, of abdicating the 
purple ; they listened to the admonition, that, since all could 
not reign, they should previously agree in the choice of a 
sovereign ; and they accepted the blood of two unpopular 
ministers, whom their master, without hesitation, condemned 
to the lions. These furious but transient seditions were 
encouraged by the success of Vitalian, who, with an army 
of Huns and Bulgarians, for the most part idolaters, declared 
himself the champion of the Catholic faith. In this pious 
rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople, 
exterminated sixty-five thousand of his fellow-Christians, till 
he obtained the recall of the bishops, the satisfaction of the 
pope, and the establishment of the council of Chalcedon, an 
orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, 
and more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian. 
First And such was the event of the first of the re- 
reiigious war. ligious wars, which have been waged in the name, 
a. d. 514. anc j ky foe disciples, of the God of peace. 79 * 

79 The general history, from the council of Chalcedon to the death of Anas- 
tasius, may be found in the Breviary of Liber atus, (c. 14-19), the second and third 
books of Evagrius, the Abstract of the two books of Theodore the Reader, the 
Acts of the Synods, and the Epistles of the Popes, (Concil. torn, v.) The series is 
continued with some disorder in the xvth and xvith tomes of the Memoires 
Ecclesiastiques of Tillemont. And here I must take leave forever of that incom- 
parable guide— whose bigotry is overbalanced by the merits of erudition, dili- 
gence, veracity, and scrupulous minuteness. He was prevented by death from 
completing, as he designed, the sixth century of the church and empire. 

* " These Christians," says Gibbon, " differed only in names and shadow," and 
yet these metaphysical distinctions caused the most bloody and relentless wars. 
It is doubtful whether either the victors or the vanquished understood or 
respected the teachings of the " God of Peace," and it is certain that the noble 
words of Jesus, "Blessed are the merciful," awakened no responsive chord in 
the minds of these Christian bigots.— E. 



CHARACTER OF JUSTINIAN. 67 1 

Justinian has been already seen in the various 
lights of a prince, a conqueror, and a lawgiver : characte?and 
the theologian 80 still remains, and it affords an f^gg™!" 1 
unfavorable prejudice, that his theology should a. d. 519-565. 
form a very prominent feature of his portrait. 
The sovereign sympathized with his subjects in their 
superstitious reverence for living and departed saints : his 
Code, and more especially his Novels, confirm and enlarge 
the privileges of the clergy ; and in every dispute between 
a monk and a layman, the partial judge was inclined to 
pronounce that truth, and innocence, and justice, were 
always on the side of the church. In his public and private 
devotions, the emperor was assiduous and exemplary ; his 
prayers, vigils, and fasts, displayed the austere penance of 
a monk ; his fancy was amused by the hope, or belief, of 
personal inspiration ; he had secured the patronage of the 
Virgin and St. Michael the archangel ; and his recovery 
from a dangerous disease was ascribed to the miraculous 
succor of the holy martyrs Cosmas and Damian. The 
capital and the provinces of the East were decorated with 
the monuments of his religion - 81 and, though the far greater 
part of these costly structures may be attributed to his taste 
or ostentation, the zeal of the royal architect was probably 
quickened by a genuine sense of love and gratitude towards 
his invisible benefactors. Among the titles of imperial 
greatness, the name of Pious was most pleasing to his ear ; 
to promote the temporal and spiritual interest of the church, 

so The strain of the Anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 11, 13, 18, 27, 28), with the learned 
remarks of Alemannus, is confirmed, rather than contradicted, by the Acts of the 
Councils, the fourth book of Evagrius, and the complaints of the African 
Facundus, in his twelfth book — de tribus capitulis, "cum videri doctus appetit 
" importune * * * spontaneis quaestionibus ecclesiam turbat." See Procop. de 
Bell. Goth. 1. iii. c. 35.* 

8i Procop. de Edificiis, 1. i. c. 6, 7, &c, passim. 



* Of Justinian Neander says, (4, 244), "he meant to be considered a zealous 
" champion of the Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Intermeddling in theological dis- 
" putes was with him a favorite passion : and he would very willingly have been 
" lawgiver to the church, in the same sense as he was to the state ; but the more 
" he acted, or supposed he acted, by his own impulse, the more he served as the 
"tool of others;! and in conclusion Neander adds, (p. 28S), "Justinian's long 
" reign was the occasion of the greatest mischiefs in the Greek church." 
Anthimus, dissatisfied with his obscure bishopric of Trebizond, aspired to that 
of Constantinople, which he obtained, by ingratiating himself with Theodora. 
Envious rivals accused him of unsound doctrine, and interested in their cause 
Agapetus, the head of the Western church, then among them as envoy from 
Theodoric to the Byzantine court. This pontiff alarmed the conscience of 
Justinian ; Anthimus was deposed ; intrigues and troubles followed, which ex- 
tended from Jerusalem on one side, even to Rome on the other ; and the tottering 
empire was still more weakened by these controversial shocks. — Eng. Ch. 

f Justinian was greatly influenced by his beautiful wife Theodora, (who was a 
born theologian,) and she in her turn was influenced by her favorite eunuchs and 
the intriguing bishops by whom she was surrounded.— E. 



672 PERSECUTION BY JUSTINIAN. 

was the serious business of his life ; and the duty of father 
of his country was often sacrificed to that of defender of the 
faith. The controversies of the times were congenial to his 
temper and understanding; and the theological professors 
must inwardly deride the diligence of a stranger, who 
cultivated their art and neglected his own. " What can ye 
" fear," said a bold conspirator to his associates, " from 
" your bigoted tyrant? Sleepless and unarmed he sits 
" whole nights in his closet, debating with reverend grey- 
*' beards, and turning over the pages of ecclesiastical 
" volumes." 82 The fruits of these lucubrations were dis- 
played in many a conference ; where Justinian might shine 
as the loudest and most subtle of the disputants, in many a 
sermon, which, under the name of edicts and epistles, pro- 
claimed to the empire the theology of their master. While 
the barbarians invaded the provinces, while the victorious 
legions marched under the banners of Belisarius and 
Narses, the successor of Trajan, unknown to the camp, was 
content to vanquish at the head of a synod. Had he invited 
to these synods a disinterested and rational spectator, 
Justinian might have learned, " that religious controversy 
is the offspring of arrogance and folly ; that true piety is 
most laudably expressed by silence and submission ; that 
man, ignorant of his own nature, should not presume to 
scrutinize the nature of his God ; and that it is sufficient 
for us to know, that power and benevolence are the 
perfect attributes of the Deity." 83 

His Toleration was not the virtue of the times, 

persecution: an d indulgence to rebels has seldom been the 
virtue of princes. But when the prince descends to the 
narrow and peevish character of a disputant, he is easily 
provoked to supply the defect of argument by the plentitude 
of power, and to chastise without mercy the perverse blind- 
ness of those who willfully shut their eyes against the light 
of demonstration. The reign of Justinian was a uniform 

82 "Oc de KudrjraL u^vTiaKToq ec del errl AeoxvS Tivbg dupl vvktuv, bfiov toIq 
tcjv lepewv eaxarov yepovaiv uvanvule^v TuXpLaTiavuv Aoyia oizovdi/v ex^v. 
Procop. de Bell. Goth. 1. iii. c. 32. In the life of St. Eutychius, (apud Aleman. ad 
Procop. Arcan. c. 18), the same character is given "with a design to praise 
Justinian. 

83 For these wise and moderate sentiments,* Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. 1. i. c. 3) 
is scourged in the preface of Alemannus, who ranks him among the political 
Christians— sed longe verius haeresium omnium sentinas, prorsusque Atheos— 
abominable Atheists, who preached the imitation of God's mercy to man, (ab 
Hist. Arcan. c. 13). 

* The reader will not fail to observe that, as early as the fifth century, Christian 
controversialists had already learned to designate " wise and moderate sentU 
" ments," like the above quotation from Procopius, as " abominable Atheism." — E. 



PERSECUTION OF PAGANS AND JEWS. 673 

yet various scene of persecution : and he appears to have 
surpassed his indolent predecessors, both in the contrivance 
of his laws and the rigor of their execution. The 
insufficient term of three months was assigned 
for the conversion or exile of all heretics ; 8 * and if he still 
connived at their precarious stay, they were deprived, under 
his iron yoke, not only of the benefits of society, but of the 
common birth-right of men and Christians. At the end of 
four hundred years, the Montanists of Phrygia, 85 still 
breathed the wild enthusiasm of perfection and prophecy, 
which they had imbibed from their male and female apostles, 
the special organs of the Paraclete. On the approach of 
the Catholic priests and soldiers, they grasped with alacrity 
the crown of martyrdom ; the conventicle and the con- 
gregation perished in the flames ; but these primitive fanatics 
were not extinguished three hundred years after the death 
of their tyrant. Under the protection of the Gothic con- 
federates, the church of the Arians at Constantinople had 
braved the severity of the laws : their clergy equalled the 
wealth and magnificence of the senate ; and the gold and 
silver, which was seized by the rapacious hand of Justinian, 
might perhaps be claimed as the spoils of the provinces 
and the trophies of the barbarians. A secret remnant of 
Pagans, who still lurked in the most refined ^ c _ 

9 . ' . , . . r , . . Of Pagans ; 

and the most rustic conditions 01 mankind, 
excited the indignation of the Christians, who were perhaps 
unwilling that any strangers should be the witnesses of their 
intestine quarrels. A bishop was named as the inquisitor 
of the faith, and his diligence soon discovered in the court 
and city, the magistrates, lawyers, physicians and sophists, 
who still cherished the superstition of the Greeks. They 
were sternly informed that they must choose without delay 
between the displeasures of Jupiter or Justinian, and that 
their aversion to the gospel could no longer be disguised 
under the scandalous mask of indifference or impiety. The 
patrician Photius perhaps alone was resolved to live and to 
die like his ancestors ; he enfranchised himself with the 
stroke of a dagger, and left his tyrant the poor consolation 

s-t This alternative, a precious circumstance, is preserved by John Malalas, (torn. 
ii. p. 63, edit. Venet. 1733), who deserves more credit as he draws towards his 
end. After numbering the heretics, Nestorians, Eutychians, &c, " ne expectent," 
says Justinian, " ut digni venia judicentur : jubemus, enim ut * * * convicti et 
" aperti heeretici justae et idonese animadversioni subjiciantur." Baronius copies 
and applauds this edict of the Code, (a. d. 527, No. 39, 40). 

85 See the character and principles of the Montanists, in Mosheim. de Rebus 
Christ, ante Constantinum, pp. 410-424. 



674 PERSECUTION OF SAMARITANS. 

of exposing - with ignominy the lifeless corpse of the fugitive. 
His weaker brethren submitted to their earthly monarch, 
underwent the ceremony of baptism, and labored, by their 
extraordinary zeal, to erase the suspicion, or to expiate the 
guilt, of idolatry. The native country of Homer, and the 
theatre of the Trojan war, still retained the last sparks of 
his mythology : by the care of the same bishop, seventy 
thousand Pagans were detected and converted in Asia, 
Phrygia, Lydia, and Caria ; ninety-six churches were built 
for the new proselytes ; and linen vestments, bibles, and 
liturgies, and vases of gold and silver, were supplied by 
the pious munificence of Justinian. 86 The Jews, 
who had been gradually stripped of their im- 
munities, were oppressed by a vexatious law, which com- 
pelled them to observe the festival of Easter the same day 
on which it was celebrated by the Christians. 87 And they 
might complain with the more reason, since the Catholics 
themselves did not agree with the astronomical calculations 
of their sovereign : the people of Constantinople delayed 
the beginning of their Lent a whole week after it had been 
ordained by authority ; and they had the pleasure of fasting 
seven days, while meat was exposed for sale by the com- 
of mand of the emperor. The Samaritans of 
Samaritans. Palestine 88 were a motley race, an ambiguous 
sect, rejected as Jews by the Pagans, by the Jews as 
schismatics, and by the Christians as idolaters. The 
abomination of the cross had already been planted on their 
holy mount of Garizim, 89 but the persecution of Justinian 
afforded only the alternative of baptism or rebellion. They 
chose the latter: under the standard of a desperate leader, 
they rose in arms, and retaliated their wrongs on the lives, 
the property, and the temples, of a defenceless people. The 
Samaritans were finally subdued by the regular forces of 

86 Theophan. Chron. p. 153. John, the Monophysite bishop of Asia, is a more 
authentic witness of this transaction, in which he was himself employed by the 
emperor, (Asseman. Bib. Orient, torn. ii. p. 85). 

87 Compare Procopius, {Hist. Arcan. c. 28, and Aleman's Notes,) with Theo- 
phanes, (Chron. p. 190). The council of Nice has intrusted the patriarch, or rather 
the astronomers, of Alexandria, with the annual proclamation of Easter ; and we 
still read, or rather we do not read, many of the Paschal epistles of 6t. Cyril. 
Since the reign of Monophysitism in Egypt, the Catholics were perplexed by such 
a foolish prejudice as that which so long opposed, among the Protestants, the 
reception of the Gregorian style. 

bb For the religion and history of the Samaritans, consult Basnage,/7i'.tf0z>7? des 
yuifs, a learned and impartial work. 

69' Sichem Xeapolis, Naplous, the ancient and modern seat of the Samartians, 
is situate in a valley between the barren Ebal, the mountain of cursing to the 
north, and the fruitful Garizim, or mountain of blessing to the south, ten or 
eleven hours' travel from Jerusalem. See Maundrel. Journey from Aleppo, &c, 
PP- 59-63* 



ORTHODOXY OF JUSTINIAN. 675 

the East : twenty thousand were slain, twenty thousand 
were sold by the Arabs to the infidels of Persia and India, 
and the remains of that unhappy nation atoned for the 
crime of treason by the sin of hypocrisy. It has been 
computed that one hundred thousand Roman subjects were 
extirpated in the Samaritan war, 90 which converted the once 
fruitful province into a desolate and smoking- wilderness. 
But in the creed of Justinian, the guilt of murder could not 
be applied to the slaughter of unbelievers : and he piously 
labored to establish with fire and sword the unity of the 
Christian faith. 91 

With these sentiments, it was incumbent on His 

him, at least, to be always in the right. In the or thodoxy. 
first years of his administration, he signalized his zeal as 
the disciple and patron of orthodoxy: the reconciliation 
of the Greeks and Latins established the tome of St. Leo 
as the creed of the emperor and the empire ; the Nestorians 
and Eutychians were exposed, on either side, to the double 
edge of persecution ; and the four synods, of Nice, Con- 
stantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, were ratified by the 
code of a Catholic lawgiver. 93 But while Justinian strove 
to maintain the uniformity of faith and worship, his wife 
Theodora, whose vices were not incompatible with devotion,* 
had listened to the Monophysite teachers ; and the open or 
clandestine enemies of the church revived and multiplied 
at the smile of their gracious patroness. The capital, the 

90 Procop. Anecdot. c. 11. Theophan. Chron. p. 122. John Malalas, Chron. 
torn. ii. p. 62. I remember an observation, half philosophical, half superstitious, 
that the province which had been ruined by the bigotry of Justinian, was the 
same through which the Mahometans penetrated into the empire. 

91 The expression of Procopius is remarkable : ov yap 01 kdonet (povoc dvdpuncov 
elvat, f]V ye fii) tt)c avrou SoEtjc ol re svTuvreg tvxolev ovreg. Anecdot. c. 13. 

92 See the Chronicle of Victor, p. 328, and the original evidence of the laws of 
Justinian. During the first years of his reign, Baronius himself is in extreme 
good humor with the emperor, who courted the popes, till he got them into his 
power. 

* The famous Theodora, who, in her youth, was celebrated for her fascinating 
beauty and licentious indulgence, was always active in Christian work, and ex- 
erted in her old age, as the wife of the emperor Justinian, a most potent influence 
in formulating creeds and directing the faith of her Christian subjects. It was 
her influence that brought Anthimus from his obscure bishopric at Trebizond 
and installed him at Constantinople. The intrigues and troubles which followed, 
says Neander, "extended from Jerusalem on one side, even to Rome on the other." 
But the Christian influence of the empress Theodora was not as great, neither 
were her crimes to be compared with those of Constantine, the first Christian 
emperor. For, while the pious Constantine was guilty of murdering almost his 
entire family, the saintly Theodora was only suspected of murdering her illegiti- 
mate son, whose existence was a constant reminder of former intrigues, and 
whose death she considered necessary to maintain her exalted reputation. 
Gibbon has shown " that her vices were not incompatible with devotion ; " and it 
may be said to her credit, that as empress she was never accused of indulging in 
the indiscretions of her youth. — E. 



676 THE THREE CHAPTERS. 

palace, the nuptial bed, were torn by spiritual discord ; yet 
so doubtful was the sincerity of the royal consorts, that their 
seeming disagreement was imputed by many to a secret 
and mischievous confederacy against the religion and 
The three happiness of their people. 93 The famous dispute 
chapters, of the three chapters, 94 which has filled more 
• 532-69 • vo i umes th an it deserves lines, is deeply marked 
with this subtle and disingenuous spirit. It was now three 
hundred years since the body of Origen 95 had been eaten 
by the worms : his soul, of which he held the pre-existence, 
was in the hands of its Creator, but his writings were 
eagerly perused by the monks of Palestine. In these 
writings, the piercing eye of Justinian descried more than 
ten metaphysical errors ; and the primitive doctor, in the 
company of Pythagoras and Plato, was devoted by the 
clergy to the eternity of hell-fire, which he had presumed 
to deny. Under the cover of this precedent, a treacherous 
blow was aimed at the council of Chalcedon. The fathers 
had listened without impatience to the praise of Theodore 
of Mopsuestia ; 96 and their justice or indulgence had restored 
both Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa, to the 
communion of the church. But the characters of these 

93 Procopius, Anecdot. c. 13. Evagrius, 1. iv. c. 10. If the ecclesiastical never 
read the secret historian, their common suspicion proves at least the general 
hatred. 

94 On the subject of the three chapters, the original act of the fifth general 
council of Constantinople supply much useless, though authentic, knowledge. 
(Concil. torn. vi. pp. 14-19). The Greek Evagrius is less copious and correct, 
(1. iv. c. 38), than the three zealous Africans, Eacundus, (in his twelve books, 
de tribus capitulis, which are most correctly published by Sirmond), Liberatus 
(in his Breviarum, c. 22, 23, 24,) and Victor Tunnunensis in his Chronicle (in torn, 
i. Antiq. Led. Canisii, pp. 330-334). The Liber Pontificalis, or Anastasius, (in 
Vigilio, Pelagio, &c), is original Italian evidence. The modern reader will de- 
rive some information from Dupin, (Bibliot. Eccles. torn. v. pp. 189-207), and 
Basnage, Hist, de rEglise, torn. i. pp. 519-541); and yet the latter is too firmly 
resolved to depreciate the authority and character of the popes. * 

95 Origin had indeed too great a propensity to imitate the irXdvij and Svocefieia 
or the old philosophers (Justinian, ad Mennam, in Concil torn. vi. p. 356). His 
moderate opinions were too repugnant to the zeal of the church, and he was found 
guiltv of the heresv of reason. f 

96 Basnage, (Pro/at. pp. 11-14, ad torn. i. Antiq. Led. Canis.) has fairly weighed 
the guilt and innocence of Theodore of Mopsuestia. If he composed 10,000 
volumes, as many errors would be a charitable allowance. In all the subsequent 
catalogues of heresiarchs, he alone, without his two brethren, is included ; and 
it is the duty of Asseman, {Bibliot. Orient, torn. iv. pp. 203-207), to justify the 
sentence. m 

* " The Three Chapters," is an incorrect translation of n^pl rpidv KedaAaiuv 
—de tribus capitulis, which denoted, not chapters, but the three heads or points 
of dispute which had so long agitated the church, {Neander, 4, 254). This edict 
was designed by Justinian, like the Henoiicon of Zeno, to compose differences, 
but was equally ineffectual. — Eng. Ch. 

t During the last decade, many clergymen have been convicted of this crime 
against religion, ".the heresy of reason,''' and forced to abandon their churches : 
and yet, in spite of the most severe discipline, the number of clerical offenders 
is still increasing. — E. 



FIFTH GENERAL COUNCIL. 677 

Oriental bishops were tainted with the reproach of heresy ; 
the first had been the master, the two others were the 
friends, of Nestorius : their most suspicious passages were 
accused under the title of the three chapters ; and the con- 
demnation of their memory must involve the honor of a 
synod, whose name was pronounced with sincere or affected 
reverence by the Catholic world. If these bishops, whether 
innocent or guilty, were annihilated in the sleep of death, 
they would not probably be awakened by the clamor, which 
after a hundred years was raised over their grave. If they 
were already in the fangs of the daemon, their torments 
could neither be aggravated nor assuaged by human 
industry. If in the company of saints and angels they 
enjoyed the rewards of piety, they must have smiled at the 
idle fury of the theological insects who still crawled on the 
surface of the earth, The foremost of these insects, the 
emperor of the Romans, darted his sting, and distilled his 
venom, perhaps without discerning the true motives of 
Theodora and her ecclesiastical faction. The victims were 
no longer subject to his power, and the vehement style of 
his edicts could only proclaim their damnation, and invite 
the clergy of the East to join in a full chorus of curses and 
anathemas. The East, with some hesitation, _.,. 

. . ' r . . ' Fifth general 

consented to the voice 01 her sovereign : the council. Sec- 
fifth general council, of three patriarchs and stanSnopie" 
one hundred and sixty-five bishops, was held A. D - 553.' 
at Constantinople; and the authors, as well as iay4_June2 
the defenders, of the three chapters, were separated from 
the communion of the saints, and solemnly delivered to the 
prince of darkness. But the Latin churches were more 
jealous of the honor of Leo and the synod of Chalcedon ; 
and if they had fought as they usually did under the 
standard of Rome, they might have prevailed in the cause 
of reason and humanity. But their chief was a prisoner in 
the hands of the enemy ; the throne of St. Peter, which 
had been disgraced by the simony, was betrayed by the 
cowardice, of Vigilius, who yielded, after a long and 
inconsistent struggle, to the despotism of Justinian and the 
sophistry of the Greeks. His apostasy provoked the 
indignation of the Latins, and no more than two bishops 
could be found who would impose their hands on his 
deacon and successor Pelagius. Yet the perseverance of 
the popes insensibly transferred to their adversaries the 



678 HERESY OF JUSTINIAN. 

appellation of schismatics ; the Illyrian, African, and Italian 
churches, were oppressed by the civil and ecclesiastical 
powers, not without some effort of military force ; 97 the 
distant barbarians transcribed the creed of the Vatican, and 
in the period of a century, the schism of the three chapters 
expired in an obscure angle of the Venetian province. 98 But 
the religious discontent of the Italians had already promoted 
the conquests of the Lombards, and the Romans themselves 
were accustomed to suspect the faith, and to detest the 
government of their Byzantine tyrant. 
Heresv of Justinian was neither steady nor consistent in 
Justinian, the nice process of fixing his volatile opinions 
a. d. 564. an( j those of his subjects. In his youth he was 
offended by the slightest deviation from the orthodox line ; 
in his old age, he transgressed the measure of temperate 
heresy, and the Jacobites, not less than the Catholics, were 
scandalized by his declaration, that the body of Christ was 
incorruptible, and that his manhood was never subject to 
any wants and infirmities, the inheritance of our mortal 
flesh. This phantastic opinion was announced in the las! 
edicts of Justinian ; and at the moment of his seasonable 
departure, the clergy had refused to subscribe, the prince 
was prepared to persecute, and the people were resolved 
to suffer or resist. A bishop of Treves, secure beyond the 
limits of his power, addressed the monarch of the East in 
the language of authority and affection, " Most gracious 
<l Justinian, remember your baptism and your creed. Let 
" not your gray hairs be defiled with heresy. Recall your 
" fathers from exile, and your followers from perdition. 
" You cannot be ignorant, that Italy and Gaul, Spain and 
" Africa, already deplore your fall, and anathematize your 
" name. Unless, without delay, you destroy what you have 
" taught ; unless you exclaim with a loud voice, I have 
" erred, I have sinned, anathema to Nestorius, anathema to 
" Eutyches, you will deliver your soul to the same flames 
*' in which they will eternally burn." He died and made 

9* See the complaints of Liberatus and Victor, and the exhortations of Pope 
Pelagius to the conquerer and exarch of Italy, Schisma * * * per potestates 
publicas opprimatur, &c. {Concil. torn, iv, p. 467, &c.) An army was detained to 
suppress the sedition of an Illyrian city. See Procopius, (de Bell. Goth. l.iv. c.25): 
(Jv~£p evena o^latv avrolc, ol XpiGTiavdi ihaudxovrai. He seems to promise an 
ecclesiastical history. It would have been curious and impartial. 

as The bishops of the patriarchate of Aquileia were reconciled by pope Hono- 
rius, A. D. 638, (Muratori, Annali d' Italia, torn. v. p. 376) ; but they again relapsed, 
and the schism was not finally extinguished till 698. Fourteen years before, the 
church of Spain had overlooked the fifth general council with contemptuous 
silence, ,xiii. Concil. Toletan. in Concil. torn. vii. pp. 487-494). 



THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY. 679 

no sign." His death restored in some degree the peace of 
the church, and the reigns of his four successors, Justin, 
Tiberius, Maurice, and Phocas, are distinguished by a rare, 
though fortunate, vacancy in the ecclesiastical history of 
the East. 100 

The faculties of sense and reason are least The 
capable of acting on themselves ; the eye is most ^ntroversy 6 , 
inaccessible to the sight, the soul to the thought; a. d. 659. 
yet we think, and even feel, that one will, a sole principle 
of action, is essential to a rational and conscious being. 
When Heraclius returned from the Persian war, the orthodox 
hero consulted his bishops, whether the Christ whom he 
adored, of one person, but of two natures, was actuated by 
a single or a double will. They replied in the singular, 
and the emperor was encouraged to hope that the Jacobites 
of Egypt and Syria might be reconciled by the profession 
of a doctrine, most certainly harmless, and most probably 
true, since it was taught even by the Nestorians themselves. 101 
The experiment was tried without effect, and the timid or 
vehement Catholics condemned even the semblance of a 
retreat in the presence of a subtle and audacious enemy. 
The orthodox (the prevailing) party devised new modes 
of speech, and argument, and interpetation : to either 
nature of Christ, they speciously applied a proper and 
distinct energy ; but the difference was no longer visible 
when they allowed that the human and the divine will were 
invariably the same. 102 The disease was attended with the 
customary symptoms ; but the Greek clergy, as if satiated 
with the endless controversy of the incarnation, instilled a 

99 Nicetius, bishop of Treves, (Concil. torn. vi. pp. 511-513) ; he himself, like most 
of the Gallican prelates, (Gregor. Epist. 1. vii. ep. 5, in Concil torn. vi. p. 1007), 
was separated from the communion of the four patriarchs by his refusal to con- 
demn the three chapters. Baronius almost pronounces the damnation of 
Justinian, (a. d. 565, No. 6). 

100 After relating the last heresy of Justinian, (1. iv. c. 39, 40, 41), and the edict 
of his successor (1. v. c. 3), the remainder of the history of Evagrius, is filled with 
civil, instead of ecclesiastical, events. 

101 This extraordinay, and perhaps inconsistent, doctrine of the Nestorians, 
had been observed by La Croze, {Christianisme des hides, torn. i. pp. 19, 20), and 
is more fully exposed by Abulpharagius, {Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. p. 292. Hist. 
Dynast, p. 91, vers. Latin. Pocock), and Asseman himself, (torn. iv. p. 218). They 
seem ignorant that they might allege the positive authority of the ecthesis. 
'O jiiapog ~Ne<7TnpiG<; 'naLirep Siaipcov rr/v -&elav rov Kvpcox) evavdpuTVTjoiv, nal 
6vo elodyuv vlovc, (the common reproach of the Monophysites), 6vo ^eX^fiara 
-rovruv eltteiv ovk kroTifxrjae, rovvavTiov 6e ravTO fiovXiav t€>v * * * & V o 
7cp6co)TTov k&6%aoe. (Concil. torn. vii. p. 205). 

102 See the Orthodox faith in Petavius, (Dogmata TJieolog. torn. v. 1. ix. c. 6-10, 
PP- 433-447) :— all the depths of this controversy are sounded in the Greek dia- 
logue between Maximus and Pyrrhus, (ad calcem torn. viii. Annal. Baron, pp. 
755-794). which relates a real conference, and produced as short-lived a conversion. 



680 ECTHESIS OF HERACLIUS. 

healing counsel into the ear of the prince and people. They 
declared themselves Monothelites, (asserters of the unity. 
of will,) but they treated the words as new, the questions 
as superfluous, and recommended a religious silence as the 
Theecthesis most agreeable to the prudence and charity of 
ofHeraciius, the gospel. This law of silence was successively 
The?ype 9 of imposed by the ecthesis or exposition of Hera- 
Cons'tans, clius, the type or model of his grandson Con- 
4 ' stans ; 103 and the imperial edicts were subscribed 
with alacrity or reluctance by the four patriarchs of Rome, 
Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch. But the bishop 
and monks of Jerusalem sounded the alarm ; in the 
language, or even in the silence, of the Greeks, the Latin 
churches detected a latent heresy : and the obedience of 
pope Honorius to the commands of his sovereign was 
retracted and censured by the bolder ignorance of his 
successors. They condemned the execrable and abominable 
heresy of the Monothelites, who revived the errors of 
Manes, Apollinaris, Eutyches, &c.; they signed the sentence 
of excommunication on the tomb of St. Peter ; the ink was 
mingled with the sacramental wine, the blood of Christ ; 
and no ceremony was omitted that could fill the superstitious 
mind with horror and affright. As the representative of 
the Western church, pope Martin and his Lateran synod 
anathematized the perfidious and guilty silence of the 
Greeks ; one hundred and five bishops of Italy, for the 
most part the subjects of Constans, presumed to reprobate 
his wicked type and the impious ecthesis of his grandfather, 
and to confound the authors and their adherents with the 
twenty-one notorious heretics, the apostates from the 
church, and the organs of the devil. Such an insult under 
the tamest reign could not pass with impunity. Pope 
Martin ended his days on the inhospitable shore of the 
Tauric Chersonesus, and his oracle, the abbot Maximus, 
was inhumanly chastised by the amputation of his tongue 
and his right hand. 104 But the same invincible spirit survived 
in their successors, and the triumph of the Latins avenged 

103 Impiissimam ecthesim * * * scelerosum typum (Concil. torn. vii. p. 366), 
diabolicae operationis genimina (fors. germina, or else the Greek -yevrjiiara 
in the original. Concil. p. 363, 364,) are the expressions of the eighteenth 
anathema. The epistle of Pope Martin to Amandus, a Gallican bishop, stigma- 
tizes the Monothelites and their heresy with equal virulence, (p. 392.) 

104 The sufferings of Martin and Maximus are described with pathetic sim- 
plicity in their original letters and acts, (Concil. torn. vii. pp. 63-78. Baron. Annul. 
Eccles. A. D. 656, No. 2, et annos subsequent). Yet the chastisement of their dis- 
obedience, k^opia and ouimitoc aluia/uor, had been previously announced in the 
Type of Constans, (Concil. torn. vii. p. 240). 



SIXTH GENERAL COUNCIL. 68 1 

their recent defeat, and obliterated the disgrace of the three 
chapters. The synods of Rome were confirmed Sixth general 
by the sixth general council of Constantinople, council. Sec- 
in the palace and presence of a new Constantine, stantfnopiei 
a descendant of Heraclius. The royal convert , T A - D - ^ 8o - 

. , „ . . rr * J . November 7. 

converted the Byzantine pontiff and a majority a. d. 63i, 
of the bishops ; 105 the dissenters, with their chief, Se P tember l6 - 
Macarius of Antioch, were condemned to the spiritual and 
temporal pains of heresy ; the East condescended to accept 
the lessons of the West ; and the creed was finally settled, 
which teaches the Catholics of every age, that two wills or 
energies are harmonized in the person of Christ. The 
majesty of the pope and the Roman synod was represented 
by two priests, one deacon, and three bishops : but these 
obscure Latins had neither arms to compel, nor treasures 
to bribe, nor language to persuade ; and I am ignorant by 
what arts they could determine the lofty emperor of the 
Greeks to abjure the catechism of his infancy, and to 
persecute the religion of his fathers. Perhaps the monks 
and people of Constantinople 106 were favorable to the 
Lateran creed, which is indeed the least reasonable of the 
two : and the suspicion is countenanced by the unnatural 
moderation of the Greek clergy, who appear in this quarrel 
to be conscious of their weakness. While the synod debated, 
a fanatic proposed a more summary decision, by raising a 
dead man to life-; the prelates assisted at the trial, but the 
acknowledged failure may serve to indicate, that the 
passions and prejudices of the multitude were not enlisted 
on the side of the Monothelites. In the next generation, 
when the son of Constantine was deposed and slain by the 
disciple of Macarius, they tasted the feast of revenge and 
dominion : the image or monument of the sixth council 
was defaced, and the original acts were committed to the 
flames. But in the second year, their patron was cast 
headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were 
released from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith 
was more firmly re-planted by the orthodox successors of 
Bardanes, and the fine problems of the incarnation were 

105 Eutychius, {Annal. torn. ii. p. 368), most erroneously supposes that the 124 
bishops of the Roman synod transported themselves to Constantinople ; and by 
adding them to the 168 Greeks, thus composes the sixth council of 292 fathers. 

106 The Monothelite Constans was hated by all, dul rot ravra (says Theophanes, 
Chron. p. 292), kfiiarjdT] a<p66po)C koku, ttuvtuv. When the Monothelite monk 
failed in his miracle, the people shouted, oXabc dvePoTjae, {Concil. torn, 
vii. p. 1032). But this was a natural and transient emotion ; and I much fear that 
the latter is an anticipation of orthodoxy in the good people of Constantinople. 



682 UNION OF GREEK AND LATIN CHURCHES. 

forgotten in the more popular and visible quarrel of the 
worship of images. 107 

Before the end of the seventh century, the 
Gredc°and e creed of the incarnation, which had been denned 
chu'ches at R° me ano ^ Constantinople, was uniformly 
preached in the remote islands of Britain and 
Ireland ; 108 the same ideas were entertained, or rather the 
same words were repeated,* by all the Christians whose 
liturgy was performed in the Greek or Latin tongue. Their 
numbers, and visible splendor, bestowed an imperfect claim 
to the appellation of Catholics ; but in the East they were 
marked with the less honorable name of Melchites, or 
royalists ; 109 of men, whose faith, instead of resting on the 
basis of Scripture, reason, or tradition, had been established, 
and was still maintained, by the arbitrary power of a 
temporal monarch. Their adversaries might allege the 
words of the fathers of Constantinople, who profess them- 
selves the slaves of the king ; and they might relate, with 

107 The history of Monothelitism may he found in the Acts of the Synods of 
Rome, (torn. vii. pp. 77-395. 601-608), and Constantinople, pp. 609-1429). Baronius 
extracted some original documents from the Vatican library : and his chronology 
is rectified by the diligence of Pagi. Even Dupin, (Biblioiheque Eccles. torn. vi. 
pp. 57-71), and Basnage, {Hist, de V Eglise, torn. i. pp. 54 I_ 555)> afford a tolerable 
abridgment. 

108 in the Lateran synod of 679. Wilfrid, an Anglo-Saxon bishop, subscribed 
pro omni Aquilonari parte Britanniae et Hiberniae, quae ab Anglorum et Britonum, 
necnon Scotorum et Pictorum gentibus colebantur, (Eddius, in Vit. St. Wilfrid, 
c. 31, apud Pagi, Crilica, torn. iii. p. 88). Theodore, (magnse insulae Britanniae 
archiepiscopus et philosophus), was long expected at Rome, Concil. torn. vii. p. 
714), but he contented himself with holding, (a. d. 680), his provincial synod of 
Hatfield, in which he received the decrees of Pope Martin and the first Lateran 
council against the Monothelites, {Concil. torn. vii. p. 597, &c.) Theodore a monk 
of Tarsus in Cilicia, had been named to the primacy of Britain by Pope Vitalian, 
(a. d. 688; see Baronius and Pagi), whose esteem for his learning and piety was 
tainted by some distrust of his national character — ne quid contrarium veritati 
fidei. Graecorum more, in ecclesiam cui praeesset introduceret. The Cilician was 
sent from Rome to Canterbury under the tuition of an African guide, (Bedae, Hist. 
Eccles, Anglorum, 1. iv. c. 1). He adhered to the Roman doctrine ; and the same 
creed of the incarnation has been uniformly transmitted from Theodore to the 
modern primates, whose sound understanding is perhaps seldom engaged with 
that abstruse mystery.t 

109 This name, unknown till the tenth century, appears to be of Syriac origin. 
It was invented by the Jacobites, and eagerly 'adopted by the Nestorians and 
Mahometans ; but it was accepted without shame by the Catholics, and is fre- 
quently used in the Annals of Eutychius, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. p. 
507. &c. torn. iii. p. 355. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandrin. p. 119). 
'Hfidc dovAoi tov Bacri/.eof, was the acclamation of the fathers of Constantinople, 
(Concil. torn. vii. p. 765). 

* Mark the distinction. — E. 

tWighard, who had been appointed to the see of Canterbury by Egbert, king of 
Kent, died at Rome, whither he had gone for ordination. Vitalian selected in his 
place Hadrian, abbot of the Niridian monastery near Naples, who declined the 
dignity, and recommended the monk Theodore.' This choice the pope confirmed, 
on condition that Hadrian should accompany his friend. On their arrival, the 
new archbishop gave to his associate the abbey of St. Peter, (afterwards St. 
Augustine's) ; they not only acted together in cordial harmony, but diffused the 
same spirit around them. Bede says, that Theodore was the first " whom all the 
■ ' English church obeyed." (Ecc. Hist. p. 170-172, edit. Bonn.)— Eng. Ch. 



PERPETUAL SEPARATION OF ORIENTAL SECTS. 683 

malicious joy, how the decrees of Chalcedon had been 
inspired and reformed by the emperor Marcian and his 
virgin bride. The prevailing faction will naturally inculcate 
the duty of submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters 
should feel and assert the principles of freedom. Under 
the rod of persecution, the Nestorians and Monophysites 
degenerated into rebels and fugitives ; and the most ancient 
and useful allies of Rome were taught to consider the 
emperor not as the chief, but as the enemy, of the Christians. 
Language, the leading principle which unites or separates 
the tribes of mankind, soon discriminated the sectaries of 
the East, by a peculiar and perpetual badge, which abolished 
the means of intercourse and the hope of recon- 
ciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, separation of 
their colonies, and above all their eloquence, the S g C r t i g" tal 
had propagated a language doubtless the most 
perfect that has been contrived by the art of man. Yet the 
body of the people, both in Syria and Egypt, still persevered 
in the use of their national idioms ; with this difference, 
however, that the Coptic was confined to the rude and 
illiterate peasants of the Nile, while the Syriac, 110 from the 
mountains of Assyria to the Red sea, was adapted to the 
higher topics of poetry and argument. Armenia and 
Abyssinia were infected by the speech or learning of the 
Greeks ; and their barbaric tongues, which have been revived 
in the studies of modern Europe, were unintelligible to the 
inhabitants of the Roman empire. The Syriac and the 
Coptic, the Armenian and the ^Ethiopic, are consecrated 
in the service of their respective churches : and their 
theology is enriched by domestic versions 111 both of the 

no The Syriac, which the natives revere as the primitive language, was divided 
into three dialects. 1. The Aramaean, as it was refined at Edessa and the cities 
of Mesopotamia. 2. The Palestine, which was used in Jerusalem, Damascus, and 
the rest of Syria. 3. The Nabathcean, the rustic idiom of the mountains of Assyria, 
and the villages of Irak, (Gregor. Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast, p. 11). On the 
Syriac, see Ebed-Jesu, (Asseman. torn. iii. p. 326, &c.) whose prejudice alone 
could prefer it to the Arabic. 

in I shall not enrich my ignorance with the spoils of Simon, Walton, Mill, 
Wetstein, Assemannus, Ludolphus, La Croze, whom I have consulted with some 
care. It appears, 1. 77iat, of all the versions which are celebrated by the fathers, 
it is doubtful whether any are now extant in their pristine integrity.* 2. That 
the Syriac has the best claim, and that the consent of the Oriental sects is a proof 
that it is more ancient than their schism. 

* Modern theologians give curious, if not romantic, explanations, to account 
for the admitted discrepancies in the Gospel text. Alexander Roberts, D. D., 
" Professor of Humanity, St. Andrew's, and Member of the English NewTestament 
" Company," in his learned and useful work, entitled, Companion to the Revised 
Version of the English New Testament, states, on the first page, that, "the 
" varieties of reading in the New Testament were reckoned at about 30.000 in the 
" last century, they are generally referred to as amounting to no less than 150,000 
" at the present day." This difficulty is, however, easily explained by him, as fol- 



684 NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS. 

Scriptures and of the most popular fathers. After a period 
of thirteen hundred and sixty years, the spark of controversy , 

lows : (p. 160), " God has not seen fit to provide the Church by a miracle, with in- 
" fallible translators, any more than with infallible transcribers, printers, and 
" readers." Of course, the printers and proof-readers are greatly to blame. 
This is an admitted fact. Every author, not excepting the author of the Bible, 
knows by sad experience, how difficult it is to induce these perverse disciples of 
Faust to correct errors, how ingenious they are in inventing new ones, and what 
diabolical skill they possess in concealing their mistakes until after they have been 
published to the world. But the bible manuscripts were not printed but written, 
and Dr. Roberts is suspicious that the transcribers were but little better than the 
printers. On page four, we are informed that, "in regard to the New Testament, 
" no miracle has been wrought to preserve its text as it came from the pens of 
" the inspired writers. That would have been a thing alt6gether out of harmony 
" with God's method of governing the world." 

Theologians are not Agnostics, and they clearly understand the nature of God. 
They are familiar with his thoughts and desires, his purposes and his motives ; 
and Dr. Roberts is in entire harmony with modern theologians in his positive 
assertion regarding the indifference which God has manifested in relation to the 
fate of the New Testament manuscripts. It seems clearly apparent, therefore, 
that we are indebted to the zeal of the early Christians, and to them and their 
monkish successors only, for the preservation of the "Written Word," even in 
the imperfect condition it now remains. 

The fac-simile illustrations herewith given, show a few verses of each of the 
more important Gospel manuscripts, and for a full history and explanation of the 
various uncial and cursive codices now in existence, the reader is referred to 
the published writings of Prof. Tischendorf, Drs. Home and Wadsworth, and the 
/ Rev. F. H. Scrivener. For a condensed and perhaps more impartial 

* /^^ account, see Prof. J.J. Eschenburg's Manual of -Classical Literature. 




ALEXANDRINE CODEX, {John i: 1-3,) with translation. 

MXpX^nMNOAOTOCKAIOAorocH 
T 1 pOCTO NGN' l< A, I6CHNOXO TO C • 

O V T O G H M e M A p K K n J» O C TO H 0N 

TTXNT^IXYrOVereNGTOKXUw 

f e ic^yToyere NgToov^ee m 

OrerOH GNeNAYTCJU^CJUHHM 

iai hz <juh m Krro(b u)Ctu>nxnu)n 
KA|T0d)O)CeNTrlCK0Ti>d)AI 
NCI laiHCKOTlAAYTOOYlwe 

In the year 1628, Cyril, patriarch of Constantinople, presented to King Charles I. 
bv his ambassador. Sir Thomas Rowe, a copy of the Greek Scriptures. It has 
been named the " Codex Alexandrinus," because it is supposed to have formerly 
been in Alexandria. It is written with uncial, that is, capital letters, with no inter- 
vals between the words, as will be seen in the above fac-simile illustration and 
the following translation, which latter is from Stowe's Bible History. It is 
assigned by scholars to the fifth centurv, although Eschenburg and other critics 
place it in the sixth, and Cassimir Oudin as late as the tenth century. VVe are 
told it was written bv the monks for the use of a monastery of ihe order ot 
Accemets. i. e., vigilant, never sleeping. It has no apostolic signature. It is highly 
commended bv Dr. Roberts, and is probablv as good authority as any in existence. 
In the year 1753. it was deposited in the British Museum, where it now remains. 

The reader will perceive by the Tollowing translation of the above codex, which 



NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS. 



68 5 



first kindled by a sermon of Nestorius, still burns in the 
bosom of the East, and the hostile communions still main- 
is printed, like the original, in capital letters, without divisions between the words, 
or punctuation marks of any kind, the great difficulty of reading these old uncials. 

Tnthe'beginningwasthewordandthewordwas 

WITHGl>ANDGDWASTHEWORDj 

HEWASINTHEBEGINNINGWITHGD. 
ALLWEREMADEBYHIMANDWITH 
OUTHIM WASMADENOTONE THING 

THATWASMADEINHIMLIFEWAS 

ANDTHELIFEWASTHELIGHTOFMN 

ANDTHELIGHTINDARKNESSSHINETH 

ANDTHEDARKNESSDIDNOTITCOMPREHEND. 

SINAITIC CODEX, Mark, 11 : 1-4. 
At the convent of St. Catharine on Mount Sinai, in 1859, Professor Tischendorf 
discovered this manuscript. It was copied by him, and the original given by the 
monks to Alexander II. who deposited it in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg 

x xrxHTOYeYArreAi 
oYiYXYKXeo3CF^ 



2± 



rf xnT*xieh4Tco h-a 

TXTCOnfO<|>HT"H 

lAOYeroDxn o ctg 

ACDTONAJTeAOHM^ 

rrfonfocconoYcoT 
ocfoTTKCKeyxcei 

"TH NOAONCOY 
<|>CON H BO CO NTO C€f 

TH6fHM(D6TOJMX 

ocre~TH noao h kt 

eYeixcnoiGinre"TX c 

tt 1 soycaytoykaj^ 

TGt<i £TO I CD AN NH C 

osAnnzcDNeNm 



It is written on the 
finest vellum. Prof. 
Tischendorf consid- 
ered it " an inesti- 
mable treasure for 
Christian science, " 
but Doctor Roberts 
thinks he "was natu- 
rally disposed to ex- 
aggerate somewhat 
both the antiquity 
and value of his won- 
derful discovery. " 
The doctor consid- 
ers that it was writ- 
ten in the fourth cen- 
tury, " and though it 
contains many ob- 
vious errors, it yields 
assistance of a kind 
most precious to- 
wards the settlement 
of thetrue text of the 
New Testament." It 
is presumed, how- 
ever, that the " many 
" obvious errors" it 
contains, are excused 
from assisting in this 
precious work. This 
codex, like all the 
others, is anonymous 
it being undated and 
zmsigned by either of 
the Apostles. 

As to the age ofany 
of the Gospel manu- 
scripts, it is a matter 
of uncertainty and 
conjecture. A judg- 
ment is based upon 
the fact that the for- 
mation of the writ- 
ten Greek characters 
gradually changed 
during the different 
centuries. The more 
ancient manuscripts 




686 NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS. 

tain the faith and discipline of their founders. In the most 
abject state of ignorance, poverty, and servitude, the 

are written in capital letters, without spaces between the words, and with- 
out signs of punctuation. Accents and aspirates, according to Eschenberg, 
were introduced in the seventh century. In the eighth and ninth, the 
capital letters were a little longer, and had greater inclination. After this 
period, a smaller style of writing, called cursive, was introduced ; and if we 
trace backward the formation of letters to their source.we will find the originals 
in the hieroglyphics of Egypt. Max Muller, in his Essay on Freedom, traces our 
written characters from Egypt to Phoenicia, from Phoenicia to Greece, from 
Greece to Italy, and from Italy to England. " When we write," says he, 'and he 
quotes as authority, Bunsen's Egypt, ii., pp. 77-150,) " a capital F CT when we 
" draw the top line and the smaller line through the middle of the Cj letter, we 
really draw the two horns of the cerastes, the horned serpent which the ancient 
Egyptians used for representing the sound of F. They write the name of the 
king whom the Greeks called Cheops, and they themselves Chu-fu, like this: 
Here the first sign, the sieve, is to be pronounced chu, ■ 
the horned serpent, fu, and the little bird again, u. 
cursive or Hieratic writing, the horned serpent 
XS in the later Demotic as V and fJ . The 
■ who borrowed their letters from * the 

Egyptians, wrote U and U The Greeks, who took 
from the Phoeni- cians 'wrote "^. When the 
stead of writing like the Phoenicians from right to 
to write from left to right, they turned each letter, and ^ became K, our k, 
so "^ vau. became F, the Greek so-called Digamma, the Latin F. The first 
letter in Chu-fu, too, still exists in our alphabet, and in the transverse 
line of our H we must recognize the last remnant of the lines which divide the 
sieve. The sieve appears in Hieratic as (TV in Phoenician as rj an d j n 
ancient Greek as □, which occurs on an inscription found M at Myce- 

nae and elsewhere tJ as the sign of the spiritus asper, while in Latin it is known 
to us as the letter H. In the same manner the undulating line of our capital G5 
still recalls very strikingly the bent back of the crouching lion, which in ^ 
the later hieroglyphic inscriptions represents the sound of L. 

CODEX CLAROMONTANUS. (Stichometric,— Tit. i. 8, 9.) 

MViAlCXPOKepA-A 

d)U\rA0ONcc6cJ>poH 

A1KA1 ONOOOH 

en kpath 

XKTTeXOMeNON 

In the fifth century Euthalius of Alexandria, published portions of the New 
Testament, arranged into longer or shorter clauses, for the convenience of the 
reader. Manuscripts written in this style are called' " stichometric ;" and 
stichometry is really nothing but a rude substitute for punctuation. 

In Crabb's Technological Dictionary , an illustration may be seen of the Oriental, 
Greek, and Latin, alphabets, and of alphabets derived from or allied to them. In 
the Greek alphabets are shown theCadmean, Pelasgian, Sigean, Nemean, Delian, 
Athenian, Teian and the alphabet of Simonides, called the Ionic, which he com- 
pleted 500 years E. c. Also, other Greek alphabets of different ages ; namely one 



NEW -TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS. 



687 



ffi 



es, 

J 



Nestorians and Monophysites reject the spiritual supremacy 
of Rome, and cherish the toleration of their Turkish 

used in the time of Alexander the Great, B.C. 330 ; the alphabet drawn from the 
coins of the Antiochi, Kings of Syria, &c, b. c. 240 to 187; that of Constantine 
the Great. A. D. 306 ; of Justinian the Great, A. D. 527 ; of Heraclius, A. D. 616 ; of 
Leo.Jaurus, A. d. 716; a specimen of small Greek letters, and another of capitals, 
in the eighth century. From the first century to the present time, there is a vast 
difference in the formation of these written characters, but the change was 
gradually made, and varied greatly in different countries, so that no definite 
time can be given for the age of any manuscript, judging by the formation of 
the written characters, but only an approximate idea. " Often in earlier 
" times," says Eschenburg, "transcribers strictly imitated the ancient copies, 
" and preserved all the peculiarities unchanged." " Some manuscripts _ 

" ascribed to the highest antiquity," says Marsh, v. 2, p. 295, as quoted v' 

by Taylor, "have been discovered to be the composition of impositors, m 
" as late as the seventeenth century, for the purpose of foisting in J 
" favorite doctrines, and imposing on Christian credulity. The 
" Montford and Berlin MSS. for instance." 

The vellum on which some of the older manuscripts were written, 
was sometimes stained with purple, which color was held in great es- 
teem by the Romans, and letters in silver and gold 
were impressed on this purple ground. Twelve 
leaves of a beautiful codex, called the Codex Pur- 
pureus, remain ; four of which are in the British 
Museum, six in the Vatican, and two at Vienna. The 
vellum is thin, and of fine texture. It still retains the 
purple dye, but the silver letters have turned black. 

The New Testament was early translated into other 
languages, and some reliance is placed upon these 
old versions ; but of course, a copy, and still less a 
translation, can never hope to equal an original ; and 
it is greatly to be regretted that no original manu- 
script has survived, as an acknowledged standard 
of authority. The Kingjames' version claims to have 
been translated from the original Greek, but it is not 
certain that Greek was the original language em- 
ployed. It is positively asserted that St. Matthew's 
Gospel was written in Hebrew, and it is very likely 
that the "original Greek" was a translation from 
the original Hebrew. Be this as it may. it is certain 
that the Vulgate, the Latin, the Persic, the Armenian, 
the Ethiopic, the Sahidic, the Coptic, and the 
Syriac, are all undoubted translations, and, therefore, 
not to be considered as a standard of authority. The 
Cursive MSS. are of modern date, and rank still 
lower in the scale, and our best, and indeed, our 
only authority for judging of the purity of the gospel 
text is found in the old Uncials. It is on their au- 
thority that the revisers of the New Testament wisely 
omitted interpolations, like the doxology, from the 
Lord's prayer, and corrected forgeries, that bear on 
the most essential doctrines of Christianity, such as 
1 yohn, v : 7,8;/ Tim. iii : 16 ; and many others ; but 
while the old uncials thus conclusively prove the 
errors of the modern cursives, there is really no evi- 
dence to demonstrate their own claim to authenticity. 

Prof. C. E. Stowe, D.D. in his great work entitled, 
Origin and History of the Books of the Bible, states 
on p. 19 of that learned and orthodox history, that 
" It is not the words of the Bible that were inspired, 
" it 'is not the thoughts of the Bible that were in- 
" spired, it is the men who wrote the Bible that were 
" inspired." If this statement from this celebrated 
Christian writer be admitted as true, it will account 
for all the errors and contradictions our Scriptures 
now contain. They are the uninspired thoughts and 
writings of inspired men. The authors were in- 
spired but the inspiration has not extended to their 
works, which are filled with errors and mistakes, like 
all human productions. 



e 



C 



5 c 



* 



688 



NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS. 



masters, 
hand, St 



which allows them to anathematize, on the one 
, Cyril and the synod of Ephesus ; on the other, 

h 



«-3— a: 

<u o .= e 
!2 y o £ 

5 § £ * 



\rf2 
















NEW -TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS. 



689 



pope Leo and the council of Chalcedon. The weight which 
they cast into the downfall of the Eastern empire demands 

THE CODEX VATICANUS. {Psalm, i. 1, 2.) 
Nothing is known of this codex, now in the Vatican library, previous to the 
veat ■ 1 lif It was probablv written by the monks of Mount Athos It contains 
L e 5™ 4 J 5 V ' llT.J in the Septua.eent version, and a part of the New _ It 



part 
three columns on each 






7 >i* * 
2 £.3 2 



> 7 3 Z * 

silt? 




with 



yi 



w"2 



> o 



3* Mi**? 

> -?-<3lo c g 



t 

O 



the"d/rf"7*«tew«ii in the Septuagent 

is written on parchment or vellum, in 

the letters all of the same 

size, except at the beginning 

of a book, without any di- 
vision of words, and with but 

few abbreviations. It is pre- 
served in the Vatican Library 

at Rome. Doctor Roberts, 

for some inscrutable reason, 

classes it in the feminine gen- 
der, and calls it " the queen 

of all the manuscripts of the 

New Testament^ He places 

this manuscript as high as the 

fourth century, while Taylor 

places it in the sixth, and 

Eschenberg in the seventh. 

It is undated and does not 

bear an Apostolic signature. 
Uncial writing continued in 

general use till the middle of 

the tenth century. From the 

eleventh century downward, 

cursive, or running hand , has 

prevailed. A complete de- 
scription of these MSS. may 

be seen in the great critical 

editions of the New Testa- 
ment. We have only given 

a few lines of each of the 

principal codices, sufficient, 
however, it is believed, for 
showing the general appear- 
ance of the whole. 

These codices are the high- 
est and, with the exception of 
the versions translated into 
other languages, are almost 
the only authority for the 
Christian religion ; and they 
each consist of a few strokes 
of a stylus, upon parchment 
or vellum, from the hand of 
some unknown monk. They 
are written in a dead lan- 
guage, in characters but a 
few removes from the old 
Egyptian hieroglyphics, and 
if they ever contained direct 
commands and positive or- 
ders from the deity to man- 
kind, those commands and 
those orders cannot now be 
correctly interpreted. A con- 
gress of the most learned and devout Christian scholars of Europe and America, 
have wasted years of labor in the effort, and the result — the revised version — is 
unsatisfactory to themselves, and is repudiated by many orthodox theologians. 
On the first page of their work called a Companion, and which is really an apology, 
Dr. Roberts, their learned spokesman, says, in almost his first written line, " the 
" number of varieties of reading are now referred to as amounting to no less than 
" 150.000." We cannot be surprised, therefore, at his remark— not satirically, but 
revereutially made, that—" No miracle has been wrought to preserve the text." 



H 

3 

-e- 

-< 

A 
3 



o j z 

n I j x ru- 
-I > 5*o» 

» is 



& 



♦ 



&OCDIMI 



69O NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS. 

our notice, and the reader may be amused with the various, 
prospects of, I. The Nestorians. II. The Jacobites. III. 

CODEX LAUDIANUS. 

e_ ^.^ —^ My y> This illustration is from the 

Wy Ik^ C vCr~*f , C't* Codex Laudianus, a manuscript 

g^. *^~ ^ km ^^*~ J ^**^ supposed to be of the sixth cen- 

S m -0^ tury, and now in the Bodleian 

/"*% g~^ I CI* O f "% |l^ library at Oxford. By comparing 
\^ V^ L-9 l^Z^-J* ■ ^^.l-'B M the writing with a Latin manu- 
script of the same period, a close 
resemblance between the two 
alphabets then in use, will be 
observed. 
CODEX BASILENSIS. 

'omc lirpo (roXr^^-ojy-^\C^\j^rOT* 2^ a-m Ol M *- 8 H tury the 

-nr ptf^nju^T^pcof' •o*urXp^i-cqo/ / T a "-TO L ^^ pour" handwrit- 
r ~ ' ' ing came 

into general use, and manuscripts written in this style are known to be of modern 
origin, and of but little textual value. Dr. Roberts, however, who employs every 
argument to strengthen his cause, says that, " although a manuscript may date, 
" say from the eleventh century, it might have been accurately copied from one 
" belonging to the second ; " but this supposition adds no weight in favor of 
the correctness of our received version, because the text might also have been 
changed and corrupted, and it is useless to speculate or theorize on ancient 
manuscripts whose authenticity cannot be established by positive evidence. 

CODEX RUBER. _ .. , v% 

* * ^ I Cardinal Ximenes, 

It Af ik\ HC £<W f an X.f J_K <£\«*« S? "Si? g^S 

m * ** < *^ /-y j " a • § 1 \ Testament, in 1517. 

v „ * • I ' ^ N • * in 1546, Beza in 1565, 

mm tN nJUH Upw+^n .»t*ntnt A. ffi ",£r 325 

■ ^ l> *% '2 pallv followed in the 

PlJ«\H«OOC HCTTUJ) 6 KAXOVUe ?e^on Ze B d e,a E, k 8 ras- 
L *• \ V \ ^ *«■!.• . \ mus, and Stephens, 

aufhority. A very handsome Latin edition was issued at Mentzin 1452; and a few 
copies of this publication are known to be in existence at the present day. 

CODEX MONACENSIS. Great stress 

T.i'oiCH/ui I 6crv\f nOAnT 1 AOY0I J^ffaS 

J f ,'' ' r ' * Gospel man- 

t NiIV\^Tl CMW(NAO^W)(A(T^Y uscripts, u P - 

/. i , C- J on the fact 

<b HVn^pVONteCPNJ^OlC ^ - ^ C L /V P l^ corfd'ition" \s 
» jl % I ->- J.. ,,,xl -.» equal, if not 

1 C * I C W A A. A A T I 8 •? f A H *Y •»** STUM 

*-» writings of 

antiquity, " such "as the orations of Cicero and the histories of Polybius and of Livy, 
" and how do we know," they ask. " that we have the veritable Iliad and 
Odyssey?" Unless we admit the human origin of the bible, this comparison is 
useless, for the above writings are admitted to be the work of man, and do not claim, 
like the bible, to be inspired. There is no penalty attached to their disbelief, and no 
reward for their belief. We jude:e of them by their intrinsic merit alone, and all 
writings, wheth sr sacred or profane, should be judged by the same standard.— E. 



ORIENTAL SECTS. 69 1 

The Marionites 112 IV. The Armenians. V. The Copts ; 
and, VI. The Abyssinians. To the three former, the Syriac 
is common ; but of the latter, each is discriminated by the 
use of a national idiom. Yet the modern natives of Armenia 
and Abyssinia would be incapable of conversing with their 
ancestors ; and the Christians of Egypt and Syria, who 
reject the religion, have adopted the language, of the 
Arabians. The lapse of time has seconded the sacerdotal 
arts ; and in the East, as well as in the West, the Deity is 
addessed in an obsolete tongue, unknown to the majority 
of the congregation. 

I. Both in his native and his episcopal province, 1. The 
the heresy of the unfortunate Nestorius was Nestorians. 
speedily obliterated. The Oriental bishops, who at Ephesus 
had resisted to his face the arrogance of Cyril, were molli- 
fied by his tardy concessions. The same prelates, or their 
successors, subscribed, not without a murmur, the decrees 
of Chalcedon ; the power of the Monophysites reconciled 
them with the Catholics in the conformity of passion, of 
interest, and insensibly of belief; and their last reluctant 
sigh was breathed in the defence of the three chapters. 
Their dissenting brethren, less moderate, or more sincere, 
were crushed by the penal laws : and as early as the reign 
of Justinian, it became difficult to find a church of Nestorians 
within the limits of the Roman empire. Beyond those 
limits they had discovered a new world, in which they 
might hope for liberty, and aspire to conquest. In Persia, 
notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi, Christianity had 
struck a deep root, and the nations of the East reposed 
under its salutary shade. The Catholic y or primate, resided 
in the capital : in his synods, and in their dioceses, his 
metropolitans, bishops, and clergy, represented the pomp 
and order of a regular hierarchy : they rejoiced in the 
increase of proselytes, who were converted from the 
Zendavesta to the Gospel, from the secular to the monastic 
life ; and their zeal was stimulated by the presence of an 
artful and formidable enemy. The Persian church had 
been founded by the missionaries of Syria ; and their 

112 On the account of the Monophysites and Nestorians, I am deeply indebted 
to the Bibliotheca Orientalis dementino-Vaticana of Joseph Simon Assemannus. 
That leanned Maronite was dispatched, in the year 1713, by Pope Clement XI. to 
visit the monasteries of Egypt and Syria, in search of MSS. His four folio volumes, 
published at Rome, 1719-172S, contain a part only, though perhaps the most valu- 
able, of his extensive project. As a native and as a scholar, he possessed the 
Syriac literature ; and, though a dependant of Rome, he wishes to be moderate 
and candid. 



692 THE NESTORIANS. 

language, discipline, and doctrine, were closely interwoven 
with its original frame. The Catholics were elected and 
ordained by their own suffragans ; but their filial dependance 
on the patriarchs of Antioch is attested by the canons of the 
Oriental church. 113 In the Persian school of Edessa, 114 the 
rising generations of the faithful imbibed their theological 
idiom ; they studied in the Syriac version the ten thousand 
volumes of Theodore of Mopsuestia, and they revered the 
apostolic faith and holy martyrdom of his disciple Nestorius, 
whose person and language were equally unknown to the 
nations beyond the Tigris. The first indelible lesson of 
Ibas, bishop of Edessa, taught them to execrate the 
Egyptians, who, in the synod of Ephesus, had impiously 
confounded the two natures of Christ. The flight of the 
masters and scholars, who were twice expelled from the 
Athens of Syria, dispersed a crowd of missionaries inflamed 
by the double zeal of religion and revenge. And the rigid 
unity of the Monophysites, who, under the reigns of Zeno 
and Anastasius, had invaded the thrones of the East, 
provoked their antagonists, in a land of freedom, to avow 
a moral, rather than a physical, union of the two persons 
of Christ. Since the first preaching of the gospel, the 
Sassanian kings beheld, with an eye of suspicion, a race of 
aliens and apostates, who had embraced the religion, and 
who might favor the cause, of the hereditary foes of their 
country. The royal edicts had often prohibited their 
dangerous correspondence with the Syrian clergy ; the 
progress of the schism was grateful to the jealous pride of 
Perozes, and he listened to the eloquence of an artful 
prelate, who painted Nestorius as the friend of Persia, and 
urged him to secure the fidelity of his Christian subjects 
by granting a just preference to the victims and enemies of 
the Roman tyrant. The Nestorians composed a large 
majority of the clergy and people ; they were encouraged 

113 See the Arabic canons of Nice in the translation of Abraham Ecchelensis, 
No. 37, 38, 39, 40. Condi, torn. ii. pp. 335, 336, edit. Venet. These vulgar titles, 
Nicene and Arabic, are both apocryphal. The council of Nice enacted no more 
than twenty canons, (Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. 1. i. c. 8) ; and the remainder, 
seventy or eighty, were collected from the synods of the Greek church. The 
Syriac edition of Maruthas is no longer extant, (Asseman. Bibliot. Oriental, torn, 
i. p. 195, torn. iii. p. 74), and the Arabic version is marked with many recent inter- 
polations. Yet this Code contains many curious relics of ecclesiastical discipline; 
and since it is equally revered by all the Eastern communions, it was prohably 
finished before the schism of the Nestorians and Jacobites, (Fabric. Bibliot. 
Grcic. torn. xi. pp. 363-367). 

114 Theodore the Reader, (1. ii. c. 5, 49, ad calcem Hist. Eccles.), has noticed this 
Persian school of Edessa. Its ancient splendor, and the two aeras of its downfall, 
(a. d. 431 and 489), are clearly discussed by Assemanni, {Biblioth. Orient, torn. ii. 
p. 402 ; iii. pp. 376, 378 ; iv. pp. 70, 924.) 



NESTORIAN CHURCH IN PERSIA. 693 

by the smile, and armed with the sword, of despotism ; yet 
many of their weaker brethren were startled at the thought 
of breaking loose from the communion of the Christian 
world, and the blood of seven thousand seven hundred 
Monophysites or Catholics, confirmed the uniformity of 
faith and discipline in the churches of Persia. 115 Their 
ecclesiastical institutions are distinguished by a liberal 
principle of reason, or at least of policy; the austerity of 
the cloister was relaxed and gradually forgotten ; houses 
of charity were endowed for the education of Sole masters 
orphans and foundlings ; the law of celibacy, so of Persia, 
forcibly recommended to the Greeks and Latins, ' D ' o0 °' 
was disregarded by the Persian clergy; and the number 
of the elect was multiplied by the public and reiterated 
nuptials of the priests, the bishops, and even the patriarch 
himself. To this standard of natural and religious freedom, 
myriads of fugitives resorted from all the provinces of the 
Eastern empire ; the narrow bigotry of Justinian was 
punished by the emigration of his most industrious subjects ; 
they transported into Persia the arts both of peace and war : 
and those who deserved the favor, were promoted in the 
service, of a discerning monarch. The arms of Nushirvan, 
and his fiercer grandson, were assisted with advice, and 
money, and troops, by the desperate sectaries who still 
lurked in their native cities of the East; their zeal was 
rewarded with the gift of the Catholic churches ; but when 
those cities and churches were recovered by Heraclius, 
their open profession of treason and heresy compelled them 
to seek a refuge in the realm of their foreign ally. But the 
seeming tranquility of the Nestorians was often endangered, 
and sometimes overthrown. They were involved in the 
common evils of Oriental despotism : their enmity to Rome 
could not always atone for their attachment to the gospel : 
and a colony of three hundred thousand Jacobites, the 
captives of Apamea and Antioch, was permitted to erect 
a hostile altar in the face of the Catholic, and in the sun- 
shine of the court. In his last treaty, Justinian introduced 
some conditions which tended to enlarge and fortify the 
toleration of Christianity in Persia. The emperor, ignorant 
of the rights of conscience, was incapable of pity or esteem 

us A dissertation on the state of the Nestorians has swelled in the hands of 
Assemanni to a folio volume of 950 pages, and his learned researches are digested 
in the most lucid order. Besides this fourth volume of the Bibliotheca Orientahs, 
the extracts in the three preceding tomes, (torn. i. p. 203; ii. p. 321-463; iii. 64-70, 
37S-395, &c, 403-408, 508-5S9), may be usefully consulted. 



694 NESTORIAN MISSIONS. 

for the heretics who denied the authority of the holy- 
synods : but he flattered himself that they would gradually 
perceive the temporal benefits of union with the empire 
and the church of Rome ; and if he failed in exciting their 
gratitude, he might hope to provoke the jealousy of their 
sovereign. In a latter age, the Lutherans have been burnt 
at Paris, and protected in Germany, by the superstition and 
policy of the most Christian king. 

Their The desire of gaining souls for God, and 

missions in subjects for the church, has excited in every age 
China,' &c, ' the diligence of the Christian priests. From the 
a. d. 500-1200. con q ues t f Persia they carried their spiritual 
arms to the North, the East, and the South ; and the 
simplicity of the gospel was fashioned and painted with the 
colors of the Syriac theology. In the sixth century, ac- 
cording to the report of a Nestorian traveller, 116 Christianity 
was successfully preached to the Bactrians, the Huns, the 
Persians, the Indians, the Persarmenians, the Medes, and 
the Elamites : the barbaric churches, from the gulf of 
Persia to the Caspian sea, were almost infinite ; and their 
recent faith was conspicuous in the number and sanctity of 
their monks and martyrs. The pepper coast of Malabar, 
and the isles of the ocean, Socotora and Ceylon, were 
peopled with an increasing multitude of Christians, and 
the bishops and clergy of those sequestered regions derived 
their ordination from the Catholic of Babylon. In a 
subsequent age, the zeal of the Nestorians overleaped the 
limits which had confined the ambition and curiosity both 
of the Greeks and Persians. The missionaries of Balch 
and Samarcand pursued without fear the footsteps of the 
roving Tartar, and insinuated themselves into the camps 
of the valleys of Imaus and the banks of the Selinga. They 
exposed a metaphysical creed to those illiterate shepherds : 
to those sanguinary warriors, they recommended humanity 

116 See the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas, surnamed Indicopleustes, or the 
Indian navigator, 1. iii. pp. 178. 179 ; 1. xi. p. 337. The entire work, of which some 
curious extracts may be found in Photius, (cod. xxxvi. p. 9, 10, edit. Hoeschel), 
Thevenot, (in the first part of his Relation des Voyages, &c), and Fabricus, 
(Biblioi. Grcec. 1. iii. c. 25, torn. ii. pp. 603-617), has been published by Father 
Montfaucon at Paris, 1707, in the Nova Collectio Patrum, (torn. ii. pp. 113-346). It 
was the design of the author to confute the impious heresy of those who main- 
tained that the earth is a globe, and not a flat, oblong table, as it is represented 
in the Scriptures, (1. ii. p. 138.) But the nonsense of the monk is mingled with the 
practical knowledge of the traveler, who performed his voyage A. D. 522, and 
published his book at Alexandria, A. d., 547, (1. ii. p. 140, 141. Montfaucon, Prcefat. 
c. 2). The Nestorianism of Cosmas, unknown to his learned editor, was detected 
by La Croze, Christianisme des Indes, (torn. i. pp. 40-55), and is confirmed by 
Assemanni. (Bibliot. Orient, torn. iv. pp. 605, 606). 



NESTORIANS ENTER CHINA. 695 

and repose. Yet a khan, whose power they vainly magnified, 
is said to have received at their hands the rites of baptism, 
and even of ordination ; and the fame of Prester or Presbyter 
John 317 has long amused the credulity of Europe. The 
royal convert was indulged in the use of a portable altar ; 
but he despatched an embassy to the patriarch, to inquire 
how, in the season of Lent, he should abstain from animal 
food, and how he might celebrate the eucharist in a desert 
that produced neither corn nor wine. In their progress by 
sea and land, the Nestorians entered China by the port of 
Canton and the northern residence of Sigan. Unlike the 
senators of Rome, who assumed with a smile the characters 
of priests and augurs, the mandarins, who affect in public 
the reason of philosophers, are devoted in private to every 
mode of popular superstition. They cherished and they 
confounded the gods of Palestine and of India; but the 
propagation of Christianity awakened the jealousy of the 
state, and, after a short vicissitude of favor and persecution, 
the foreign sect expired in ignorance and oblivion. 113 Under 

I" In its long progress to Mosul, Jerusalem, Rome, &c, the story of Prester 
John evaporated in a monstrous fable, of which some features have been bor- 
rowed from the Lama of Thibet, {Hist. Genealogique des Tartares, p. ii p. 42. 
Hist, de Gengiscan, p. 31, &c), and were ignorantly transferred by the Portuguese 
to the emperor of Abyssinia, {Ludolph. Hist. sEthiop. Comment. 1. ii. c. 1). Yet it 
is probable that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Nestorian Christianity was 
professed in the horde of the Keraites, (D'Herdelot, pp. 256, 915, 959. Assemanni, 
torn. iv. pp. 468-504.* 

ii** The Christianity of China, between the seventh and the thirteenth century, 
is invincibly proved by the consent of Chinese, Arabian, Syriac, and Latin evi- 
dence. (Assemannus, Biblioth. Orient, torn iv. p. 502-552. Mem. de I Academie 
des inscript, torn. xxx. p. 802-S19.) The inscription of Siganfu, which describes 
the fortunes of the Nestorian church from the first mission, a. d. 636, to the cur- 
rent year 781, is accused of forgery by La Croze, Voltaire, &c, who become the 
dupes of their own cunning, while' they are afraid of a Jesuitical fraud.f 

*The extent to which Nestorian Christianity prevailed among the Tartar tribes 
is one of the most curious questions in Oriental history. M. Schmidt, {Geschichte 
der Ost Mongolen, notes, p. 383,) appears to question the Christianity of Ong 
Chaghan, and his Keraite subjects.— Milman. 

For Prester John, see Marco Polo's Travels, p. 121, edit. Bohn. and our English 
travelers Porter and Layard, as referred to in the next page. — Eng. Ch. 

t This famous monument, the authenticity of which many have attempted to 
impeach, rather from hatred to the Jesuits, by whom it was made known, than by 
a candid examination of its contents, is now generally considered above all suspi- 
cion. "The Chinese text, and the facts which it relates, are equally strong proofs 
of its authenticity. This monument was raised as a memorial of the establish- 
ment of Christianity in China. It is dated the year 1092 of the era of the Greeks, 
or the Seleucida?, A. D. 781, in the time of the Nestorian patriarch Arian-jesu. 
It was raised by Iezdbouzid, priest and chorepiscopus of Chumdan, that is, of the 
capital of the Chinese empire, and the son of a priest who came from Balkh in 
Tokharistan. Among the various arguments which may be urged in favor of the 
authenticity of this monument, and which has not yet been advanced, may be 
reckoned the name of the priest by whom it was raised. The name is Persian, 
and at the time the monument was discovered, it would have been impossible to 
have imagined it; for there was no work extant from whence the knowledge of it 
could be derived. I do not believe that even since this period, any book has been 
published in which it can be found a second time. It is very celebrated amongst 
the Armenians, and is derived from a martyr, a Persian by birth, of the royal race, 



696 CHRISTIANS OF ST. THOMAS. 

the reign of the caliphs, the Nestorian church was diffused 
from China to Jerusalem and Cyprus ; and their numbers, 
with those of the Jacobites, were computed to surpass the 
Greek and Latin communions. 119 Twenty-five metropolitans 
or archbishops composed their hierarchy, but several of 
these were dispensed, by the distance and danger of the 
way, from the duty of personal attendance, on the easy 
condition that every six years they should testify their faith 
and obedience to the Catholic or patriarch of Babylon, a 
vague appellation, which has been successively applied to 
the royal seats of Seleucia, Ctesiphon, and Bagdad. These 
remote branches are long since withered, and the old 
patriarchal trunk 120 is now divided by the Elijahs of Mosul, 
the representatives, almost in lineal descent, of the genuine 
and primitive succession, the Josephs of Amida, who are 
reconciled to the church of Rome, 121 and the Simeons of 
Van or Ormia, whose revolt at the head of forty thousand 
families, was promoted in the sixteenth century by the 
Sophis of Persia. The number of three hundred thousand 
is allowed for the whole body of the Nestorians, who, under 
the name of Chaldeans or Assyrians, are confounded with 
the most learned or the most powerful nation of Eastern 
antiquity. 

According to the legend of antiquity, the 
T f!PV r . istians gospel was preached in India by St. Thomas. 

of St. Thomas *\ v . *f > . . . J . . .. 

in India, At the end 01 the ninth century, his shrine, 
a. d. 883. p er haps in the neighborhood of Madras, was 

no Jacobitae et Nestorianae plures quam Grasci et Latini. Jacob, a Vitriaco, 
Hist. Hierosol. 1. ii. c. 76, p. 1093, in the Gesta Dei per Francos. The numbers are 
given by Thomassin, Discipline de V Eglise, torn. i. p. 172. 

120 The division of the patriarchate may be traced in the Bibliotheca Orient, of 
Assemannus, torn. i. p. 523-549 ; torn. ii. p. 457, &c. ; torn. iii. p. 603, p. 621-623 ; torn. 
iv. p. 164-169, p. 423, p. 622-629, &c. 

121 The pompous language of Rome, on the submission of a Nestorian patriarch, 
is elegantly represented in the seventh book of Fra Paolo. Babylon, Nineveh, 
Arbela, and the trophies of Alexander, Tauris, and Ecbatena, the Tigris and 
Indus.* 



wbo perished towards the middle of the seventh century, and rendered his name 
celebrated among the Christian nations of the East. St. Martin, vol. i. p. 69. 
M. Remusat has also strongly expressed his conviction of the authenticity of this 
monument. Melanges Asiaiiques, P. i. p. 33. D'Ohson, in his History 0/ the 
Moguls, concurs in this view. Yet M. Schmidt, [Geschichte der Ost Mongolen, 
p. 384,) denies that there is any satisfactory proof that such a monument was ever 
found in China, or that it was not manufactured in Europe. But if the Jesuits 
had attempted such a forgery, would it not have been more adapted to further 
their peculiar views? — Milman. 

* Most eastern travelers tell us of the Nestorians and Nestorian-Chaldseans In 
Kurdistan, whom the Turks still call Nasara. See Porter's Travels, ii. 578, and 
Layard's Nineveh, i. 233-261 ; also for a second visit to the same region, see his 
Nineveh and Babylon, p. 421-435. Van and Ormia (Ooroomia) are two distinct 
places. See Porter, ii. 591 ; Layard, 390, 406 ; and p. 184, vol. v. Bonn's ed. — E. C 



CHRISTIANS IN INDIA. 697 

devoutly visited by the ambassadors of Alfred, 122 and their 
return with a cargo of pearls and spices rewarded the zeal 
of the English monarch, who entertained the largest projects 
of trade and discovery. 123 When the Portuguese first 
opened the navigation of India, the Christians of St. Thomas 
had been seated for ages on the coast of Malabar, and the 
difference of their character and color attested the mixture 
of a foreign race. In arms, in arts, and possibly in virtue, 
they excelled the natives of Hindostan : the husbandmen 
cultivated the palm-tree, the merchants were enriched by 
the pepper-trade, the soldiers preceded the nairs or nobles 
of Malabar, and their hereditary privileges were respected 
by the gratitude or the fear of the king of Cochin and the 
Zamorin himself. They acknowledged a Gentoo sovereign, 
but they were governed, even in temporal concerns, by the 
bishop of Angamala. He still asserted his ancient title of 
Metropolitan of India, but his real jurisdiction was exercised 
in fourteen hundred churches, and he was i 

intrusted with the care of two hundred thousand * ' I5 °°' 
souls. Their religion would have rendered them the firmest 
and most cordial allies of the Portuguese, but the inquisitors 
soon discovered in the Christians of St. Thomas the 
unpardonable guilt of heresy and schism. Instead of 
owning themselves the subjects of the Roman pontiff, the 
spiritual and temporal monarch of the globe, they adhered, 
like their ancestors, to the communion of the Nestorian 
patriarch; and the bishops whom he ordained at Mosul 
traversed the dangers of the sea and land to reach their 
diocese on the coast of Malabar. In their Syriac liturgy, 

122 The Indian missionary, St. Thomas, an apostle, a Manichsean, or an 
Armenian merchant, (La Croze, Christianisme des Indes, torn, i, pp. 57-70), was 
famous, however, as early as the time of Jerome, (ad Marcellam, Epist. 148.) 
Marco-Polo was informed on the spot that he suffered martvrd<jm in the city of 
Malabar, or Mehapour, a league onlv from Madras, (D'Anville, Eclaircissemens 
sur VInde, p. 125), where the Portuguese founded an Episcopal church under the 
name of St. Thome, and where the saint performed an annual miracle, till he was 
silenced by the profane neighborhood of the English. (La Croze, torn. ii. pp. 7-16.) 

123 Neither the author of the Saxon Chronicle, (a. d. 883), nor William of 
Maltnesbury, (de Gestis Regutn Anglice, 1. ii. c. 4, p. 44), were capable, in the 
twelfth century, of inventing this extraordinarv fact ; thev are incapable of ex- 
plaining the motives and measures of Alfred ; and their ha'stv notice serves only 
to provoke our curiosity. William of Malmesbury feels the difficulty of the en- 
terprise, quod quivis in hoc sseculo miretur ; and I almost suspect that the 
English ambassadors collected their cargo and legend in Egvpt* The royal author 
has not enriched his Orosius, (see Barrington's Miscellanies), with an Indian, as 
well as a Scandinavian, voyage. * 

* Plegmund, archbishop of Canterbury, the reputed writer of this portion of the 
Saxon Chronicle, lived at the time, and was therefore a competent authority. 
Lappenberg says, that "such a step on the part of a monarch like Alfred, will 

excite in us little surprise." (Hist, 0/ Eng. ii. 71.)— Eng. Ch. 



698 CHRISTIAN CONTENTIONS AT MALABAR. 

the names of Theodore and Nestorius were piously com- 
memorated ; they united their adoration of the two persons 
of Christ ; the title of Mother of God was offensive to their 
ear, and they measured with scrupulous avarice the honors 
of the Virgin Mary, whom the superstition of the Latins 
had almost exalted to the rank of a goddess. When her 
image was first presented to the disciples of St. Thomas, 
they indignantly exclaimed, " We are Christians, not 
" idolaters ! " and their simple devotion was content with 
the veneration of the cross. Their separation from the 
Western world had left them in ignorance of the improve- 
ments, or corruptions, of a thousand years ; and their 
conformity with the faith and practice of the fifth century, 
would equally disappoint the prejudices of a Papist or a 
Protestant. It was the first care of the ministers of Rome 
to intercept all correspondence with the Nestorian patriarch, 
and several of his bishops expired in the prisons of the 
holy office. The flock, without a shepherd, was assaulted 
by the power of the Portuguese, the arts of the Jesuits, and 
the zeal of Alexes de Menezes, archbishop of Goa, in his 
personal visitation of the coast of Malabar. The synod of 
Diamper, at which he presided, consummated the pious 
work of the reunion, and rigorously imposed the doctrine 
and discipline of the Roman church, without forgetting 
auricular confession, the strongest engine of ecclesiastical 
torture. The memory of Theodore and Nestorius was 
condemned, and Malabar was reduced under the dominion 
of the pope, of the primate, and of the Jesuits, who invaded 
ad 66 ^ e see °^ Angamala or Cranganor. Sixty years 
' 3 * of servitude and hypocrisy were patiently 
endured ; but as soon as the Portuguese empire was shaken 
by the courage and industry of the Dutch, the Nestorians 
asserted, with vigor and effect, the religion of their fathers. 
The Jesuits were incapable of defending the power which 
they had abused : the arms of forty thousand Christians 
were pointed against their falling tyrants ; and the Indian 
archdeacon assumed the character of bishop, till a fresh 
supply of episcopal gifts and Syriac missionaries could be 
obtained from the patriarch of Babylon. Since the expulsion 
of the Portuguese, the Nestorian creed is freely professed 
on the coast of Malabar. The trading companies of Holland 
and England are the friends of toleration ; but if oppression 
be less mortifying than contempt, the Christians of St. 



THE JACOBITES. 699 

Thomas have reason to complain of the cold and silent 
indifference of their brethren of Europe. 124 

II. The history of the Monophysites is less n. The 
copious and interesting than that of the Nes- Jacobites. 
torians. Under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, their 
artful leaders surprised the ear of the prince, usurped the 
thrones of the East, and crushed on its native soil the 
school of the Syrians. The rule of the Monophysite faith 
was defined with exquisite discretion by Severus patriarch 
of Antioch ; he condemned, in the style of the Henoticon, 
the adverse heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, maintained 
against the latter the reality of the body of Christ, and 
constrained the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who 
spoke truth. 125 But the approximation of ideas could not 
abate the vehemence of passion ; each party was the more 
astonished that their blind antagonist could dispute on so 
trifling a difference ; the tyrant of Syria enforced the belief 
of his creed, and his reign was polluted with the blood of 
three hundred and fifty monks, who were slain, 
not perhaps without provocation or resistance, ' * 5 
under the walls of Apamea. 126 The successor of Anastasius 
replanted the orthodox standard in the East : Severus fled 
into Egypt, and his friend, the eloquent Xenaias, 127 who had 
escaped from the Nestorians of Persia, was suffocated in his 
exile by the Melchites of Paphlagonia. Fifty-four bishops 
were swept from their thrones, eight hundred ecclesiastics 

124 Concerning the Christians of St. Thomas, see Asseman, Bibliot. Orient. 
torn. iv. pp. 391-407, 435-451 ; Geddes's Church History of Malabar ; and, above 
all, La Croze, Histoire du Christianisme des Indes, in 2 vols. i2tno., La Have, 
1758, a learned and agreeable work. They have drawn from the same source, the 
Portuguese and Italian narratives : and the prejudices of the Jesuits are suffi- 
ciently corrected by those of the Protestants.* 

125 Olov eItteZv ■ievdalrjdrjg, is the expression of Theodore, in his Treatise of 
the Incarnation, pp. 245, 247, as he is quoted by La Croze, {Hist, du Christianisme 
d'Ethiopie et d' Armenle p. 35), who exclaims, perhaps too hastily. " Quel pitoy- 
" able raisonnement ! " Renaudot has touched {Hist. Patriarch. Alex. pp. 127-138), 
the Oriental accounts of Severus; and his authentic creed may be found in the 
epistle of John the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, in the tenth century, to his 
brother Mennas of Alexandria, CAsseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. pp. 132-141). 

126 Epist. Archimandritarum et Monachorum Syrise Secundae ad Papam Hor- 
misdam, Concil. torn. v. p. 598-602. The courage of St. Sabas, ut leo animosus, 
will justify the suspicion that the arms of these monks were not always spiritual 
or defensive. (Baronius, A. D. 513, No. 7, &c.) 

127 Assemannus, {Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. p. 10-46), and La Croze, {Christianisme 
d'Ethiopie, p. 36-40), will supply the history of Xenaias or Philoxenus, bishop of 
Mabug, or Hierapolis, in Syria. He was a perfect master of the Syriac language, 
and the author or editor of a version of the New Testament. 



* The St, Thome Christians had excited great interest in the ardent mind of 
the admirable Bishop Heber. See his curious and, to his friends, highly charac- 
teristic letter to Mar Athanasius. Appendix to Journal. The arguments of his 
friend and coadjutor. Mr. Robinson, {Last Days of Bishop Heber), have not con- 
vinced me that the Christianity of India is older than the Nestorian dispersion-M. 



700 JACOBUS BARADAEUS. 

cast into prison, 128 and notwithstanding the ambiguous 
favor of Theodora, the Oriental flocks, deprived of their 
shepherds, must insensibly have been either famished or 
poisoned. In this spiritual distress, the expiring faction 
was revived, and united, and perpetuated, by the labors of 
a monk ; and the name of James Baradaeus 129 has been 
preserved in the appellation of Jacobites, a familiar sound 
which may startle the ear of an English reader. From the 
holy confessors in their prison of Constantinople, he re- 
ceived the powers of bishop of Edessa and apostle of the 
East, and the ordination of fourscore thousand bishops, 
priests, and deacons, is derived from the same inexhaustible 
source. The speed of the zealous missionary was promoted 
by the fleetest dromedaries of a devout chief of the Arabs ; 
the doctrine and discipline of the Jacobites were secretly 
established in the dominions of Justinian ; and each Jacobite 
was compelled to violate the laws and to hate the Roman 
legislator. The successors of Severus, while they lurked 
in convents or villages, while they sheltered their proscribed 
heads in the caverns of hermits, or the tents of the Saracens, 
still asserted, as they now assert, their indefeasible right to 
the title, the rank, and the prerogatives, of the patriarch of 
Antioch : under the milder yoke of the infidels, they reside 
about a league from Merdin, in the pleasant monastery of 
Zapharan, which they have embellished with cells, aqueducts, 
and plantations. The secondary, though honorable, place 
is filled by the maphriau, who, in his station at Mosul 
itself, defies the Nestorian Catholic with whom he contests 
the supremacy of the East. Under the patriarch and the 
maphrian, one hundred and fifty archbishops and bishops 
have been counted in the different ages of the Jacobite 

128 The names and titles of fifty-four bishops who were exiled by Justin, are 
preserved in the Chronicle of Dionysius, (apud Asseman. torn. ii. p. 54). Severus 
was personally summoned to Constantinople — for his trial, says Liberatus, (Brev. 
c. 191 — that his tongue might be cut out, says Evagrius, (1. iv. c. iv.) The 
prudent patriarch did not stay to examine the difference. This ecclesiastical 
revolution is fixed by Pagi to the month of September of the year 518, (Critica, 
torn. ii. p. 506.) 

128 The obscure history of James or Jacobus Baradaeus, or Zanzalust, may be 
gathered from Eutychius, (Annal. torn. ii. pp. 144, 147), Renaudot, {Hist. Patriarch. 
Alex. p. 133), and Assemannus, (Bibliot. Orient, torn. i. p. 424; torn. ii. pp. 62-69. 
324-332, 414; torn. iii. pp. 385-38S). He seems to be unknown to the Greeks. The 
Jacobites themselves had rather deduce their name and pedigree from St. James 
the apostle.* 

* Jacob was a monk of Phasitla, in the district of Nisibis, a man inured to 
privations and hardships, and of unshaken firmness and constancy.* With great 
rapidity, and through many perils, he traversed Syria and the adjacent provinces 
in the disguise of a beggar; and from this he received the surname of Al Baradai, 
Baradaeus, the man in rags. (Neander, 4, 272.) — Eng. Ch. 



HIERARCHY OF THE JACOBITES. 701 

church ; but the order of the hierarchy is relaxed or 
dissolved, and the greater part of their dioceses is confined 
to the neighborhood of the Euphrates and the Tigris. The 
cities of Aleppo and Amida, which are often visited by the 
patriarch, contain some wealthy merchants and industrious 
mechanics, but the multitude derive their scanty sustenance 
from their daily labor : and poverty, as well as superstition, 
may impose their excessive fasts : five annual lents, during 
which, both the clergy and laity abstain not only from flesh 
or eggs, but even from the taste of wine, of oil, and offish. 
Their present numbers are esteemed from fifty to fourscore 
thousand souls, the remnant of a populous church, which 
has gradually decreased under the oppression of twelve 
centuries. Yet in that long period, some strangers of merit 
have been converted to the Monophysite faith, and a Jew 
was the father of Abulpharagius 130 primate of the East, so 
truly eminent both in his life and death. In his life, he 
was an elegant writer of the Syriac and Arabic tongues, a 
poet, physician, and historian, a subtle philosopher, and a 
moderate divine. In his death, his funeral was attended 
by his rival the Nestorian patriarch, with a train of Greeks 
and Armenians, who forgot their disputes, and mingled 
their tears over the grave of an enemy. The sect which 
was honored by the virtues of Abulpharagius appears, 
however, to sink below the level of their Nestorian brethren. 
The superstition of the Jacobites is more abject, their fasts 
more rigid, 131 their intestine divisions are more numerous, 
and their doctors (as far as I can measure the degrees of 
nonsense) are more remote from the precincts of reason. 
Something may possibly be allowed for the vigor of the 
Monophysite theology ; much more for the superior 
influence of the monastic order. In Syria, in Egypt, in 
Ethiopia, the Jacobite monks have ever been distinguished 
by the austerity of their penance and the absurdity of 
their legends. Alive or dead they are worshiped as the 

130 The account of his person and writings is perhaps the most curious article 
in the Bibliotheca of Assemannus, (torn. ii. pp. 244-321, under the name of Gre- 
gorius Bar-Hebrczus). La Croze, (Christianisme d Ethiopie, pp. 53-63), ridicules 
the prejudice of the Spaniards against the Jewish blood which secretly defiles 
their church and state.* 

i3i This excessive abstinence is censured by La Croze, (p. 355), and even by the 
Syrian Assemannus, (torn. i. p. 226; torn. ii. pp. 304, 305). 

* The father, who bore the name of Harun, (Aaron), was the convert to 
Christianity. The son, who was born in 1226, studied and practiced medicine 
before he became an ecclesiastic. He was so eminent as a scholar, and his 
character so estimable, that while he was bishop of Aleppo, the Mahometans 
among whom he lived intrusted to him the education of their sons.— Eng. Ch. 



702 THE MARONITES. 

favorites of the Deity ; the crozier of bishop and patriarch 
is reserved for their venerable hands; and they assume the 
government of men, while they are yet reeking with the 
habits and prejudices of the cloister. 132 

hi. The III. In the style of the Oriental Christians, 

maronites. ti^ Monothelites* of every age are described 
under the appellation of Maronites™ a name which has 
been insensibly transferred from a hermit to a monastery, 
from a monastery to a nation. Maron, a saint or savage 
of the fifth century, displayed his religious madness in 
Syria ; the rival cities of Apamea and Emesa disputed his 
relics, a stately church was erected on his tomb, and six 
hundred of his disciples united their solitary cells on the 
banks of the Orontes. In the controversies of the incarna- 
tion, they nicely threaded the orthodox line between the 
sects of Nestorius and Eutyches ; but the unfortunate 
question of one will or operation in the two natures of 
Christ, was generated by their curious leisure. Their 
proselyte, the emperor Heraclius, was rejected as a Maronite 
from the walls of Emesa ; he found a refuge in the monastery 
of his brethren ; and their theological lessons were repaid 
with the gift of a spacious and wealthy domain. The name 
and doctrine of this venerable school were propagated 
among the Greeks and Syrians, and their zeal is expressed 
by Mcicarius, patriarch of Antioch, who declared before the 
synod of Constantinople, that sooner than subscribe the 
two wills of Christ, he would submit to be hewn peace- 
meal and cast into the sea. 134 A similar or a less cruel mode 
of persecution soon converted the unresisting subjects of 
the plain, while the glorious title of Mardaites , 135 or rebels, 

132 The state of the Monopysites is excellently illustrated in a dissertation at the 
beginning of-the second volume of Assemannus, which contains 142 pages. The 
Syriac Chronicle of Gregory Bar Hebraeus, or Abulpharagius, {Bibliot. Orient. 
torn. ii. pp. 321-463), pursues the double series of the Nestorian Catholics and 
the Maphrians of the Jacobites. 

133 The synonymous use of the two words may be proved from Eutychius 
(Annal. torn. ii. pp. 191, 267, 332), and many similar passages which may be found 
in the methodical table of Pocock. He was not actuated by any prejudice against 
the Maronites of the tenth century; and we may believe a Melchite, whose testi- 
mony is confirmed bv the Jacobites and Latins. 

134 Concil. torn. vii. p. 780. The Monothelite cause was supported with firm- 
ness and subtlety by Constantine, a Syrian priest of Apamea, (p. 1040, &c.) 

135 Theophane's, (Chron. p. 295, 296, 300, 302, 306;, and Cedrenns, (pp. 437, 440, 
relate the exploits of the Mardaites: the name {Mard, in Syriac, rebellavit). is 
explained by La Roque, ( Voyage de la Syrie, torn. ii. p. 53), the dates are fixed by 
Pajfi, (a. D.676), No. 4-14, a. D. 685, No. '3, 4) ; and even the obscure story 01 the 
patriarch John Maron, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. i. pp. 496-520), illustrates 
from the year 686 to 707, the troubles of Mount Libanus.* 

* Comoare on the Mardaites Anquetil du Perron, in the fiftieth volume of the 
Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscriptions ; and Schlosser, Bilderstiirmenden Kaiser, 
p. 100 — MlLMAN. 



DESTRUCTION OF THE MONASTERY OF ST. MARON. 703 

was bravely maintained by the hardy natives of Mount 
Libanus. John Maron, one of the most learned and popular 
of the monks, assumed the character of patriarch of Antioch ; 
his nephew Abraham, at the head of the Maronites, defended 
their civil and religious freedom against the tyrants of the 
East. The son of the orthodox Constantine pursued, with 
pious hatred, a people of soldiers, who might have stood 
the bulwark of his empire against the common foes of 
Christ and of Rome. An army of Greeks invaded Syria ; 
the monastery of St. Maron was destroyed with fire ; the 
bravest chieftains were betrayed and murdered, and twelve 
thousand of their followers were transplanted to the distant 
frontiers of Armenia and Thrace. Yet the humble nation 
of the Maronites has survived the empire of Constantinople, 
and they still enjoy, under their Turkish masters, a free 
religion and a mitigated servitude. Their domestic 
governors are chosen among the ancient nobility ; the 
patriarch, in his monastery of Canobin, still fancies himself 
on the throne of Antioch ; nine bishops compose his synod, 
and one hundred and fifty priests, who retain the liberty 
of marriage, are intrusted with the care of one hundred 
thousand souls. Their country extends from the ridge of 
Mount Libanus to the shores of Tripoli ; and the gradual 
descent affords, in a narrow space, each variety of soil and 
climate, from the Holy Cedars, erect under the weight of 
snow, 136 to the vine, the mulberry, and the olive trees of the 
fruitful valley. In the twelfth century, the Maronites, 
abjuring the Monothelite error, were reconciled to the Latin 
churches of Antioch and Rome, 131 and the same alliance 

136 In the last century, twenty large cedars still remained, (Voyage de la Roque, 
torn. i. pp. 68-76) ; at present, they are reduced to four or five, (Volney. torn i. 
p. 264.)* These trees, so famous in Scripture, were guarded by excommu'tiieaiion ; 
the wood was sparingly borrowed for small crosses, &c. ; an annual mass was 
chanted under their shade ; and they were endowed by the Syrians with a sensi- 
tive power of erecting their branches to repel the snow, to which Mount Libanus 
is less faithful than it is painted by Tacitus ; inter ardores opacum fidumqe 
nivibus— a daring metaphor, {Hist. v. 6.)f 

137 The evidence of William of Tyre, (Hist in Gestis Dei her Francos. 1. xxii. 
c. 8. p. 1022), is copied or confirmed by Jacques de Vitra. Hist. Hierosoiym, 1. ii. 
c. 77, pp. 1093 1094). But this unnatural leaarue expired with the power of the 
Franks : and Abulpharagius, who died in 12S6), considers the Maronites as a sect 
of Monothelites, {Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. p. 292.) 

* Of the oldest and best-looking trees, I counted eleven or twelve ; twentv-five 
very large ones ; about fifty of middling size ; and more than three hundred 
smaller and young ones. Burckhardt's Travels in Syria. 2, 10.— Milman. 
• i Dr. Lepsius, on his return from Egypt, crossed Labinus, and passed through 
" a venerable forest of cedars in a great level bay of the mountain range." He 
adds that there are others in more northern tracts.' Single stems of these gigantic 
trees are forty feet in circumference and ninetv feet high. The largest are stated 
to be 3,000 years old. Letters from Egypt, p/350, edit. Bonn.— Eng. Ch. 



704 THE ARMENIANS. 

has been frequently renewed by the ambition of the popes 
and the distress of the Syrians. But it may reasonably be 
questioned, whether their union has ever been perfect or 
sincere ; and the learned Maronites of the college of Rome 
have vainly labored to absolve their ancestors from the 
guilt of heresy and schism. 138 

iv. The IV. Since the age of Constantine, the Arme- 

Armenians. nians 139 had signalized their attachment to the 
religion and empire of the Christians.* The disorders of 
their country, and their ignorance of the Greek tongue, 
prevented their clergy from assisting at the synod of 
Chalcedon, and they floated eighty-four years 140 in a state 
of indifference or suspense, till their vacant faith was finally 
occupied by the missionaries of Julian of Halicarnassus, 141 
who, in Egypt, their common exile, had been vanquished 
by the arguments or the influence of his rival Severus, the 
Monophysite patriarch of Antioch. The Armenians alone 
are the pure disciples of Eutyches, an unfortunate parent, 
who has been renounced by the greater part of his spiritual 
progeny. They alone persevere in the opinion, that the 
manhood of Christ was created, or existed without creation, 
of a divine and incorruptible substance. Their adversaries 
reproach them with the adoration of a phantom ; and they 
retort the accusation, by deriding or execrating the 
blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute to the Godhead 

138 I find a description and history of the Maronites in the Voyage de laSyrie 
et du Mont Liban par la Rogue, (2 vols, in i2mo., Amsterdam, 1723 ; particularly 
torn. i. pp. 42-47. PP- 174-184; torn. ii. pp. 10-120). In the ancient part, he copies 
the prejudices of Nairon and other Maronites of Rome, which Assemannus is 
afraid to renounce and ashamed to support. Jablonski, {Tnstitut. Hist. Christ. 
torn. iii. p. 186), Niebuhr, Voyage de PArabie, &c, torn. ii. pp. 346, 370-381,) and 
above all, the judicious Volney, {Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, torn. ii. pp. 8-31, 
Paris, 1787,), may be consulted. 

139 The religion of the Armenians is briefly described by La Croze, {Hist, du 
Christ, de r Ethiopie et de V Armenie, pp. 269-402). He refers to the great Arme- 
nian History of Galanus, (3 vols, in fol. Rome. 1650-1661), and commends the state 
of Armenia in the third volume of the Nouveaux Memoires des Mission du Le- 
vant. The work of a Jesuit must have sterling merit when it is praised by 
La Croze. 

140 The schism of the Armenians is placed eighty-four years after the council 
of Chalcedon, (Pagi, Critica, ad A. D. 535.) It was consummated at the end of 
seventeen years ; and it is from the year of Christ 552 that we date the era of the 
Armenians. {V Art de verifier les Dates, p. 35.) t 

141 The sentiments and success of Julian of Halicarnassus may be seen in 
Liberatus, {Brev. c. 19,) Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 132-303), and 
Assemannus, {Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. Dissertat. de Monophysitis, c. 8, p. 286.) 

J 

* See vol. ii. ch. xx. p. 179. — Milman. 

f Religious persecution drove the Armenians to revolt and facilitated the 
Persian conquest of the country. Chosroes promoted their separation from the 
Greek church; and under his sanction, Nierses, their first bishop or Catholicus, 
held a synod at Thriven at 536, by which the Monophysite system was confirmed 
and the council of Chalcedon anathematized. {Neander. 4,271.)— Eng. Ch. 



FAITH OF THE ARMENIANS. 705 

the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the natural effects of 
nutrition and digestion. The religion of Armenia could 
not derive much glory from the learning or the power of 
its inhabitants. The royalty expired with the origin of 
their schism ; and their Christian kings, who arose and fell 
in the thirteenth century on the confines of Cilicia, were 
the clients of the Latins, and the vassals of the Turkish 
sultan of Iconium, The helpless nation has seldom been 
permitted to enjoy the tranquillity of servitude. From the 
earliest period to the present hour, Armenia has been the 
theatre of perpetual war ; the lands between Tauris and 
Erivan were dispeopled by the cruel policy of the Sophis ; 
and myriads of Christian families were transplanted, to 
perish or to propagate in the distant provinces of Persia. 
Under the rod of oppression, the zeal of the Armenians is 
fervent and intrepid : they have often preferred the crown 
of martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet ; they 
devoutly hate the error and idolatry of the Greeks ; and 
their transient union with the Latins is not less devoid of 
truth, than the thousand bishops whom their patriarch 
offered at the feet of the Roman pontiff. 112 The Catholic, 
or patriarch, of the Armenians, resides in the monastery of 
Ekmiasin, three leagues from Erivan. Forty-seven arch- 
bishops, each of whom may claim the obedience of four or 
five suffragans, are consecrated by his hand ; but the far 
greater part are only titular prelates, who dignify with their 
presence and service the simplicity of his court. As soon 
as they have performed the liturgy, they cultivate the 
garden ; and our bishops will hear with surprise, that the 
austerity of their life increases in just proportion to the 
elevation of their rank. In the fourscore thousand towns 
or villages of his spiritual empire, the patriarch receives a 
small and voluntary tax from each person above the age of 
fifteen; but the annual amount of six hundred thousand 
crowns is insufficient to supply the incessant demands of 
charity and tribute. Since the beginning of the last century, 
the Armenians have obtained a large and lucrative share 
of the commerce of the East : in their return from Europe, 
the caravan usually halts in the neighborhood of Erivan, 
the altars are enriched with the fruits of their patient 

142 See a remarkable fact of the twelfth century in the History of Nicetas Chon- 
iates, (p. 258). Yet three hundred years before,' Photius (Epistol. ii. p. 49, edit. 
Montacut.) had gloried in the conversion of the Armenians — AarpevEl orjuepov 
dpdodotjug. 



706 COPTS OR EGYPTIANS. 

industry ; and the faith of Eutyches is preached in their 
recent congregations of Barbary and Poland. 143 
v The V. In the rest of the Roman empire, the 

Copts or despotism of the prince might eradicate or 
Egyptians. s ^ ence t h e sectaries of an obnoxious creed. 
But the stubborn temper of the Egyptians maintained their 
opposition to the synod of Chalcedon, and the policy of 
Justinian condescended to expect and to seize the oppor- 
tunity of discord. The Monophysite church of Alexandria 1 * 4 
was torn by the disputes of the corruptibles and i?icomtp- 
tibles, and on the death of the patriarch, the two factions 
The patriarch u P ne ^ their respective candidates. 145 Gaian was 
Theodosius, the disciple of Julian, Theodosius had been the 
a. d. 537-568. p U pii f Severus : the claims of the former were 
supported by the consent of the monks and senators, the 
city and the province ; the latter depended on the priority 
of his ordination, the favor of the empress Theodora, and 
the arms of the eunuch Narses, which might have been 
used in more honorable warfare. The exile of the popular 
candidate to Carthage and Sardinia, inflamed the ferment 
of Alexandria ; and, after a schism of one hundred and 
seventy years, the Gaianites still revered the memory and 
doctrine of their founder. The strength of numbers and of 
discipline was tried in a desperate and bloody conflict ; the 
streets were filled with the dead bodies of citizens and 
soldiers ; the pious women, ascending the roofs of their 
houses, showered down every sharp or ponderous utensil 
on the heads of the enemy ; and the final victory of Narses 
was owing to the flames, with which he wasted the third 
capital of the Roman world. But the lieutenant of Justinian 

Mi The traveling Armenians are in the way of every traveler, and their mother 
church is on the high road between Constantinople and Ispahan : for their present 
state, see Fabricius, {Lux Evangelii, &c, c. xxxviii. pp. 40-51,) Olearius, (I. iv.c. 
40.) Char din, (vol. ii. p. 232), Tournefort, (lettre xx), and, above all, Tavernier, 
(torn. i. pp. 28-37, 510-518), that rambling jeweler, who had read nothing, but had 
seen so much and so well.* 

144 The history of the Alexandrian patriarchs, from Dioscorus to Benjamin, is 
taken from Renaudot, (pp. 114-164), and the second tome of the Annals of 
Eutychius.f 

us Liberat. Brev. c. 20, 23. . Victor. Chron, pp. 329, 330. Procop. Anecdot. c. 
26, 27. 

*For the superstition, ignorance, and attempted reform of the present Arme- 
nians, see Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, p. 47, 392, 405— 7. In one of their churches 
a rude picture represents "a victorious St. George blowing out the brains of a 
" formidable dragon, with a bright brass blunderbuss." — Eng. Ch. 

t Clinton, in his chronology of these patriarchs, (F. R. ii. pp. 544-548), has 
critically corrected the dates and collated the narratives of John Malalas, 
Theophanes, Victor Tununensis, Nicephorus, Liberatus, and others; and he has 
attentively examined Pagi and Renaudot, and supplied some omissions. — E. C. 



PATRIARCHS PAUL AND APOLLINARIS. 707 

had not conquered, in the cause of a heretic ; Theodosius 
himself was speedily though gently removed ; p au i, 

and Paul of Tanis, an orthodox monk, was A - D - s 38 - 
raised to the throne of Athanasius. The powers of govern- 
ment were strained in his support ; he might appoint or 
displace the dukes and tribunes of Egypt ; the allowance of 
bread, which Diocletian had granted, was suppressed, the 
churches were shut, and a nation of schismatics was de- 
prived at once of their spiritual and carnal food. In his 
turn, the tyrant was excommunicated by the zeal and 
revenge of the people ; and none except his servile Melchites 
would salute him as a man, a Christian, or a bishop. Yet 
such is the blindness of ambition, that, when Paul was ex- 
pelled on a charge of murder, he solicited, with a bribe of 
seven hundred pounds of gold, his restoration to the same 
station of hatred and ignominy. His successor Apollinaris 
entered the hostile city in military array, alike Apollinaris, 
qualified for prayer or for battle. His troops, A - D - 551 - 
under arms, were distributed through the streets ; the gates 
of the cathedral were guarded, and a chosen band was 
stationed in the choir, to defend the person of their chief. 
He stood erect on his throne, and throwing aside the upper 
garment of a warrior, suddenly appeared before the eyes 
of the multitude in the robes of patriarch of Alexandria. 
Astonishment held them mute ; but no sooner had Apol- 
linaris begun to read the tome of St. Leo, than a volley of 
curses, and invectives, and stones, assaulted the odjous 
minister of the emperor and the synod. A charge was 
instantly sounded by the successor of the apostles ; the 
soldiers waded to their knees in blood ; and two hundred 
thousand Christians are said to have fallen by the sword : 
an incredible account, even if it be extended from the 
slaughter of a day to the eighteen years of the reign of 
Apollinaris. Two succeeding patriarchs, Eulogius 146 and 
John, 147 labored in the conversion of heretics, with arms 
and arguments more worthy of their evangelical profession. 

146 Eulogius, who had been a monk of Antioch, was more conspicuous for 
subtlety than eloquence. He proves that the enemies of the faith, the Gaianites 
and Theodosians, ought not to be reconciled ; that the same proposition may be 
orthodox in the mouth of St. Cvril, heretical in that of Severus ; that the opposite 
assertations of St. Leo are equallv true, &c. His writings are no longer extant 
except in the Extracts of Photiiis, who had perused them with care asd satis- 
faction, cod. ccviii. ccxxv. ccxxvi. ccxxx. cclxxx. 

i-t" See the Life of John the eleemosynary by his contemporary Leontius, 
bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus, whose Greek text, either lost or hidden, is reflected 
in the Latin version of Baronius, (a. d. 610, No. 9, A. D. 620, No. 8). Pagi, (Critica. 
torn. ii. p. 763) and Fabricius, (1. v. c. 11, torn. vii. p. 454), have made some critical 
observations. 



708 PATRIARCHS EULOGIUS AND JOHN. 

Euiogius, The theological knowledge of Eulogius was 
a. d. 580. displayed in many a volume, which magnified 
the errors of Eutyches and Severus, and attempted to 
reconcile the ambiguous language of St. Cyril with the 
John, orthodox creed of pope Leo and the fathers of 
a. d. 609. Chalcedon. The bounteous alms of John the 
eleemosynary were dictated by superstition, or benevolence, 
or policy. Seven thousand five hundred poor were main- 
tained at his expense ; on his accession, he found eight 
thousand pounds of gold in the treasury of the church ; he 
collected ten thousand from the liberality of the faithful ; 
yet the primate could boast in his testament, that he left 
behind him no more than the third part of the smallest of 
the silver coins. The churches of Alexandria were delivered 
to the Catholics, the religion of the Monophysites was pro- 
scribed in Egypt, and a law was revived which excluded 
the natives from the honors and emoluments of the state. 
Their separa- A more important conquest still remained, 
tiou and decay. f t h e patriarch, the oracle and leader of the 
Egyptain church. Theodosius had resisted the threats 
and promises of Justinian with the spirit of an apostle or an 
enthusiast. " Such," replied the patriarch, " were the offers 
" of the tempter when he showed the kingdoms of the earth. 
" But my soul is far dearer to me than life or dominion. 
" The churches are in the hands of a prince who can kill 
" the body ; but my conscience is my own ; and in exile, 
" poverty, or chains, I will steadfastly adhere to the faith of 
" my holy predecessors, Athanasius, Cyril, and Dioscorus. 
" Anathema to the tome of Leo and the synod of Chalcedon ! 
" Anathema to all who embrace their creed ! Anathema to 
" them now and for evermore ! Naked came I out of my 
" mother's womb, naked shall I descend into the grave. 
" Let those who love God, follow me and seek their 
" salvation." After comforting his brethren, he embarked 
for Constantinople, and sustained, in six successive inter- 
views, the almost irresistible weight of the royal presence. 
His opinions were favorably entertained in the palace and 
the city ; the influence of Theodora assured him a safe 
conduct and honorable dismission ; and he ended his days, 
though not on the throne, yet in the bosom, of his native 
country. On the news of his death, Apollinaris indecently 
feasted the nobles and the clergy ; but his joy was checked 
by the intelligence of a new election ; and while he enjoyed 



BENJAMIN, THE JACOBITE. 709 

the wealth of Alexandria, his rivals reigned in the monas- 
teries of Thebais, and were maintained by the voluntary- 
oblations of the people. A perpetual succession of patriarchs 
arose from the ashes of Theodosius ; and the Monophysite 
churches of Syria and Egypt were united by the name of 
Jacobites and the communion of the faith. But the same 
faith, which has been confined to a narrow sect of the 
Syrians, was diffused over the mass of the Egyptian or 
Coptic nation ; who, almost unanimously, rejected the 
decrees of the synod of Chalcedon. A thousand years were 
now elapsed since Egypt had ceased to be a kingdom, 
since the conquerors of Asia and Europe had trampled on 
the ready necks of a people, whose ancient wisdom and 
power ascend beyond the records of history. The conflict 
of zeal and persecution rekindled some sparks of their 
national spirit. They abjured, with a foreign heresy, the 
manners and language of the Greeks ; every Melchite, in 
their eyes, was a stranger, every Jacobite a citizen ; the 
alliance of marriage, the offices of humanity, were con- 
demned as a deadly sin ; the natives renounced all allegiance 
to the emperor ; and his orders, at a distance from Alexan- 
dria, were obeyed only under the pressure of military force. 
A generous effort might have redeemed the religion and 
liberty of Egypt, and her six hundred monasteries might 
have poured forth their myriads of holy warriors, for whom 
death should have no terrors, since life had no comfort or 
delight. But experience has proved the distinction of active 
and passive courage ; the fanatic who endures without a 
groan the torture of the rack or the stake, would tremble 
and fly before the face of an armed enemy. The pusillani- 
mous temper of the Egyptians could only hope for a change 
of masters ; the arms of Chosroes depopulated the land, 
yet under his reign the Jacobites enjoyed a short and 
precarious respite. The victory of Heraclius renewed and 
aggravated the persecution, and the patriarch again escaped 
from Alexandria to the desert. In his flight, . . 
Benjamin was encouraged by a voice, which e ji*ob"te e 
bade him expect, at the end of ten years, the ^^S^k 
aid of a foreign nation, marked like the Egyptians 
themselves with the ancient right of circumcision. The 
character of these deliverers, and the nature of the deliver- 
ance, will be hereafter explained ; and I shall step over the 
interval of eleven centuries to observe the present misery 



7IO THE ABYSSINIANS AND NUBIANS. 

of the Jacobites of Egypt. The populous city of Cairo 
affords a residence, or rather a shelter, for their indigent 
patriarch, and a remnant of ten bishops ; forty monasteries 
have survived the inroads of the Arabs ; and the progress 
of servitude and apostasy has reduced the Coptic nation to 
the despicable number of twenty-five or thirty thousand 
families ; 148 a race of illiterate beggars, whose only consolation 
is derived from the superior wretchedness of the Greek 
patriarch and his diminutive congregation. 149 

vi. The VI. The Coptic patriarch, a rebel to the 
Abyssinians Caesars,- or a slave to the khalifs, still gloried in 

and Nubians. the fiHal obedience of the kings f Nubia and 

^Ethiopia. He repaid their homage by magnifying their 
greatness ; and it was boldly asserted that they could bring 
into the field a hundred thousand horse, with an equal 
number of camels ; 150 that their hand could pour out or 
restrain the waters of the Nile ; 151 and the peace and plenty 
of Egypt was obtained, even in this world, by the inter- 
cession of the patriarch. In exile at Constantinople, 
Theodosius recommended to his patroness the conversion 
of the black nations of Nubia, from the tropic of Cancer to 
the confines of Abyssinia. 153 Her design was suspected 

us This number is taken from the curious Recherches sur les Egyptiens et les 
Chinois, torn. ii. pp. 192, 193), and appears more probable than the 600,000 ancient, 
or 15,000 modern, Copts of Gemelli Carreri. Cyril Lucar, the Protestant patriarch 
of Constantinople, laments that those heretics were ten times more namerous 
than his orthodox Greeks, ingeniously applying the ■koWol kzv denudec Sevoiaro 
oivoxooLo of Hpmer, (Iliad, ii. 128), the most perfect expression of contempt, 
(Fabric. Lux Evangelii, 740). 

1*9 The history of the Copts, their religion, manners, &c, may be found in the 
Abbe Renaudot's motley work, neither a translation nor an original ; the Chron- 
icon Orientale of Peter, a Jacobite, in the two versions of Abraham Ecchellensis, 
Paris, 1651, and John Simon Asseman. Venet. 1729. These annals descend no 
lower than the thirteenth century. The more recent accounts must be searched 
for in the travelers into Egypt and the Nouveaux Memoir es des Missions du 
Levant. t In the last century, Joseph Abudacnus, a native of Cairo, published at 
Oxford, in thirty pages, a slight Historia Jacobitarwn, 147, post. 150.* 

iso About the year 737. See Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. pp. 221, 222. 
Elmacin, Hist. Saracen, p. 99. 

151 Ludolph. Hist. JEthiopic. et Comment. 1. i. c. 8. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. 
Alex. p. 480, &c. This opinion, introduced into Egypt and Europe by the arti- 
fice of the Copts, the pride of the Abyssinians, the fear and ignorance of the Turks 
and Arabs, has not even the semblance of truth. The rains of ^Ethiopia do not, 
in the increase of the Nile, consult the will of the monarch. If the river ap- 
proaches at Napata within three days' journey of the Red Sea, (see D'Anville's 
Maps), a canal that should divert its course would demand, and most probably 
surpass, the power of the Caesars, t 

152 The Abyssinians, who still preserve the features and olive complexion of 
the Arabs, afford a proof that two thousand years are not sufficient to change the 

* The letters of Dr. Lepsius from Egypt in 1844, furnish the most recent account 
of the Copts ; and place them in a far more respectable position. See p. 268-278, 
edit. Bohn.— Eng. Ch. 

t Lepsius, (p. 223), says, that the ancient Napata was situated near the present 
town of Meraui, which is far inland and separated from the Red Sea by ridges 
of porphyry and wide sandy deserts.— Eng. Ch. 



CHURCH OF ABYSSINIA. 711 

and emulated by the more orthodox emperor. The rival 
missionaries, a Melchite and a Jacobite, embarked at the 
same time ; but the empress, from a motive of love or fear, 
was more effectually obeyed ; and the Catholic priest was 
detained by the president of Thebais, while the king- of 
Nubia and his court were hastily baptized in the faith of 
Dioscorus. The tardy envoy of Justinian was received and 
dismissed with honor ; but when he accused the heresy and 
treason of the Egyptians, the negro convert was instructed 
to reply that he would never abandon his brethren, the 
true believers, to the persecuting ministers of the synod of 
Chalcedon. 353 During several ages, the bishops of Nubia 
were named and consecrated by the Jacobite patriarch of 
Alexandria : as late as the twelfth century, Christianity 
prevailed; and some rites, some ruins, are still visible in 
the savage towns of Sennaar and Dongola. 154 But the 
Nubians at length executed their threats of returning to the 
worship of idols ; the climate required the indulgence of 
polygamy, and they have finally preferred the triumph of 
the Koran to the abasement of the Cross. A metaphysical 
religion may appear too refined for the capacity of the 
negro race: yet a black or a parrot might be taught to 
repeat the words of the Chalcedonian or Monophysite 
creed.! 

color of the human race. The Nubians, an African race, are pure negroes, as 
black as those of Senegal or Congo, with flat noses, thick lips, and woolly hair. 
(Buflfon, Hist. Naturelle, torn. v. pp. 117, 143, 144, 166, 219, edit, in i2ino. Paris, 
1769). The ancients beheld, without much attention, the extraordinary phenom- 
enon which had exercised the philosophers and theologians of modern times.* 

153 Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn i. p. 329. 

154 The Christianity of the Nubians, (a. d. 1153), is attested by the sheriff al 
Edrisi, falsely described under the name of the Nubian geographer, (p. 18), who 
represents them as a nation of Jacobites. The rays of historical light that twinkle 
in the history of Renaudot, (pp. 178, 220-224, 281-286, 405, 434, 451, 464,) are all 
previous to this era. See the modern state in the Lettres Fdifiantes, {Recueil, 
iv.) and Busching, (torn. ix. pp. 152-159, par Berenger). f 

* The conversion of Abyssinia, by Frumentius, in the time of Athanasius, is 
related by Bruce, from the records of that country, {Travels, i. 508,) and by 
Neander, (3, 169,) from the ecclesiastical History of Rufinus, (1. 1, c. 9.) The two 
accounts do not materially differ till the latter cites the Apologia Athanasii, to 
show that the emperor Constantius " considered it necessary to persecute the 
" disciples of Athanasius, even in those remote regions." The traveler, on the 
contrary, states, that the conversion was as quietly conducted as, at an earlier 
period, had been that of the same people from Paganism to the Jewish religion : 
that there were " no fanatic preachers, no warm saints or madmen, and no 
" persecution. "— Eng. Ch. 

t For the present state of the Nubians, see the Letters of Lepsius, Nos. 15, 24, 
26, 28, and the physical geography of their country, Appendix, p. 516. He says, 
(p. 21,) " the Nubians or Barabra, (plur. of Berberi,) are an intelligent and honest 
" race, peaceful, but of a disposition anything but slavish, with well-formed 
*' bodies, and a skin of a light reddish brown color."— Eng. Ch. 

X The credulous and emotional nature of the African, seems to qualify him 
admirably for enjoying the Christian religion, and his intellect seems sufficiently 
developed to appreciate the Gospel narrative. His mind it not honey-combed 



7 I2 



CHRISTIANITY IN ABYSSINIA. 



church of Christianity was more deeply rooted in the 
Abyssinia, Abyssinian empire; and, although the corres- 
a. d. 530, &c. p 0n d ence nas been sometimes interrupted above 
seventy or a hundred years, the mother-church of Alexandria 
retains her colony in a state of perpetual pupilage. Seven 
bishops once composed the ^Ethiopic synod; had their 
number amounted to ten, they might have elected an 
independent primate; and one of their kings was ambitious 
of promoting his brother to the ecclesiastical throne. But 
the event was foreseen, the increase was denied ; the episcopal 
office has been gradually confined to the aduna, 155 the head 
and author of the Abyssinian priesthood ; the patriarch 
supplies each vacancy with an Egyptian monk; and the 
character of a stranger appears more venerable in the eyes 
of the people, less dangerous in those of the monarch. In 
the sixth century, when the schism of Egypt was confirmed, 

i'.5 The abuna is improperly dignified by the Latins with the title of patriarch. 
The Abvssinians acknowledge only the four patriarchs, and their chief is no 
more than a metropolitan, or national primate, (Ludolph. Hist. ALthiopic. et Com- 
ment. 1. iii. c. 7.) The seven bishops of Renaudot. (p. 511), who existed A. D. 1131, 

are unknown to the historian. * 

by scientific disbelief, and his implicit faith is unvexed by modern doubt. Like 

the poor Indian, ,; .,. . _. , . , 

F " His untutored mind 

" Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind," 
and he accepts in its entire fullness, without mental reservation, every word 
contained in the Old and New Testament. All the prominent sects in the 
United States may boast of Negro converts, and, in the principal cities, African 
churches are numerous. The Rev. Highland Garnet, who was, at the time of his 
death, U. S. Minister to Liberia, was a colored preacher of unquestioned ability. 
The Rev. Mr. Freeman, pastor of Siloam church, has presided with dignity as 
Moderator of the Presbytery of Brooklyn, and is a colored gentleman of scholarly 
attainments. The Rev. Mr. Jasper of Richmond, Va., also a colored preacher, has 
commanded the attention of the civilized world by his brilliant defence of the old 
orthodox system of the universe. He has ably seconded the argument of the Chris- 
tian navigator Indicopleustes, (see note, p. 694). who labored to confute " the im- 
" pious heresy of those who maintained that the earth is a globe, and not a flat 
"oblong table, as it is represented in the scriptures." Indeed, to the Rev. Mr. Jasper 
belongs the honor of being the only Christian minister in this Christian land, who 
defends the astronomical belief of Joshua, founded on the infallible authority of the 
scriptures, " which are the same yesterday, to-day, and forever; " and although 
Jasper's Caucasian brethren may doubt, they have not yet ventured to openly 
combat his famous declaration, which bears the impress of honest sincerity, and 
which atones in its wealth of confiding Christian faith for what it lacks in mere 
worldly wisdom. Let not those, therefore, who believe in the dramatic and sensa- 
tional command of the inspired warrior, Joshua: "Sun, stand thou still upon 
" Gibeon ; and thou. Moon, in the valley of Ajalon ; " scoff at the humble African, 
when, confiding in the evidence of his own senses, disregarding the sneers of an 
unbelieving world, and relying on the truth of the scriptures, he modestly but 
firmly postulates his simple creed : " The Sun do move." — E. 

* Abuna, from the Arabian Abu (father), was used by the Abyssinians to 
designate their chief priest. Their form of church government was very simple ; 
and having no rich bishoprics, they had no sects, heresies, councils, factions, or 
massacres. This tranquillity remained undisturbed more than a thousand years. 
They had a convent, or rather a lodging-house for pilgrims and travelers, at 
Jerusalem. This connection with the church was the cause of their king, Zara 
Jacob, who reigned from 1434 to 1468, sending his representatives to the council 
of Florence. On their return, they were accompanied by some Frangi or Franks, 
who introduced the first religious disputes in Abyssinia. (Bruce's Travels, 
ii. p. 68.)— Eng. Ch. 



PORTUGUESE IN ABYSSINIA. 713 

the rival chiefs, with their patrons, Justinian and Theodora, 
strove to outstrip each other in the conquest of a remote and 
independent province. The industry of the empress was 
again victorious, and the pious Theodora* has established 
in that sequestered church the faith and discipline of the 
Jacobites. 156 Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of 
their religion, the ^Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, 
forgetful of the world, by whom they were forgotten. They 
were awakened by the Portuguese, who, turning The 
the southern promontory of Africa, appeared in . Po . r ^ u «„ ue ^ e 
India and the Red sea, as if they had descended a! d. 1525- ' 
through the air from a distant planet. In the I553, &c * 
first moments of their interview, the subjects of Rome and 
Alexandria observed the resemblance, rather than the 
difference, of their faith ; and each nation expected the 
most important benefits from an alliance with their 
Christian brethren. In their lonely situation, the Ethiopians 
had almost relapsed into the savage life Their vessels, 
which had traded to Ceylon, scarcely presumed to navigate 
the rivers of Africa; the ruins of Axume were deserted, 
the nation was scattered in villages, and the emperor, a 
pompous name, was content, both in peace and war, with 
the movable residence of a camp. Conscious of their 
own indigence, the Abyssinians had formed the rational 
project of importing the arts and ingenuity of Europe; 157 
and their ambassadors at Rome and Lisbon were instructed 
to solicit a colony of smiths, carpenters, tilers, masons, 
printers, surgeons, and physicians, for the use of their 
country. But the public danger soon called for the instant 
and effectual aid of arms and soldiers to defend an unwarlike 
people from the barbarians who ravaged the inland country, 

156 I know not why Assemannus, {Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. p. 384), should call in 
question these probable missions of Theodora into Nubia and Ethiopia. The 
slight notices of Abyssinia till the year 1500 are supplied by Renaudot, (pp. 336, 
341, 381, 382, 405,443, &c.,452, 456, 463, 475, 480, 511, 525, 559-564,', from the Coptic 
writers. The mind of Ludolphus was a perfect blank. 

157 Ludolph. Hist. sEthiop. 1. iv. c. 5. The most necessary arts are now exer- 
cised by the Jews, and the foreign trade is in the hands of the Armenians. What 
Gregory principally admired and envied was the industry of Europe — artes et 
opificia. 

* Theodora, the beautiful daughter of Acacius, the bear-keeper, after a sue* 
cessful theatrical career, marred, however, by the grossest licentiousness, cap- 
tured Justinian, and became empress of the East. She is celebrated for her 
prudence, courage, tyranny, cruelty and piety. Her labors in the cause of Chris- 
tianity only ended with her life ; and one of her last religious acts was the 
establishment of this Jacobite church in Abyssinia. Clergymen, when denouncing 
the stage, should remember with gratitude the services of the actress Theodora, 
who commenced life as a beggar, was successful as a pantomimist, a courtezan, 
a Christian and an empress; and who, afler exerting a paramount influence iu 
establishing Christian creeds and inventing Christian dogmas during her life, 
was celebrated and honored as a Christian saint after her death.— E. 



714 INVASION OF ABYSSINIA. 

and the Turks and Arabs who advanced from the sea-coast 
in more formidable array. Ethiopia was saved by four 
hundred and fifty Portuguese, who displayed in the field the 
native valor of Europeans, and the artificial powers of the 
musket and cannon. In a moment of terror, the emperor had 
promised to reconcile himself and his subjects to the Catholic 
faith ; a Latin patriarch represented the supremacy of the 
pope; 158 the empire, enlarged in a tenfold proportion, was 
supposed to Contain more gold than the mines of America; 
and the wildest hopes of avarice and zeal were built on the 
willing submission of the Christians of Africa. 
Mission of the But tne vows which pain had extorted, were 
Jesuits. forsworn on the return of health. The Abys- 
sinians still adhered with unshaken constancy 
to the Monophysite faith ; their languid belief was inflamed 
by the exercise of dispute ; they branded the Latins with 
the names of Arians and Nestorians, and imputed the 
adoration of four gods, to those who separated the two 
natures of Christ. Fremona, a place of worship, or rather 
of exile, was assigned to the Jesuit missionaries. Their skill 
in the liberal and mechanic arts, their theological learning, 
and the decency of their manners, inspired a barren esteem ; 
but they were not endowed with the gift of miracles, 159 and 
they vainly solicited a reinforcement of European troops. 
The patience and dexterity of forty years at length obtained 
a more favorable audience, and two emperors of Abyssinia 
were persuaded that Rome could ensure the temporal and 
everlasting happiness of her votaries. The first of these 
royal converts lost his crown and his life ; and the rebel 
army was sanctified by the abuna, who hurled an anathema 
at the apostate, and absolved his subjects from their oath 
of fidelity. The fate of Zadenghel was revenged by the 
courage and fortune of Susneus, who ascended the throne 
under the name of Segued, and more vigorously prosecuted 
the pious enterprise of his kinsman. After the amusement 
of some unequal combats between the Jesuits and his 
illiterate priests, the emperor declared himself a proselyte 
to the synod of Chalcedon, presuming that his clergy and 

139 John Bermudez, whose relation, printed at Lisbon, 1569, was translated into 
English bv Purchas, Pilgrims, 1. vii. c. 7, p. 1149, &c), and from thence into 
French by La Croze, ' Christianisme d'sEthiopie, pp. 92-265). The piece is curious ; 
but the author may be suspected of deceiving Abyssinia, Rome, and Portugal. 
His title to the rank of patriarch is dark and doubtful, (Lud. Com. No. 101, p. 473). 

139 Religio Romana * * * nee precibus patrum nee miraculis ab ipsis editis 
suffulciebatur, is the uncontradicted assurance of the devout emperor Susneus to 
his patriarch Mendez, (Ludolph. Comment. No. 126, p. 529) ; and such assurances 
should be preciously kept, as an antidote against any marvelous legends. 



MISSION OF JESUITS. 715 

people would embrace without delay the religion of their 
prince. The liberty of choice was succeeded by a law, 
which imposed, under pain of death, the belief of the two 
natures of Christ : the Abyssinians were enjoined to work 
and to play on the sabbath ; and Segued, in the face of 
Europe and Africa, renounced his connexion with the 
Alexandrian church. A Jesuit, Alphonso Men- conversion of 
dez, the Catholic patriarch of ./Ethiopia, accepted the emperor, 
in the name of Urban VIII. the homage and A D * l62<5 " 
abjuration of his penitent. " I confess," said the emperor 
on his knees, " I confess that the pope is the vicar of Christ, 
" the successor of St. Peter, and the sovereign of the world. 
" To him I swear true obedience, and at his feet I offer my 
" person and kingdom/' A similar oath was repeated by 
his son, his brother, the clergy, the nobles, and even the 
ladies of the court : the Latin patriarch was invested with 
honors and wealth ; and his missionaries erected their 
churches or citadels in the most convenient stations of the 
empire. The Jesuits themselves deplore the fatal indiscretion 
of their chief, who forgot the mildness of the gospel and 
the policy of his order, to introduce with hasty violence 
the liturgy of Rome and the Inquisition of Portugal. He 
condemned the ancient practice of circumcision, which 
health rather than superstition had first invented in the 
climate of ^Ethiopia. 160 A new baptism, a new ordination, 

160 I arn aware how tender is the question of circumcision. Yet I will affirm, 

1. That the ^Ethiopians have a physical reason for the circumcision of males, 
and even of females,* {Rechirches Philosophiques sur les Americains, torn, ii.) 

2. That it was practiced in ^Ethiopia long before the introduction of Judaism or 
Christianity. {Herodot. 1. ii. c. 104. Marsham, Canon. Chron. pp. 72, 73.) 
" Infantes circumcidunt ob consuetudinem, non ob Judaismum," says Gregory the 
Abyssinian priest, (apud Fabric. Lux Christiana, p. 720.) Yet in the heat of 
dispute, the Portuguese were sometimes branded with the name of uncircumcised. 
(La Croze, p. 80. Ludolph. Hist, and Comment. 1. iii. c. 1.) 

* The Semitic race also practiced circumcision, which rite was regarded by 
them with religious solemnity; and the Hebrew branch of that remarkable 
people, believed that the Creator of the universe was particularly interested 
in their observance of this curious custom. Acting on this knowledge, the 
founder of their family, entered into an " everlasting covenant " with his Creator; 
and, at ninety and nine years of age, cheerfully submitted to the painful muti- 
lation this legal contract demanded, and which,' fortunately, he had still sufficient 
physical endurance to undergo. That his mental powers were unimpaired by 
age, is shown by the successful bargain he made : for, by this simple mercantile 
transaction, he acquired title to real property of almost fabulous value. The 
shrewdest of his descendants have envied, but never equaled their ancestor's 
skiII in trade, and, indeed, they may never hope to receive property of such 
enormous value by parting with so little. 

This extraordinary covenant is still in existence and reads strangely to modern 
Real Estate Agents. By it, the party of the first part, agrees to give to the 
party of the second part, and his lawful heirs and descendants, all that certain 
plot, piece, or parcel of land, known and described as the Land of Canaan, 
on condition, that the said party of the second part and his male descendants 
forever continue the practice of the sacred rite of circumcision. " Every man 
" child among you shall be circumcised," is the language recorded in the bond. 
{Gen. xvii. 7-13.)— E. 



716 EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS. 

was inflicted on the natives ; and they trembled with horror 
when the most holy of the dead were torn from their 
graves, when the most illustrious of the living were excom- 
municated by a foreign priest. In the defence of their 
religion and liberty, the Abyssinians rose in arms, with 
desperate but unsuccessful zeal. Five rebellions were 
extinguished in the blood of the insurgents : two abunas 
were slain in battle, whole legions were slaughtered in the 
field, or suffocated in their caverns ; and neither merit, nor 
rank, nor sex, could save from an ignominious death the 
enemies of Rome. But the victorious monarch was finally 
subdued by the constancy of the nation, of his mother, of 
his son, and of his most faithful friends. Segued listened 
to the voice of pity, of reason, perhaps of fear ; and his 
edict of liberty of conscience instantly revealed the tyranny 
and weakness of the Jesuits. On the death of his father, 
Basilides expelled the Latin patriarch, and restored to the 
wishes of the nation the faith and discipline of Egypt. The 
Monophysite churches resounded with a song of triumph, 
Final expui- " that the sheep of Ethiopia were now delivered 
s, jesuSts he " from the hyaenas of the West ; " and the gates 
A. d. 1632, &c. f that solitary realm were for ever shut against 
the arts, the science, and the fanaticism of Europe. 161 

161 The three Protestant historians. Ludolphus, {Hist. sEthiopica Francofurt. 
168 1 ; Commentarius, 169 1 ; Relatio Nova, &c. 1693, in folio); Geddes, (Church 
History of ^Ethiopia, London, 1696, in octavo), and La Croze, (Hist, du Chris- 
tianisme oV Ethiopie et d'Armenie, La Have, 1739, in duodecimo), have drawn 
their principal materials from the Jesuits, especially from the General History of 
Tellez, published in Portuguese at Conimbra, 1660. We might be surprised at 
their frankness ; but their most flagitious vice, the spirit of persecution, was, in 
their eyes, the most meritorious virtue. Ludolphus possessed some, though a 
slight, advantage from the yEthiopic language, and the personal conversation 
of Gregory, a free-spirited Abyssinian priest, whom he invited from Rome to the 
court ofSaxe-Gotha. See Theo. .Elthi. of Greg., in Fabricius, Lux Evan. p. 716, 734.* 

* The travels of Bruce, illustrated by those of Mr. Salt, and the narrative of 
Nathaniel Pearce, have brought us again acquainted with this remote region. 
Whatever may be their speculative opinions, the barbarous manners of the 
Ethiopians seem to be gaining more and more the ascendancy over the practice 
of Christianity.— Milman. 





" Him the Almighty Power 

Hurled headlong from the etherial skv 
" To bottomless Perdition." — Milton. 



HOMER — MILTON — MEPHISTOPHELES. 

THE council of the gods on Mount Olympus, so dramatically described by 
Homer, inspired Milton with emulation, and he has given us the council of 
the fallen angels in Hades, which his admirers consider both grand and sublime. 
After describing the revolt of Lucifer and his rebellious crew, and the terrible 
battle that was fought in heaven before Satan was finally expelled, when 

" Hills amid the air encountered hills, 

" Hurled to and fro with jaculation dire," 

we find the arch enemy of mankind, (" old Clootie," as Burns calls him), making 
himself comfortable in the bottomless pit. 

" High on a throne of royal state — which far 
" Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind ; 
" Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand 
' Showers on her kings Barbaric pearl and gold — 
" Satan exalted sat ; " 

and taught, among other truths, to the assembled demons, this charming gem of 
divine philosophy, which would have done honor to the brightest seraphim in all 
tlie heavenly host : 

" The mind is its own place, and in itself 

" Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." 

This reasoning was received with great applause by the assembled hosts of fallen 
spirits, and Milton really deserves censure for putting such an eloquent truth in 
the mouth of Beelzebub. Satan next spoke of the earth and its newly formed 
inhabitants, our first parents, over whose grave Mark Twain shed filial tears. 

Defacing the scenery of heaven by tearing up the hills and rocks and rivers, 
and hurling them " to and fro with jaculation dire," as Milton describes, seems to 
have been dictated by insane passion, rather than by the exercise of military 
strategy or genius. Etherial beings cannot be affected by material objects, and im- 
mortal spirits cannot be exterminated. The robust exercise of the angelic warriors 
was, therefore, like the Pope's edict against the comet, barren of results. 

We learn from Homer that the gods on Mount Olympus, and from Milton that the 
devils in Pandemonium, frequently and earnestly discussed the affairs of humanity. 
Indeed, man never yet invented nor created a god or demon who was not instantly 
and continuously engrossed in the welfare of his maker. The inferior spirits, 
says Milton : 

" Apart sat on a hill retired, 

" In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high 
" Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate : 
" Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute : 
" And found no end, in wandering mazes lost." 

This discourse sounds familiar to human ears, as it is often heard in our churches, 
but of what interest could it possibly have been to the evil spirits in Hades? A re- 
porter for the press, visiting this spot in search of an item of news, would never 
have mistrusted from the discourse of these infernals, that he was in Tophet, listen- 
ing to the arguments of fallen angels. On the contrary, he would have supposed, 
from the theological tone of the conversation, that he was attending a Presby- 
terian Convention, a Methodist Conventicle, or a Dutch Reformed Synod. 

We are assured by the witty Butler, in Hudibras, that this coincidence between 
the thoughts of the ministers of evil, and the ministers of grace, is not prejudicial 
to the latter : 

" For saints may do the same things by 

" The spirit, in sincerity, 

" Which other men are tempted to, 

" And at the devil's instance do; 

" And yet the actions be contrary. 

"Just as the saints and wicked vary." — E. 




Mithras.* 



XlV.f 

INTRODUCTION, WORSHIP, AND PERSECUTION, OF IMAGES. 
— REVOLT OF ITALY AND ROME. — TEMPORAL DOMINION 
OF THE POPES. — ESTABLISHMENT OF IMAGES. 

IN the connection of the church and state, I introduction 
have considered the former as subservient p O™^g es 
only, and relative, to the latter ; a salutary Christian 
maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had church, 
ever been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy of the 
Gnostics, the dark abyss of predestination and grace, and 
the strange transformation of the eucharist from the sign to 

* The Zendavesta, the bible of the ancient fire- worshipers, teaches that fire is 
the agent of the divine energy ; and the sun — the divinity of fire — the genius of 
light— of intellectual and divine light— was adored by the Persians in the worship 
and under the name of Mithras ; who was a mediator between the good god 
Ormuzd, the author of every blessing, and the evil god, Ahriman, the author of 
every misfortune; in the same manner that Vishnu, the preserver, interposed 
between Brahma the creator, and Siva the destroyer, in the Hindoo trinity 
of gods. 

The priests of Mithras were termed Magi, and the most eminent member of 
this sect was the world-renowned Zoroaster. The mysterious worship of Mithras 
was celebrated in gloomy caverns, and only the initiated, who had withstood the 
test of the most severe ordeals, were admitted to the presence of the god. 

Mithras is represented on monuments as a beautiful youth, clad in a flowing 
robe, wearing a Phrygian cap, and sacrificing a bull, at the entrance of a cavern, 
as in the above engraving. One of the attending Magi holds a lighted torch, the 
other an inverted one, representing light and darkness, or day and night. The 
serpent, the emblem of wisdom, who beguiled Eve, and thwarted, at the creation, 
the plans of Omnipotence, has not been forgotten in this religion. The dog 
lapping the blood of the sacrificial victim, corresponds with the wolf which 
appeared at the foundation of Rome and with Sirius, the dog-star, of the 
Egyptians. The divine Mithras kneels upon the devoted beast ; with his left 
hand he closes its nostrils, and with his right he plunges a dagger into its heart. 

An astronomical explanation has been given as the concealed or real meaning 
of this sacrificial worship. — E. 

f From Chap. xlix. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fat? of the Roman Empire. 

(717) 



718 INTRODUCTION OF IMAGES. 

the substance of Christ's body. 1 I have purposely abandoned 
to the curiosity of speculative divines. But I have reviewed, 
with diligence and pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical 
history, by which the decline and fall of the Roman empire 
were materially affected, the propagation of Christianity, 
the constitution of the Catholic church, the ruin of Paganism, 
and the sects that arose from the mysterious controversies 
concerning the Trinity and incarnation. At the head of 
this class, we may justly rank the worship of images, so 
fiercely disputed In the eighth and ninth centuries ; since 
a question of popular superstition produced the revolt of 
Italy, the temporal power of the popes, and the restoration 
of the Roman empire in the West. 

The primitive Christians were possessed with an uncon- 
querable repugnance to the use and abuse of images ; and 
this aversion may be ascribed to their descent from the 
Jews, and their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic law had 
severely proscribed all representations of the Deity ; and 
that precept was firmly established in the principles and 
practice of the chosen people. The wit of the Christian 
apologists was pointed against the foolish idolaters, who 
bowed before the workmanship of their own hands ; the 
images of brass and marble, which, had they been endowed 
with sense and motion, should have started rather from the 
pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist. 2 Perhaps 
some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe, 
might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the 
profane honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and 
Pythagoras ; 3 but the public religion of the Catholics was 
uniformly simple and spiritual ; and the first notice of the 
use of pictures is in the censure of the council of Illiberis, 

i The learned Selden has given the history of transubstantiation in a compre- 
hensive and pithy sentence: "This opinion' is only rhetoric turned into logic." 
(His Works, vol. iii. p. 2073, in his Table-Talk.) 

2 Nee intelligent homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire simulacra et moveri 
possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a quo sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. 1. ii. 
c. 2.) Lactantius is the last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists. 
Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form and matter. * 

3 See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage, Hist, des Eglises Refor- 
mees, torn. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic practice has a singular affinity with the 
private worship of Alexander Severus r (Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen 
Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34). 

* Who were " the primitive Christians" here referred to? Even in the time of 
the apostles, the Greek converts far outnumbered those of Jewish descent. They 
accepted the Hebrew Scriptures, even before they had their own ; and from 
them, as well as from philosophy, they conceived a repugnance to idolatrv and a 
distaste for images, as the representatives of fable and folly. Thev had no 
" enmity" to their countrymen. No traces can be found of such a feeling: but, 
on the contrary, a cordial goodwill is shown, to recommend their new religion. 
The first symptoms of hostility were between them and Jews.— Eng. Ch. 



WORSHIP OF IMAGES. 



719 



three hundred years after the Christian sera. Under the 
successors of Constantine, in the peace and luxury of the 
triumphant church, the more prudent bishops condescended 
to indulge a visible superstition, for the benefit of the 
multitude : and, after the ruin of Paganism, they were no 
longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel. 
The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the 
veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and 
martyrs, whose intercession was implored, were seated on 
the right hand of God ; but the gracious and often super- 
natural favors, which, in the popular belief, were showered 
round their tomb, conveyed an unquestionable sanction of 
the devout pilgrims, who visited, and touched, and kissed, 
these lifeless remains, the memorials of their merits and 
sufferings. 4 But a memorial, more interesting than the 
skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is the faithful 
copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts of 
painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so congenial 
to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of 
private friendship, or public esteem : the images of the 
Roman emperors were adored with civil, and almost 
religious, honors; a reverence less ostentatious, but more 
sincere, was applied to the statues of sages and patriots ; 
and these profane virtues, these splendid sins, disappeared 
in the presence of the holy men, who had died for their 
celestial and everlasting country. At first, the experiment 
was made with caution and scruple ; and the 
venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to 
instruct the ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify 
the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. By a slow though 
inevitable progression, the honors of the original were 
transferred to the copy; the devout Christian prayed before 
the image of a saint; and the Pagan rites of genuflection, 
luminaries, and incense, again stole into the Catholic 
church.* The scruples of reason, or piety, were silenced 

* See this History, pp. 307, 451, 555~56o. 

* The Pagan worship of images, as visible representatives of the gods, had 
scarcely been suppressed, when the practice was again revived, but not improved, 
by the early Christian sects, who had already introduced religious persecution 
as an efficient means for propagating their faith. 

" Should any one inquire," says the Christian historian Mosheim, (Hist, of 
Christianity, vol. i. cent. ii. sect. 36, p. 392), " what causes could possibly have 
" led the Christian teachers to adopt the rites of Paganism, I answer, that in all 
" probability, their only motive was an anxious desire to enlarge the bounds of 
" the church. The rites, themselves, certainly possessed no very particular 
" recommendation in point of grandeur or dignity ; but a hope might very 
" naturally be entertained, that the heathen worshipers, upon finding somewhat 
" of an accordance to subsist between the religion in which they had been bred 



720 VISIONS AND MIRACLES. 

by the strong evidence of visions and miracles ; and the 
pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be 
endowed with a divine energy, and may be considered as 
the proper objects of religious adoration. The most 
audacious pencil might tremble in the rash attempt of 
defining, by forms and colors, the infinite Spirit, the eternal 

" up, and Christianity, as to externals, might the more readily be prevailed on 
" to dismiss their prejudices and embi ace the latter." * * * " The oriental Chris- 
" tians of this age, were accustomed to compare baptism with that lustration with 
" which it was the practice to consecrate, in a certain degree, those who were 
" about to be initiated in the mysteries, and the profession of faith, delivered at 
" the font, with the watch-word, or sign, communicated to the candidates for ad- 
" mission to the secret rites of heathenism : on which account it was usual for 
" this profession of faith to be solemnly delivered in the very act of baptism to 
" every one admitted into the church. Indeed, in its operation the profession of 
" faith, to which we allude, was by no means dissimilar to the sign of mystical 
" initiation amongst the heathen." 

The Pagans reposed implicit confidence in the wisdom and discretion of Zeus 
and his celestial attendants. Without persecuting other religions, or rival sects, 
they cheerfully performed their own religious rites, and piously made their offer- 
ings and oblations to the gods. They never doubted or questioned the omnipotence, 
omniscience, and omnipresence, of the divine hierarchy of Olympus. 

The Christians were also sincere in their belief; but their images and saints were 
austere and forbidding, and could not compensate intelligent Pagan worshipers for 
the loss of the all-powerful, benign, and immortal gods, whose consecrated temples 
had enriched the world with monuments of beauty, and whose statues had en- 
nobled the arts, and lent inspiration to music and poetry, 

The religion of the Romans, not only imparted to its professors happiness in this 
earthly life, but it gave a hope of immortality beyond the grave ; while the Christian 
theology inculcated the merit of penance and misery on earth, joined with Plato's 
Pagan belief of a blessed immortality in heaven. 

But while the Pagans were content to allow the immortal gods to govern the world 
unprompted by finite wisdom, and unaided by human skill, the Christians secretly 
doubted the sagacity and discretion of Jehovah, unless his arm was strengthened 
with mortal aid, and his wisdom was enlightened with Christian counsel. In their 
eloquent and impressive harangues, they, therefore, instructed their Deity in the 
proper course for him to pursue, and in their earnest and fervid prayers, they 
plainly intimated their wishes and desires. They felt themselves entitled to partici- 
pate in the government of the universe, fully believing their sword could reinforce 
the power of Omnipotence, and their chains, and tortures, and dungeons, could 
appall and convince the most obdurate heretic. Hence, they became intolerant 
bigots, and to enforce their religion, they deluged the earth in blood. Like the old 
Roman idolaters, they built temples for worship, and erected images for adoration. 
Deserted Pagan shrines were purified and now became holy Christian altars. 
Vestal Virgins, condemned to a life of celibacy by the old superstition, were now- 
flattered with " spiritual vows," and received the majestic, if not sacrilegious, title 
of "the chosen spouses of Christ." The heroes and demi-gods of Olympus were 
displaced by the " Blessed Virgin," and the holy calendar of Saints. The Pagan 
rite of burning incense to the gods, was retained ; and " holy water," thrice 
blessed by holy priests, was substituted for idolatrous libations of wine. Instead 
of the ancient Pagan mysteries of Eleusis, the new Christian mystery of Transub- 
stantiation was invented ; and the sacred words of priestly incantation, now 
changed bread into flesh, and wine into blood, to be eaten and drank in ecstatic 
delirium by awe-stricken and trembling neophytes, and with calm and placid in- 
difference by experienced and initiated believers. Divinations by Pagan Haru- 
spices, and Augurs, were forbidden, but Christian priests, who were permitted to 
cast out devils and exorcise demons, were encouraged to foretell future events by 
the art of prophesying : " For greater is he that prophesieth, than he that speaketh 
" with tongues.*' The priestly dignity of Pontifex Maximus was forever abolished, 
and the Holy Pontiff of Rome now ruled supreme. The idolatrous sacrifice of 
animals was happily suppressed — bulls, and sheep, and goats, were no longer 
slaughtered and eaten by Pagan priests at the altars of Jupiter, hut an occasional 
heretic was roasted by the professed followers of Jesus, to demonstrate the truth 
of the orthodox dogmas, and to illustrate the humanity and loving kindness of 
the Christian creed.— E 



ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY. 72 1 

Father, who pervades and sustains the universe. 5 But the 
superstitious mind was more easily reconciled to paint and 
to worship the angels, and, above all, the Son of God, 
under the human shape, which, on earth, they have con- 
descended to assume. The second person of the Trinity 
had been clothed with a real and mortal body ; but that 
body had ascended into heaven ; and, had not some 
similitude been presented to the eyes of his disciples, the 
spiritual worship of Christ might have been obliterated by 
the visible relics and representations of the saints. A 
similar indulgence was requisite, and propitious, for the 
Virgin Mary : the place of her burial was unknown ; and 
the assumption of her soul and body into heaven was 
adopted by the credulity of the Greeks and Latins. The 
use, and even the worship, of images, was firmly established 
before the end of the sixth century: they were fondly 
cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and 
Asiatics : the Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the 
emblems of- a new superstition ; but this semblance of 
idolatry was more coldly entertained by the rude barbarians 
and the Arian clergy of the West. The bolder forms of 
sculpture, in brass or marble, which peopled the temples 
of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy or conscience of 
the Christian Greeks ; and a smooth surface of colors has 
ever been esteemed a more decent and harmless mode of 
imitation. 6 

The merit and effect of a copy depends on its The image 
resemblance with the original ; but the primitive of Edessa - 
Christians were ignorant of the genuine features of the Son 
of God, his mother, and his apostles : the statue of Christ 
at Paneas in Palestine 7 was more probably that of some 

5 Ov yap to Qelov anAovv v~apxov nal uAtjqtov fiop^al^ riat kcli oxwaGLv 

U-eLKU^O/J.£V, OVTE K7jpu K(U %VAOLg TTjV VTTEpOVGtOV KO,1 TTpodvupXOV OValaV 

Ti/Ltav fjnetg dieyvcjuafiev. (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect, Labb. torn. viii. 
p. 1025, edit. Venet.) II seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point souffrir d'images de 
la Trinite ou de la Divinite ; les defenseurs les plus zeles des images ayant 
condamne celles-ci, et leconcile de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus 
Christ et des Saints. (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. torn. vi. p. 154.) 

6 This general history of images is drawn from the twenty-second book of the 
Hist, des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, torn. ii. pp. 1310-1337. He was a Pro- 
testant, but of a manly spirit ; and on this head, the Protestants are so notoriously 
in the right, that they can venture to be impartial. See the perplexity of poor 
Friar Pagi, Critica, torn. i. p. 42. 

" After removing some rubbish of miracle and inconsistency, it maybe allowed, 
that as late as the year 300, Paneas in Palestine was decorated with a bronze statue, 
representing a grave personage wrapped in a cloak, with a grateful or suppliant 
female kneeling before him, and that an inscription — ru 'EuTTjpc, rep evepyerj]^ 
was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the Christians, this group was fool- 
ishly explained of their founder and the poor woman whom he had cured of the 



722 THE IMAGE OF EDESSA. 

temporal savior ; the Gnostics and their profane monuments 
were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists 
could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some 
heathen model. In this distress, a bold and dexterous 
invention assured at once the likeness of the image and the 
innocence of the worship, A new superstructure of fable 
was raised on the popular basis of a Syrian legend, on the 
correspondence of Christ and Abgarus, so famous in the 
days of Eusebius, so reluctantly deserted by our modern 
advocates.* The bishop of Caesarea 8 records the epistle, 9 
but he most strangely forgets the picture, of Christ ; 10 the 
perfect impression of his face on a linen, with which he 

bloodv flux, (Euseb. vii. 18; Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre more rea- 
sonably conjectures the philosopher Apollonius, or the emperor Vespasian ; in 
the latter supposition, the female is a city, a province, or perhaps the queen 
Berenice, (Bibliotheque German ique, torn. xiii. pp. 1-92.) 

8 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. 1. i. c. 13. The learned Assemannus has brought up the 
collateral aid of three Syrians, St. Ephrem, Josua Stylites, and James, bishop 
of Sarug; but I do not find any notice of the Syriac original, or the archives of 
Edessa, (Bibliot. Orient, torn. i". pp. 318, 420, 554) ; their vague belief is probably 
derived from the Greeks. 

9 The evidence for these epistles is stated and rejected by the candid Lardner, 
(Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. pp. 297-309.) Among the herd of bigots who are 
forcibly driven from this convenient, but untenable, post, I am ashamed, with 
the Grabes, Caves, Tillemont, &c, to discover Mr. Addison, an English gentle- 
man, (his Works, vol. i. p. 528, Baskerville's edition) ; but his superficial tract on 
the Christian religion owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested 
applause of our clergy. 

10 From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, pp. 289, 318), 
and the testimony of Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. 1. iv. c. 27), I conclude that this 
fable was invented between the years 521 and 594, most probably after the siege 
of Edessa in 540, (Asseman. torn. i. p. 416. Procopius de Bell. Persic. 1. ii). It is 
the sword and buckler of Gregory II. (in Epist. i. ad Leon. Isaur. Concil. torn, 
viii. pp.656, 657), of John Damascenus, (Opera, torn. i. p. 281, edit. Lequien), and 
of the second Nicene Council, (Actio, v. p. 1030). The most perfect edition may 
be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. pp. 175-178). 



* The Veronica Handkerchief,'" says Taylor, (Diegesis, p. 380-381,) "would not 
" deserve a consideration among the external evidences of Christianity, had it 
" not been consecrated by the serious belief and earnest devotion of the largest 
" body and most ancient sect of professed Christians. I make no remark on the 
" story, but copy it as I find it, in a note of the editor on the text of Eusebius, 
" where he relates the story of the correspondence of Christ and Abgarus, (Euseb. 
" Eccles. Hist. lib. 1, c. 14.) 'How that Abgarus, governor of Edessa, sent his 
" ' letter unto Jesus, and withal a certain painter, who might view him well, and 
" 'bring unto him back again the lively picture of Jesus. But the painter not 
" ' being able, for the glorious brightness of his gracious countenance, to look at 
" ' him so steadily as to catch his likeness, our Savior himself took an handker- 
" ' chief, and laid it on his divine and lovely face, and by wiping of his face, his 
" ' picture became impressed on the handkerchief, the which he sent to Abgarus.' 

" This story the translator gives with severe censure from the historian Nice- 
" phorus, and perhaps it might deserve no less; but that the impartial principle 
" of this Diegesis, forbids our treating any subject with levity or indifference, 
" that has had power to engage the impassioned affections and earnest devotions 
" of so numerous and respectable a portion of the Christian community. 

" I copy from Blount's Philostratus, the annexed prayer, extracted from a 
" Roman Catholic Liturgy, or Manual of true piety : The Prayer to Veronica, 
" ' Hail Holy Face impressed on cloth ! Purge from us every spot of vice, and 
" 'join us to the society of the blessed ; O blessed Figure I ' (The name Veronica, 
" occurs in the Gospel of Nicodemus, as that of the lady who came behind 
" Jesus, and touched the hem of his garment.")— E. 






COPIES OF THE IMAGE OF EDESSA. 723 

gratified the faith of the royal stranger, who had invoked 
his healing power, and offered the strong city of Edessa to 
protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance 
of the primitive church is explained by the long imprison- 
ment of the image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after 
an oblivion of five hundred years, it was released by some 
prudent bishop, and seasonably presented to the devotion 
of the times. Its first and most glorious exploit was the 
deliverance of the city from the arms of Chosroes Nushir- 
van; and it was soon revered as a pledge of the divine 
promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a foreign 
enemy. It is true, indeed, that the text of Procopius 
ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth and 
valor of her citizens, who purchased the absence and 
repelled the assaults of the Persian monarch. He was 
ignorant, the profane historian, of the testimony which he 
is compelled to deliver in the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, 
that the Palladium was exposed on the rampart, and that 
the water which had been sprinkled on the holy face, 
instead of quenching, added new fuel to the flames of the 
besieged. After this important service, the image of Edessa 
was preserved with respect and gratitude ; and if the 
Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous Greeks 
adored the similitude, which was not the work of any 
mortal pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine 
original. The style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn 
will declare how far their worship was removed from the 
grossest idolatry. " How can we with mortal eyes contem- 
" plate this image, whose celestial splendor the host of 
" heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in heaven 
" condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image : 
" He who is seated on the cherubim, visits us this day by 
" a picture, which the Father has delineated with his 
" immaculate hand, which he has formed in an ineffable 
" manner, and which we sanctify by adoring it with fear 
" and love." Before the end of the sixth century, these 
images, made without hands, (in Greek it is a single word, 11 ) 
were propagated in the camps and cities of the Eastern 

11 'AxeipoiroLijToe. See Ducange, in Gloss. Grczc. et Lat. The subject is 
treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser, {Syntagma de 
imaginibus non Afemi favtis, ad calcem Codbu de Officiis, pp. 289-530), the ass, 
or rather the fox, of Ingoldstadt, (see the Scaligerana); with equat reason and 
wit by the Protestant Beausobre, in the ironical controversy which he has spread 
through many volumes of the Bibliotheque Germanique, (torn, xviii. pp. 1-50. xx. 
pp. 27-68, xxv. pp. 1-36. xxvii. pp. 85-11S, xxviii. pp. 1-33, xxxi. pp. 111-14S, xxxii. 
pp. 75-J07, xxxi v. pp. 67-96. 



724 IMAGES OF SAINTS AND MARTYRS. 

empire : 12 they were the objects of worship, and the instru- 
ments of miracles ; and, in the hour of danger or tumult, 
their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle 
the courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions. Of 
these pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts 

Its copies. ci miji j j. 

of a human pencil, could only pretend to a 
secondary likeness and improper title : but there were 
some of higher descent, who derived their resemblance 
from an immediate contact with the original, endowed, for 
that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific virtue. The 
most ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation 
with the image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of 
Rome, or Spain, or Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony 
and bloody sweat applied to his face, and delivered to a holy 
matron. * The fruitful precedent was speedily transferred 
to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and martyrs. In the 
church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features of the mother 
of God 1:t were deeply inscribed in a marble column: the 
East and West have been decorated by the pencil of St. 
Luke; and the evangelist, who was perhaps a physician, 
has been forced to exercise the occupation of a painter, so 

12 Theophylact Simoeatta. (1. ii. c. 3, p. 34 ; 1. iii. c. 1, p. 63,) celebrates the 
deuvdpiKOV e'iKaoua, which he styles dxeipoTTOL7]Tov ; yet it was no more than a 
copy, since he adds upxeTVirov T0 tKetvov ol 'VdjiaioL (of Edessa) SprjOKEVovoi 
tl uppTjTov. See Pagi, torn. ii. a. d. 586, No. 11. 

i"' See, in the genuine or supposed works of John Damascenus, two passages 
on the Viigin and St. Luke, which have not been noticed by Gretser, nor conse- 
quently by Beausobre, [Opera yoh. Damascen. torn. i. pp. 618, 631). 

* "The Council of Nice adduced amongst other grounds for the religious use 
" of images," says Feuerbach, " the authority of Gregory of Nyssa, who said 
" that he could never look at an image which represented the sacrifice of Isaac 
" without being moved to tears, because it so vividly brought before him that 
" event in sacred history." 

A similar example of the remarkable influence exerted by the works of great 
artists on the minds of those capable of understanding or realizing the conceptions 
of genius, is recorded by Col. Ingersoll, in his Interviews on Talmage, p. 170, where 
the pathetic statement of the eminent Presbyterian divine is referred to as follows : 
" Mr. Talmage describes a picture of the scourging of Christ, painted by Rubens. 
" and he tells us that he was so appailed by this picture— by the sight of the naked 
" back, swollen and bleeding— that he could not have lived had he continued to 
" look ; yet this same man, who could not bear to gaze upon a painted pain, ex- 
" pects to be perfectly happy in heaven, while countless billions of actual — not 
" painted— men. women, and children writhe— not in a pictured flame, but in the 
" real and quenchless fires of hell." 

This belief of Dr. Talmage is an orthodox expression of true Christian faith 

because, says Feuerbach, " faith is the opposite of love. Hence love is recon- 

" cilable with reason alone, not with faith. It was faith, not love, not reason 

which invented Hell. To love, Hell is a horror ; to reason, an absurdity. Faith 

postulates a future, where faith has no longer an opposite, or where this opposite 

exists only to enhance the self complacency of triumphant faith." Therefore, 

Hell sweetens the joys of happy believers." " The elect will come forth," says 

Peter Lombard, (Petrus L. 1. iv. dist. 50, c. 4), " to behold the torments of the un- 

godly, and at this spectacle they will not be smitten with sorrow; on the con- 

trary. while they see the unspeakable sufferings of the ungodlv, they intoxicated 

' with joy, will thank God for their own salvation."— E. 



OPPOSITION TO IMAGE WORSHIP. 725 

profane and odious in the eyes of the primitive Christians. 
The Olympian Jove, created by the muse of Homer and 
the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a philosophic mind 
with momentary devotion ; but these Catholic images were 
faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists, in the last 
degeneracy of taste and genius. 14 

The worship of images had stolen into the opposition to 
church by insensible degrees, and each petty image 
step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as worshl P- 
productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the 
beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of 
the abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an 
apprehension, that, under the mask of Christianity, they had 
restored the religion of their fathers : they heard, with 
grief and impatience, the name of idolaters : the incessant 
charge of the Jews and Mahometans, 15 who derived from 
the Law and the Koran an immortal hatred to graven 
images and all relative worship. The servitude of the Jews 
might curb their zeal, and depreciate their authority ; but 
the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at Damascus, 
and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of re- 
proach the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The 
cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, had been fortified 
with the images of Christ, his mother, and his saints ; and 
each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous 
defence. In a rapid conquest of ten years, the Arabs 
subdued those cities and these images ; and, in their 
opinion, the Lord of Hosts pronounced a decisive judgment 
between the adoration and contempt of these mute and 
inanimate idols. For a while Edessa had braved the 

14 " Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the canvas : they are as bad 
as a group of statues ! " It was thus that the ignorance and bigotrv of a Greek 
priest applauded the pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to 
accept. 

is By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the origin of the Iconoclasts is 
imputed to the caliph Yezid and two Jews, who promised the empire to Leo ; and 
the reproaches of these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for 
restoring the purity of the Christian worship. (See Spanheim, Hist. Imag. c. 2.)* 

* Yezid was the ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiades. About the year 719, 
he ordered all images in Syria to be destroyed. The orthodox availed themselves 
of this, to upbraid the Iconoclasts for following the examples of Saracens and 
Jews. Fragm. Mon. Johan. Jerosolymit. Script. Byz. torn. xvi. p. 235. Sismondi, 
Repub. torn. i. 126. — Guizot. 

Neander, {Hist, of Chris, iii. 400,-418), has learnedly and carefully traced the 
introduction of image-worship. It began, not by setting up the cross in churches, 
but by wearing the sign of it on the person, especially on the forehead. " Portare 
" crucem in fronte," knl rov /ueTcoiTOV rbv aravpbv rceiuQepeiv, was an early 
custom among Christians. This was, no doubt, derived from the Tephillin, or 
prayer-signs, of the Jews, so incorrectly rendered in the Greek phy lact eria, which 
they wore on the forehead and the. arm. Hence followed, by degrees, the em- 
broidery of garments, the embellishment of houses and the decoration of 
churches.— Eng. Ch. 



726 THE MONKS DEFEND IMAGE WORSHIP. 

Persian assaults ; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, 
was involved in the common ruin ; and his divine resem- 
blance became the slave and trophy of the infidels. After a 
servitude of three hundred years, the Palladium was 
yielded to the devotion of Constantinople, for a ransom of 
twelve thousand pounds of silver, the redemption of two 
hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce for the territory 
of Edessa. 16 In this season of distress and dismay, the 
eloquence of the monks was exercised in the defence of 
images; and they attempted to prove, that the sin and 
schism of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited the 
favor, and annihilated the virtue, of these precious, symbols. 
But they were now opposed by the murmurs of many 
simple or rational Christians, who appealed to the evidence 
of texts, of facts, and of the primitive times, and secretly 
desired the reformation of the church. As the worship of 
images had never been established by any general or 
positive law, its progress in the Eastern empire had been 
retarded, or accelerated, by the differences of men and 
manners, the local degrees of refinement, and the personal 
characters of the bishops. The splendid devotion was 
fondly cherishd by the levity of the capital, and the inventive 
genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote 
districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred 
luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians 
maintained, after their conversion, the simple worship which 
had preceded their separation ; and the Armenians, the 
most warlike subjects of Rome, were not reconciled, in the 
twelfth century, to the sight of images. 17 These various 
denominations of men afforded a fund of prejudice and 
aversion, of small account in the villages of Anatolia or 
Thrace, but which, in the fortune of a soldier, a prelate, or 
a eunuch, might be often connected with the powers of the 
church and state. 

Leo, the icon- Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was 
suc S cefso.s, ls the emperor Leo the third, who, from the 
a. d. 726-840. mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne of 

* 6 See Elmacin. {Hist. Saracen, p. 267), Abulpharagius, {Dynast, p. 201), and 
Abulfeda, {Anna!. Moslem, p. 264), and the criticisms of Pagi, torn. iii. A. D. 944). 
The prudent Franciscan refuses to determine whether the image of Edessa now 
reposes at Rome or Genoa ; but its repose is inglorious, and this ancient object 
of worship is no longer famous or fashionable. 

17 'Apfzevioic Kal 'AAa/xavolc emarjg i) ruv uyiuv eIktvov TrpoGnvvqac 
VLTrrjyopEOTCU. (JVicetas, I. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian churches are still content 
with the cross, {Missions du Levant, torn. iii. p. 148), but surely the superstitious 
Greek is unjust to the superstition of the Germans of the twelfth century. 



LEO, THE ICONOCLAST. 727 

the East. 18 He was ignorant of sacred and profane letters ; 
but his education, his reason, perhaps his intercourse with 
the Jews and Arabs, had inspired the martial peasant 
with a hatred of images ; and it was held to be the 
duty of a prince, to impose on his subjects the dictates 
of his own conscience. But in the outset of an unsettled 
reign, during ten years of toil and danger, Leo sub- 
mitted to the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed before the 
idols which he despised, and satisfied the Roman pontiff 
with the annual professions of his orthodoxy and zeal. In 
the reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate 
and cautious ; he assembled a great council of senators and 
bishops, and enacted, with their consent, that all the images 
should be removed from the sanctuary and altar to a proper 
height in the churches, where they might be visible to the 
eyes, and inaccessible to the superstition, of the people. 
But it was impossible on either side to check the rapid 
though adverse impulse of veneration and abhorrence : in 
their lofty position, the sacred images still edified their 
votaries, and reproached the tyrant. He was himself pro- 
voked by resistance and invective ; and his own party 
accused him of an imperfect discharge of his duty, and 
urged for his imitation the example of the Jewish king, 
who had broken without scruple the brazen serpent of the 
temple. By a second edict, he proscribed the existence as 
well as the use of religious pictures ; the churches of Con- 
stantinople and the provinces were cleansed from idolatry ; 
the images of Christ, the Virgin, and the saints, were 
demolished, or a smooth surface of plaster was spread over 
the walls of the edifice. The sect of the Iconoclasts was 
supported by the zeal and despotism of six emperors, and 
the East and West were involved in a noisy conflict of one 
hundred and twenty years. It was the design of Leo the 
Isaurian to pronounce the condemnation of images, as an 
article of faith, and by the authority of a general council : 

is Our original, but not impartial, monuments of the Iconoclasts must be drawn 
from the Acts of the Councils, torn. viii. and ix. Collect. Labbe, edit. Venet. and 
the historical writings of Theophanes, Nicephorus, Manasses, Cedrenus, Zonaras, 
&c. Of the modern Catholics, Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander, {Hist. Eccles. 
Secuhan, viii. and ix.), and Maimbourg, {Hist, des Iconoclastes), have treated the 
subject with learning, passion, and credulity. The Protestant labors of Frederick 
Spanheim, {Historia Imaginum restituta.) and James Basnage, {Hist, des Eglises 
Reformees, torn. ii. 1. xxiii. pp. 1339-1385), are cast into the Iconoclast scale. With 
this mutual aid, and opposite tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with 
philosophic indifference.* 

* Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der Bilder-stiirmender Kaiser, Frankfurt-am- 
Main, 1S12 ; a book of research and impartiality.— Milman. 



728 DECREE OF THE BYZANTINE SYNOD. 

but the convocation of such an assembly was reserved for 
his son Constantine; 19 and though it is stigmatized by- 
triumphant bigotry as a meeting of fools and atheists, their 
own partial and mutilated acts betray many symptoms of 
reason and piety. The debates and decrees of many 
Their synod provincial synods introduced the summons of 
stantinopie, tne general council which met in the suburbs 
a. d. 754.' of Constantinople, and was composed of the 
respectable number of three hundred and thirty-eight 
bishops of Europe and Anatolia; for the patriarchs of 
Antioch and Alexandria were the slaves of the caliph, and 
the Roman pontiff had withdrawn the churches of Italy 
and the West from the communion of the Greeks. This 
Byzantine synod assumed the rank and powers of the 
seventh general council ; yet even this title was a recognition 
of the six preceding assemblies, which had laboriously 
built the structure of the Catholic faith. After a serious 
deliberation of six months, the three hundred and thirty- 
eight bishops pronounced and subscribed a unanimous 
decree, that all visible symbols of Christ, except in the 
eucharist, were either blasphemous or heretical ; that image- 
worship was a corruption of Christianity and a renewal 
of Paganism; that all such monuments of idolatry should 
be broken or erased ; and that those who should refuse to 
deliver the objects of their private superstition, were guilty 
of disobedience to the authority of the church and of the 
emperor. In their loud and loyal acclamations, they 
celebrated the merits of their temporal redeemer ; and to 
his zeal and justice they intrusted the execution of their 
spiritual censures. At Constantinople, as in the former 
councils, the will of the prince was the rule of episcopal 
faith ; but, on this occasion, I am inclined to suspect that a 
_. . , large majority of the prelates sacrificed their 

Their creed. & J . J . v . r , , 

secret conscience to the temptations 01 hope and 
fear. In the long night of superstition, the Christians had 
wandered far away from the simplicity of the gospel : nor 
was it easy for them to discern the clue, and tread back the 
mazes, of the labyrinth. The worship of images was 

19 Some flowers of rhetoric are Svvodov 7ra.pdvofj.ov, Kal adeov and the bishops 
role fJ-araio^poGLV. By Damascenus it is styled anvpoc Kai atfe/croc, {Opera, 
torn. i. p. 623). Spanheim's Apology for the Synod of Constantinople, (p. 171, &c.) 
is worked up with truth and ingenuity, from such materials as he could find in 
the Nicene Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of Damascus converts eTriGKorrovc 
into kmoKOTOvc ; ma kes them noihiodovAovc, slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, 
torn. i. p. 306. 



PERSECUTION OF IMAGES AND MONKS. 729 

inseparably blended, at least to a pious fancy, with the 
cross, the Virgin, the saints and their relics: the holy 
ground was involved in a cloud of miracles and visions; 
and the nerves of the mind, curiosity and skepticism, were 
benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief. Constantine 
himself is accused of indulging a royal license to doubt, to 
deny, or deride the mysteries of the Catholics, 20 but they 
were deeply inscribed in the public and private creed of his 
bishops ; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault with a 
secret horror the monuments of popular devotion, which 
were consecrated to the honor of his celestial patrons. In 
the reformation of the sixteenth century, freedom and 
knowledge had expanded all the faculties of man : the 
thirst of innovation superseded the reverence of antiquity ; 
and the vigor of Europe could disdain those phantoms 
which terrified the sickly and servile weakness of the 
Greeks. 

The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only Their perse- 
proclaimed to the people by the blast of the cutionoftbe 

r . . . , 11 • images and 

ecclesiastical trumpet; but the most ignorant monks, 
can perceive, the most torpid must feel, the A - D * ? 26 -775- 
profanation and downfall of their visible deities. The first 
hostilities of Leo were directed against a lofty Christ on 
the vestibule, and above the gate, of the palace. A ladder 
had been planted for the assault, but it was furiously shaken 
by a crowd of zealots and women : they beheld, with pious 
transport, the ministers of sacrilege tumbling from on high, 
and dashed against the pavement; and the honors of the 
ancient martyrs were prostituted to these criminals, who 
justly suffered for murder and rebellion. 21 The execution 
of the imperial edicts was resisted by frequent tumults in 
Constantinople and the provinces: the person of Leo was 
endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular 
enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil 
and military power. Of the Archipelago, or Holy sea, the 
numerous islands were filled with images and monks : their 
votaries abjured, without scruple, the enemy of Christ, his 
mother, and the saints : they armed a fleet of boats and 

20 He is accused of proscribing the title of saint ; styling the Virgin, Mother 
of Christ: comparing her after her delivery to an empty purse; of Arianism, 
Nestorianism, &c. In his defence, Spanheim, (c. iv. p. 207), is somewhat embar- 
rassed between the interest of a Protestant and the duty of an orthodox divine. 

21 The holy confessor Theophanes approves the principle of their rebellion, 
#ek> KLvov/uevot C^Acj, ( p . 339). Gregory II. (in Epist. i. ad Imp. Leon. Condi- 
torn, viii, pp. 661, 664), applauds the zeal of the Byzantine women who killed the 
imperial officers. 



730 DEFEAT OF THE MONKS. 

galleys, displayed their consecrated banners, and boldly 
steered for the harbor of Constantinople, to place on the 
throne a new favorite of God and the people. They 
depended on the succor of a miracle ; but their miracles 
were inefficient against the Greek fire ; and, after the defeat 
and conflagration of their fleet, the naked islands were 
abandoned to the clemency -or justice of the conqueror. 
The son of Leo, in the first year of his reign, had under- 
taken an expedition against the Saracens : during his 
absence, the capital, the palace, and the purple, were 
occupied by his kinsman, Artavasdes, the ambitious 
champion of the orthodox faith. The worship of images 
was triumphantly restored : the patriarch renounced his 
dissimulation, or dissembled his sentiments ; and the 
righteous claim of the usurper was acknowledged, both in 
the new and in ancient Rome. Constantine flew for refuge 
to his paternal mountains ; but he descended at the head 
of the bold and affectionate Isaurians ; and his final victory 
confounded the arms and predictions of the fanatics. His 
long reign was distracted with clamor, sedition, conspiracy, 
mutual hatred, and sanguinary revenge : the persecution 
of images was the motive, or pretence, of his adversaries ; 
and, if they missed a temporal diadem, they were rewarded 
by the Greeks with the crown of martyrdom. In every act 
of open and clandestine treason, the emperor felt the 
unforgiving enmity of the monks, the faithful slaves of the 
superstition to which they owed their riches and influence. 
They prayed, they preached, they absolved, they inflamed, 
they conspired: the solitude of Palestine poured forth a 
torrent of invective; and the pen of St. John Damascenus, 23 
the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant's head, 
both in this world and the next. 23 * I am not at leisure to 

2? John, or Mansur, was a noble Christian of Damascus, who held a consider- 
able office in the service of the caliph. His zeal in the cause of images exposed 
him to the resentment and treachery of the Greek emperor ; and on the suspicion 
of a treasonable correspondence, he was deprived of his right hand, which was 
miraculously restored by the Virgin. After this deliverance, he resigned his 
office, distributed his wealth, and buried himself in the monastery of St. Sabas, 
between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The legend is famous : but his learned 
editor, father Lequien, has unluckily proved that St. John Damascenus was 
already a monk before the Iconoclast dispute, {Opera, torn. i. Vit. St. Joan. 
Damascen. pp. 10-13, et Notas ad loc.) 

23 After sending Leo to the devil, he introduces his heir— T b fitapbv avrov 
yivvv,iia, koi rf/g nanlac; avrov K?.rjpovruor ev 6itc7.£) yevn/ievoc, (Opera, Damas- 
cen. torn. i. p. 625). If the authenticity of this piece be suspicious, we are sure 
that in other works, no longer extant, Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the 
titles of v£ov Muafild, Xpiarofiaxov. yucayiov, (torn. i. p. 306). 

The patriarch Anastasius, an Iconoclast under Leo, an image worshiper under 
Artavasdes, was scourged, led through the streets on an ass, with his face to the 
tan ; and, reinvested in his dignity, became again the obsequious minister of 
Constantine in his Iconoclastic persecutions. See Schlosser, p. 211.— Milman. 



STATE OF ITALY. 73 1 

examine how far the monks provoked, nor how much they 
have exaggerated, their real and pretended sufferings, nor 
how many lost their lives or limbs, their eyes or their 
beards, by the cruelty of the emperor.* From the chastise- 
ment of individuals, he proceeded to the abolition of the 
order; and, as it was wealthy and useless, his resentment 
might be stimulated by avarice, and justified by patriotism. 
The formidable name and mission of the Dragon?* his 
visitor-general, excited the terror and abhorrence of the 
black nation ; the religious communities were dissolved, the 
buildings were converted into magazines, or barracks ; the 
lands, movables, and cattle, were confiscated ; and our 
modern precedents will support the charge, that much 
wanton or malicious havoc was exercised against the relics, 
and even the books, of the monasteries. With the habit 
and profession of monks, the public and private worship of 
images was rigorously proscribed; and it should seem, 
that a solemn abjuration of idolatry was exacted from the 
subjects, or at least from the clergy, of the Eastern empire. 25 

The patient East abjured, with reluctance, her stateofItal 
sacred images ; they were fondly cherished, and 
vigorously defended, by the independent zeal of the Italians. 
In ecclesiastical rank and jurisdiction, the patriarch of Con- 
stantinople and the pope of Rome were nearly equal. But 
the Greek prelate was a domestic slave under the eye of 
his master, at whose nod he alternately passed from the 
convent to the throne, and from the throne to the convent. 
A distant and dangerous station, amidst the barbarians of 
the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin 
bishops. Their popular election endeared them to the 
Romans ; the public and private indigence was relieved by 
their ample revenue : and the weakness or neglect of the 
emperors compelled them to consult, both in peace and 
war, the temporal safety of the city. In the school of 
adversity the priest insensibly imbibed the virtues and the 
ambition of a prince; the same character was assumed, the 
same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the Greek, or the 
Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter ; and, after the 
loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune 

24 In the narrative of this persecution from Theophanes and Cedrenus, S">an- 
heim, (pp. 235-238), is happy to compare the Draco of Leo with the dragoons 
{Dracones) of Louis XIV.; and highly solaces himself with this controversial pun. 

2 "' Wpbypaiiiia yap e^eTrefiibe Kara rraaav E^ap\iav rfjv vrrb tF/c x u P< )C avrov, 
Trdvrar VTroypdijjai kclI hfivvvai rov ddcTTjaai t?jv rrpoaKVvrjatv r&v aerrroiv 
el/cbvuv, (Damascen. Op. torn. i. p. 625). This oath and subscription I do not 
remember to have seen in any modern compilation. 

* Compare Schlosser, pp. 228-234.— Milman. 



732 TREASON OF THE TWO GREGORIES. 

of the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. It is 
agreed, that in the eighth century, their dominion was 
founded on rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced 
and justified, by the heresy of the Iconoclasts ; but the 
conduct of the second and third Gregory, in this memorable 
contest, is variously interpreted by the wishes of their 
friends and enemies. The Byzantine writers unanimously 
declare, that, after a fruitless admonition, they pronounced 
the separation of the East and West, and deprived the 
sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue and sovereignty of Italy. 
Their excommunication is still more clearly expressed by 
the Greeks, who beheld the accomplishment of the papal 
triumphs ; and as they are more strongly attached to their 
religion than to their country, they praise, instead of 
blaming, the zeal and orthodoxy of these apostolical men. 26 
The modern champions of Rome are eager to accept the 
praise and the precedent : this great and glorious example 
of the deposition of royal heretics is celebrated by the 
cardinals Baronius and Bellarmine; 27 and if they are asked, 
why the same thunders were not hurled against the Neros 
and Julians of antiquity ? they reply, that the weakness 
of the primitive church was the sole cause of her patient 
loyalty. 28 On this occasion, the effects of love and hatred 
are the same ; and the zealous Protestants, who seek to 
kindle the indignation, and to alarm the fears, of princes 
and magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and treason of 
the two Gregories against their lawful sovereign. 29 They 
are defended only by the moderate Catholics, for the most 
part, of the Gallican church, 30 who respect the saint, with- 

26 Kal ti/v 'PufiTjv avv ttuotj '[raT-ia r/}f fiaa\7>uaq air v u~tGTT]ce saysTheo- 
phaties, (Chro7iograt)h. p. 343.) For this, Gregory is styled by Cedrenus dvr/p 
dTToaroXiicos ( p . 450 ). Zonaras specifies the thunder dvaBrj/naTt ovvodinti, (torn, 
ii. 1 xv. pp. 104, 105). It may be observed, that the Greeks are apt to confound 
the times and actions of two Gregories. 

2" See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. a. d. 730, No. 4, 5 ; dignum exemplum ! Bellarmin. 
de Romano Pontifice, 1. v. c. 8; mulctavit eum parte imperii. Sigonius, de Regno 
Italse, 1. iii. Opera, torn. ii. p. 169. Yet such is the change of Italy, that Sigonius 
is corrected by the editor of Milan, Philippus Argelatus, a Bolognese, and subject 
of the pope. 

23 Quod si Christian! olim non deposuerunt Neronem aut Julianum, id fuit quia 
deerant vires temporales Christianis. (Honest Bellarmine ! de Rom. Pont. 1. v. 
c. 7.) Cardinal Perron adds a distinction more honorable to the first Christians, 
but not more satisfactory to modern princes— the treason of heretics and apostates, 
who break their oath, belie their coin, and renounce their allegiance, to Christ 
and his vicar. {Perroniana, p. 89.) 

29 Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage, {Hist, d' Eglise, pp. 1350, 1351), 
and the vehement Spanheim, {Hist. Itnaginwn), who, with a hundred more, tread 
in the footsteps of the centuriators of Magdeburgh. 

30 See Launoy, (Ofiera, torn. v. pars. ii. epist. vii. 7, pp. 456-474), Natalis Alex- 
ander {Hist. Nov. Testaments secul. viii. dissert, i. pp. 92^96), Pagi, (Critica, torn. 
iii. pp. 215, 216), and Giannone, {Istoria Civile di Napoli, torn. i. pp. 317-320), a 
disciple of the Gallican school. In the field of controversy I always pity the mod- 
erate party, who stand on the open middle ground, exposed to the fire of both sides. 



EPISTLES OF GREGORY II. 733 

out approving the sin. These common advocates of the 
crown and the mitre circumscribe the truth of facts by the 
rule of equity, Scripture, and tradition; and appeal to the 
evidence of the Latins, 31 and the lives 32 and epistles of the 
popes themselves. 

Two original epistles, from Gregory the second ', 

^ T 4.-11 * *. 33 J ' •* Epistles of 

to the emperor Leo, are still extant, and it Gregory 11. to 
they cannot be praised as the most perfect th ^ e £ ip 7 e 2 ror ' 
models of eloquence and logic, they exhibit the 
portrait, or at least the mask, of the founder of the Papal 
monarchy. " During ten pure and fortunate years," says 
Gregory to the emperor, " we have tasted the annual 
" comfort of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink, 
" with your own hand, the sacred pledges of your attach - 
" ment to the orthodox creed of our fathers. How deplorable 
" is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You now 
" accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, 
" you betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this 
" ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our 
" style and arguments : the first elements of holy letters 
" are sufficient for your confusion ; and were you to enter 
" a grammar-school, and avow yourself the enemy of our 
" worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked 
" to cast their horn books at your head." After this decent 
salutation, the pope attempts the usual distinction between 
the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The former 
were the fanciful representations of phantoms or daemons, 
at a time when the true God had not manifested his person 
in any visible likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of 
Christ, his mother, and his saints, who had approved, by a 

si They appeal to Paul Warnefrid, or Diaconus, (de Gestis Langobard, I. vi. c. 
49, pp. 506, 507, in Script. Ital. Muratori. torn. i. pars i.), and the nominal Anas- 
tasius, (de Vit. Pont, in Muratori, torn. iii. pars. i. Gregorius II. p. 154. Gre°-o- 
rius III. p. 158. Zacharias, p. 161. Stephanus. III. p. 165. Paulus, p. 172. Steohanus 
IV. p. 174. Hadnanus, p. 179. Leo III. p. 195.) Yet I mav remark, that the true 
Anastasius, (Hist. Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historic, Miscella, (1. xxi. p. 
151, in torn. i. Script. Ital.), both of the ninth centurv, translate and approve the 
Greek text of Theophanes. 

32 With some minute difference, the most learned critics, Lucas Holstenius 
Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini, Muratori, {Prolegomena ad torn, iii pars i ) 
are agreed that the Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued bv the aoos- 
tolical librarians and notaries of the eighth and ninth centuries ; and that the last 
and smallest part is the work of Anastasius, whose name it bears. The stvle is 
barbarous, the narrative partial, the details are trifling— vet it must be read as a 
curious and authentic record of the times. The epistles of'the popes are dispersed 
in the volumes of Councils. 

; as The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved in the Acts of the 
Nicene Council (torn . viii. pp. 651^74). They are without a date, which is vari- 
ously fixed, bv Baronms in the year 726, by Muratori, (Amialid Italia, torn. vi. p. 
120) in 729, and by Pagi in 730. Such is the force of prejudice, that some papists 
have praised the good sense and moderation of these letters 



734 GREGORY S DEFENCE OF IMAGES. 

crowd of miracles, the innocence and merit of this relative 
worship. He must indeed have trusted to the ignorance 
of Leo, since he could assert the perpetual use of images,' 
from the apostolic age, and their venerable presence in the 
six synods of the Catholic church. A more specious 
argument is drawn from present possession and recent 
practice : the harmony of the Christian world supercedes 
the demand of a general council ; and Gregory frankly 
confesses, that such assemblies can only be useful under 
the reign of an orthodox prince. To the impudent and 
inhuman Leo, more guilty than a heretic, he recommends 
peace, silence, and implicit obedience to his spiritual guides 
of Constantinople and Rome. The limits of civil and 
ecclesiastical powers are defined by the pontiff. To the 
former he appropriates the body ; to the latter, the soul : 
the sword ot justice is in the hands of the magistrate : the 
more formidable weapon of excommunication is intrusted 
to the clergy ; and in the exercise of their divine commission, 
a zealous son will not spare his offending father: the 
successor of St. Peter may lawfully chastise the kings of the 
earth. " You assault us, O tyrant ! with a carnal and 
" military hand : unarmed and naked, we can only implore 
" the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he will 
" send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your hody 
" and the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish 
" arrogance, I will despatch my orders to Rome ; I will 
" break in pieces the image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like 
" his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in chains, 
" and in exile, to the foot of the imperial throne. Would to 
" God, that I might be permitted to tread in the footsteps 
" of the holy Martin ; but may the fate of Constans serve 
" as a warning to the persecutors of the church ! After his 
" just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant 
" was cut off, in the fullness of his sins, by a domestic 
" servant: the saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, 
" among whom he ended his banishment and his life. But 
" it is our duty to live for the edification and support of 
" the faithful people ; nor are we reduced to risk our safety 
" on the event of a combat. Incapable as you are of 
" defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation 
" of the city may perhaps expose it to your depredation ; 
" but we can remove to the distance of four-and-twenty 
" stadia** to the first fortress of the Lombards, and then 

34 Eikogi recoupa arddia VTroxuprjcrei 6 'Apxiepevc 'P^u^f tic ryv X ( * ) P av 
Ka/urraviac, nai v-traye diutjov Toi>g dvi/uovg, (Epist. i. p. 664). This proximity 



REVOLT OF ITALY. 735 

" you may pursue the winds. Are you ignorant that 

" the popes are the bond of union, the mediators of peace, 
" between the East and West? The eyes of the nations are 
" fixed on our humility; and they revere, as a God upon 
" earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you threaten to 
" destroy. 35 The remote and interior kingdoms of the 
" West present their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; 
" and we now prepare to visit one of their most powerful 
" monarchs, who desires to receive from our hands the 
" sacrament of baptism. 36 The barbarians have submitted 
" to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the 
" voice of the Shepherd. These pious barbarians are 
" kindled into rage : they thirst to avenge the persecution 
" of the East. Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise ; 
" reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are innocent 
" of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall 
" on your own head." 

The first assault of Leo against the images 
of Constantinople had been witnessed by a 5; dI^&S 
crowd of strangers from Italy and the West, 
who related with grief and indignation the sacrilege of the 
emperor. But on the reception of his proscriptive edict, 
they trembled for their domestic deities; the images of 
Christ and the Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, 
were abolished in all the churches of Italy; and a strong 
alternative was proposed to the Roman pontiff, the royal 

of the Lombards is hard of digestion. Camillo Pellegrini, {Dissert, iv. de Decatu 
Beneventi, in the Script Ital. torn. v. pp. 172, 173), forcibly reckons the twenty- 
fourth stadia, not from Rome, but from the limits of the Roman duchy, to the first 
fortress, perhaps Sora, of the Lombards. I rather believe that Gregory, with the 
pedantry of the age, employs, stadia for miles, without much inquiry into the 
genuine measure. 

35 "Ov at TTdaai ftaoiXeiai ttjc Svaeug uc Qebv eniyziov exovai. 

36 'AirbTTJc eccoTEpov dvceog rov hsyofievov Ietttetov, (p. 665). The pope ap- 
pears to have imposed on the ignorance of the Greeks : he lived and died in the 
Lateran ; and in his time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced Christian- 
ity. May not this unknown Septeius have some reference to the chief of the 
Saxon Heptarchy, to Ina, king of Wessex, who, in the pontificate of Gregory the 
Second, visited Rome for the purpose, not of baptism, but of pilgrimage? (Pagi, 
A. d. 689, No. 2. a. d. 726, No. 15). * 

* Many of our early Anglo-Saxon kings, abdicated and retired to Rome, where 
they ended their days in monastic seclusion. {Bede. Ecc. Hist. v. 19, p. 268, edit. 
Bohn.') Ina's journey, for that purpose, is fixed by the Saxon Chronicle in the 
vear728. This date, though questioned by some, appears to accord with that of 
Gregory's above-quoted letter, which Muratori, (Annali d Italia, x. 33), alters 
from 726 to 729. For the school, said to have been founded by Ina at Rome, see 
Turner's Anglo-Saxons, (1. 399.) But the credibility of Matthew of Westminster, 
on whose authority this rests, is questioned -by Lappenberg, (History of England 
under Anglo-Saxon Kings, by Thorpe, vol. i. p. 205,) who attributes to Offa, 
king of Mercia, (lb. 236,) the " Romescote," or payment of a penny imposed on 
everv family, for the support of this school, a tax, which afterwards became the 
national grievance of " Peter's Pence."— Eng. Ch. 



736 RELIGIOUS WAR. 

favor as the price of his compliance, degradation and exile 
as the penalty of his disobedience. Neither zeal nor policy 
allowed him to hesitate; and the haughty strain in which 
Gregory addressed the emperor displays his confidence in 
the truth of his doctrine or the powers of resistance. With- 
out depending on prayers or miracles, he boldly armed 
against the public enemy, and his pastoral letters admonished 
the Italians of their danger and their duty. 37 At this signal, 
Ravenna, Venice, and the cities of the exarchate and 
Pentapolis, adhered to the cause of religion ; their military 
force by sea and land consisted, for the most part, of the 
natives ; and the spirit of patriotism and zeal was transfused 
into the mercenary strangers. The Italians swore to live 
and die in the defence of the pope and the holy images; 
the Roman people were devoted to their father, and even 
the Lombards were ambitious to share the merit and 
advantage of this holy war. The most treasonable act, but 
the most obvious revenge, was the destruction of the statues 
of Leo himself: the most effectual and pleasing measure of 
rebellion, was the withholding the tribute of Italy, and 
depriving him of a power which he had recently abused by 
the imposition of a new capitation. 38 A form of adminis- 
tration was preserved by the election of magistrates and 
governors; and so high was the public indignation, that 
the Italians were prepared to create an orthodox emperor, 
and to conduct him with a fleet and army to the palace of 
Constantinople. In that palace, the Roman bishops, the 
second and third Gregory, were condemned as the authors 
of the revolt, and every attempt was made, either by fraud 
or force, to seize their persons, and to strike at their lives. 
The city was repeatedly visited or assaulted by captains of 
the guards, and dukes and exarchs of high dignity or secret 
trust; they landed with foreign troops, they obtained some 
domestic aid, and the superstition of Naples may blush 
that her fathers were attached to the cause of heresy. But 

3" I shall transcribe the important and decisive passage of the Liber Pontijicalis. 
Respiciens ergo pius vir profanam principis jussionem, jam contra Imperatorem 
quasi contra hostem se armavit, renuens hseresim ejus, scribens ubique se cavere 
Christianos, eo quod orta fuisset impietas talis. Igitur permoti omnes Penta- 
polenses, atque Venetiarum exercitus contra Imperatoris jussionem restiterunt ; 
discentes se nunquam in ejusdem pontificis condescendere necem, sed pro ejus 
magis defensensione viriliter decertare. (p. 156.) 

3» A census, or capitation, says Anastasius, (p. 156) ; a most cruel tax, unknown 
to the Saracens themselves, exclaims the zealous Maimbourg, {Hist, des Icono- 
clastes. 1. i.), and Theophanes, (p. 344.). who falks of Pharaoh's numbering the 
male children of Israel. This mode of taxation was familiar to the Saracens; 
and, most unluckily for the historian, it was imposed a few years afterwards in 
France by his patron Louis XIV. 



EXCOMMUNICATION OF ICONOCLASTS. 737 

these clandestine or open attacks were repelled by the 
courage and vigilance of the Romans ; the Greeks were 
overthrown and massacred, their leaders suffered an 
ignominious death, and the popes, however inclined to 
mercy, refused to intercede for these guilty victims. At 
Ravenna, 39 the several quarters of the city had long exercised 
a bloody and hereditary feud ; in religious controversy 
they found a new aliment of faction : but the votaries of 
images were superior in numbers or spirit, and the exarch, 
who attempted to stem the torrent, lost his life in a popular 
sedition. To punish this flagitious deed, and restore his 
dominion in Italy, the emperor sent a fleet and army into 
the Adriatic gulf. After suffering from the winds and 
waves much loss and delay, the Greeks made their descent 
in the neighborhood of Ravenna : they threatened to 
depopulate the guilty capital, and to imitate, perhaps to 
surpass, the example of Justinian the second, who had 
chastised a former rebellion by the choice and execution 
of fifty of the principal inhabitants. The women and clergy, 
in sackcloth and ashes, lay prostrate in prayer; the men 
were in arms for the defence of their country ; the common 
danger had united the factions, and the event of a battle 
was preferred to the slow miseries of a siege, In a hard- 
fought day, as the two armies alternately yielded and 
advanced, a phantom was seen, a voice was heard, and 
Ravenna was victorious by the assurance of victory. The 
strangers retreated to their ships, but the populous sea- 
coast poured forth a multitude of boats ; the waters of the 
Po were so deeply infected with blood, that during six 
years, the public prejudice abstained from the fish of the 
river; and the institution of an annual feast perpetuated 
the worship of images, and the abhorrence of the Greek 
tyrant. Amidst the triumph of the Catholic arms, the 
Roman pontiff convened a synod of ninety-three bishops 
against the heresy of the Iconoclasts. With their consent, 
he pronounced a general excommunication against all who 
by word or deed should attack the tradition of the fathers 
and the images of the saints ; in this sentence the emperor 
was tacitly involved, 40 but the vote of a last and hopeless 

39 See the Liber Pontificalis of Agnellus (in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum 
of Muratori, torn. ii. pars i.), whose deeper shade of barbarism marks the differ- 
ence between Rome and Ravenna. Vet we are indebted to him for some curious 
and domestic facts — the quarters and factions of Ravenna, (p. 154). the revenge of 
Justinian II. (pp. 160, 161), the defeat of the Greeks, pp. 170, 171). &c. 

40 Vet Leo was undoubtedly comprised in the si quis * * * imaginum sacra- 
rum * * * destructor * * * extiterit, sit extorris a corpore de D. N. Jesu Christ! 



738 REPUBLIC OF ROME. 

remonstrance may seem to imply that the anathema was 
yet suspended over his guilty head. No sooner had they 
confirmed their own safety, the worship of images, and the 
freedom of Rome and Italy, than the popes appear to have 
relaxed of their severity, and to have spared the relics of 
the Byzantine dominion. Their moderate counsels delayed 
and prevented the election of a new emperor, and they 
exhorted the Italians not to separate from the body of the 
Roman monarchy. The exarch was permitted to reside 
within the walls of Ravenna, a captive rather than a 
master ; and till the imperial coronation of Charlemagne, 
the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the 
name of the successors of Constantine. 41 
Republic of The liberty of Rome, which had been op- 
Rome, pressed by the arms and arts of Augustus, was 
rescued, after seven hundred and fifty years of servitude, 
from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By the Csesars, 
the triumphs of the consuls had been annihilated ; in the 
decline and fall of the empire, the god Terminus, the sabred 
boundary, had insensibly receded from the ocean, the 
Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates ; and Rome was 
reduced to her ancient territory from Viterbo to Terracina, 
and from Narni to the mouth of the Tiber. 42 When the 
kings were banished, the republic reposed on the firm basis 
which had been founded by their wisdom and virtue. Their 
perpetual jurisdiction was divided between two annual 
magistrates : the senate continued to exercise the powers 
of administration and counsel ; and the legislative authority 
was distributed in the assemblies of the people, by a well- 
proportioned scale of property and service. Ignorant of 
the arts of luxury, the primitive Romans had improved the 
science of government and war: the will of the community 
was absolute : the rights of individuals were sacred : one 
hundred and thirty thousand citizens were armed for 

vel totius ecclesiae imitate. The canonists may decide whether the guilt or the 
name constitutes the excommunication ; and the decision is of the last importance 
to their safety, since, according to the oracle, (Gratian, Cans, xxiii. p. 5. c. 47, apud 
Spanheim, Hist. Imag. p. 112), homicidas non esse qui excommunicatos trucidant. 

4i Compescuit tale consilium Pontifex, sperans conversionem principis, (Anas- 
tas. p. 156). Sed ne desisterent ab amore et fide R. J. admonebat. p. 157). The 
popes stvle Leo and Constantine Copronymus, Impcratores et Domini, with the 
strange epithet of Piissimi. A famous Mosaic of the Lateran, (a. d. 798), repre- 
sents Christ, who delivers the keys to St. Peter and the banner to Constantine V. 
(Muratori, Annali d Italia, torn. vi. p. 337 . 

42 I have traced the Roman duchy according to the maps, and the maps 
according: to the excellent dissertation of father Baretti, (de Chorographia Italia 
Medii s£vi, sect. 20, pp. 216-232.) Yet I must nicely observe, that Viterbo is of 
Lombard foundation, (p. 211,) and that Terracina was usurped by the Greeks. 



DEBASEMENT OF ROME. 739 

defence or conquest ; and a band of robbers and outlaws 
was moulded into a nation, deserving of freedom, and 
ambitious of glory. 43 When the sovereignty of the Greek 
emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented 
the sad image of depopulation and decay : her slavery was 
a habit, her liberty an accident ; the effect of superstition, 
and the object of her own amazement and terror. The last 
vestige of the substance, or even the forms, of the constitu- 
tion, was obliterated from the practice and memory of the 
Romans ; and they were devoid of knowledge, or virtue, 
again to build the fabric of a commonwealth. Their scanty 
remnant, the offspring of slaves and strangers, was despicable 
in the eyes of the victorious barbarians. As often as the 
Franks or Lombards expressed their most bitter contempt 
of a foe, they called him a Roman ; " and in this name," 
says the bishop Liutprand, " we include whatever is base, 
" whatever is cowardly, whatever is perfidious, the extremes 
" of avarice and luxury, and every vice that can prostitute 
" the dignity of human nature." 44 * By the necessity of their 
situation, the inhabitants of Rome were cast into the rough 
model of a republican government : they were compelled 
to elect some judges in peace, and some leaders in war : the 
nobles assembled to deliberate, and their resolves could 
not be executed without the union and consent of the 
multitude. The style of the Roman senate and people was 
revived, 45 but the spirit was fled ; and their new independence 
was disgraced by the tumultuous conflict of licentiousness 
and oppression. The want of laws could only be supplied 

43 On the extent, population, &c, of the Roman kingdom, the reader may- 
peruse, with pleasure, the Discours Preliminaire to the Republique Romaiue of 
M. de Beaufort, (torn, i.), who will not be accused of too much credulity for the 
early ages of Rome. 

44 Quos (Romanos) nos, Longobardi scilicet, Saxones, Franci, Lotharingi, 
Bajoarii, Suevi, Burgundiones, tanto dedignamur ut inimicos nostros commoti, 
nil aliud contumeliarum nisi Romane, dicamus ; hoc solo, id est Romanorum 
nomine, quicquid ignobilitatis, quicquid timiditatis, quicquid avaritiaa, quicquid 
luxurise, quicquid mendacii, irarao quicquid vitiorum est comprehendentes 
(Liutprand, in Legat Script. Hal, torn. ii. pars i. p. 481). For the sins of Cato or 
Tully, Minos might have imposed as a fit penance the dail}- perusal of this bar- 
barous passage. 

45 Pipino regi Francorum, omnis senatus, at que universa populi generalitas a 
Deo servatae Romanse urbis. Codex Carolin. epist. 36, in Script. Hal. torn. iii. 
pars ii. p. 160. The names of senatus and senator were never totally extinct 
{Dissert. Chorograph. pp. 216, 217) ; but in the middle ages they signified little 
more than nobiles, optimates, &c. (Ducange, Gloss. Latin). 

* Yet this contumelious sentence, quoted by Robertson, (Charles V. note 2), as 
well as Gibbon, was applied by the angry bishop to the Byzantine Romans, whom, 
indeed, he admits to be the genuine descendants of Romulus. — M. 

Under Paganism, the Romans were the conquerors of the world, and the 
proud title, " a Roman Citizen," was the noblest that fame could bestow. Under 
Christianity, the same title became a by-word and a reproach, for the citizens 
of Rome were now debased by " every vice that can prostitute the dignity of 
" human nature." — E. 



74-0 FORGERY OF THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE. 

by the influence of religion, and their foreign and domestic 
counsels were moderated by the authority of the bishop. 
His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings 
and prelates of the West, his recent services, their gratitude 
and oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the 
first magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian 
humility of the popes was not offended by the name of 
Do7ni?ius, or Lord ; and their face and inscription are still 
apparent on the most ancient coins. 46 Their temporal 
dominion is now confirmed by the reverence of a thousand 
years ; and their noblest title is the free choice of a people, 
whom they had redeemed from slavery. * * * * 
Forgery of the Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning ; 
donation of and the strong, though ignorant barbarian, was 
often entangled in the.net of sacerdotal policy. 
The Vatican and Lateran were an arsenal and manufacture, 
which, according to the occasion, have produced or con- 
cealed a various collection of false or genuine, of corrupt 
or suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest 
of the Roman church. Before the end of the eighth century, 
some apostolical scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, 
composed the decretals, and the donation of Constantine, 
the two magical pillars of the spiritual and temporal 
monarchy of the popes. This memorable donation was 
introduced to the world by an epistle of Adrian the first, 
who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the liberality, and 
revive the name, of the great Constantine. 47 According to 
the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was healed 
of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by St. 
Silvester, the Roman bishop ; and never was physician 

46 See Muratori Antiquit. Italics Medii s£vi, torn, ii, Dissertat. xxvii. p. 548, 
On one of these coins we read Hadrianus Papa, (A. D. 772) ; on the reverse, Yict. 
DDXX, with the word COXOB. which the Pere Joubert, (Science des Medailles. 
torn. ii. p. 42) explains by CcXVstantinopoli Officina B {secunda).* 

-»" Piissimo Constantino mas;no, per ejus largitatem S. R. Ecclesia elevata et 
exaltata est, et potestatem in his Hesperiae partibus largiri dignatus est * * * 
Quia ecce novus Constantinus his temporibus, &c, {Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in 
torn. iii. part ii. p 195.) Pagi, {Critica, A. D. 324, Xo. 16), ascribes them to an im- 
postor of the eighth century, who borrowed the name of St. Isidore: his humble 
title of /Vcca/orwasignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator ; his merchandise 
was indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold for much wealth and 
power. 

* Seldom, in the history of the world, do we find a people, "redeemed from 
" slavery," but to be mastered by some sterner tyrant. Where secular and eccle- 
siastical power are divided, they may at times check each other. United in one 
hand, they fabricated for the Romans'a heavier yoke, than any which kings, patri- 
cians, triumvirs or emperors, had in succession imposed. Their submission must 
not be called free choice ; if no other title had maintained the popes, their throne 
would long ago have been subverted. To fit the many for freedom is a slow 
work, in which must be combined various elements, that are seldom found 
together.— Eng. Ch. 



PROTEST FROM A SABINE MONASTERY. 741 

more gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte with- 
drew from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter ; declared 
his resolution of founding a new capital in the East ; and 
resigned to the popes the free and perpetual sovereignty 
of Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the West. 48 This 
fiction was productive of the most beneficial effects. The 
Greek princes were convicted of the guilt of usurpation ; 
and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of his lawful 
inheritance. The popes were delivered from their debt of 
gratitude ; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were 
no more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a scanty 
portion of the ecclesiastical State. The sovereignty of 
Rome no longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; 
and the successors of St. Peter and Constantine were 
invested with the purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. 
So deep was the ignorance and credulity of the times, that 
the most absurd of fables was received, with equal reverence, 
in Greece and in France, and is still enrolled among the 
decrees of the canon law. 49 The emperors, and the Romans, 
were incapable of discerning a forgery, that subverted their 
rights and freedom ; and the only opposition proceeded 
from a Sabine monastery, which, in the beginning of the 
twelfth century, disputed the truth and validity of the 
donation of Constantine. 60 In the revival of letters and 
liberty this fictitious deed was transpierced by the pen of 
Laurentius Valla, the pen of an eloquent critic and a Roman 
patriot 51 His contemporaries of the fifteenth century were 

48 Fabricius, (Bibliot. GrcBC. torn. vi. pp. 4-7,) has enumerated the several 
editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin. The copy which Laurentius Valla re- 
cites and refutes, appears to be taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester, 
or from Gratian's Decree, to which, according to him and others, it has been 
surreptitiously tacked. 

49 In the vear 1059, it was believed (was it believed ? ) by Pope Leo IX. Cardinal 
Peter Dam'ianus, &c. Muratori places (Annali d' Italia, torn. ix. pp. 23, 24), the 
fictitious donations of Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c. , de Donatione Constantini. 
See a Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum iv. diss. 25, pp. 335-35°- 

50 See a large account of the controversy, (a. d. 1105,) which arose from a 
private lawsuit, in the Chronicon Farsesne, (Script. Rerum Italicarum, torn. 11. 
pars. 2, p. 637, &c.,) a copious extract from the archives of that Benedictine 
abbev. They were formerlv accessible to curious foreigners, (Le Blanc and 
Mabillon.) and would have enriched the first volume of the Historia Monastica 
Italia: of Quirini. But thev are now imprisoned, (Muratori, Scriptores R. I. torn, 
ii. pars. 2, p. 269,) bv the timid policy of the court of Rome ; and the future 
cardinal yielded to the voice of authority and the whispers of ambition. (Quirini, 
Comment, pars. 2, pp. 123-136.) 

si I have read in the collection of Schardius (de Potestate Imperials Ecclesias- 
tica, pp. 734-780), this animated discourse, which was composed by the author, 
A. D. 1440, six years after the flight of Pope Eugenius IV. It is a most vehement 
party pamphlet : Valla justifies andanimates the revolt of the Romans, and would 
even approve the use of a dagger against their sacerdotal tyrant. Such a critic 
might expect the persecution' of the clergy; yet he made his peace, and is buried 
in the Lateran, (Bayle, Dictionnaire Critique, Valla; Vossius, de Historicis 
Latinis, p. 580). 



742 RESTORATION OF IMAGES. 

astonished at his sacrilegious boldness ; yet such is the 
silent and irresistible progress of reason, that before the end 
of the next age, the fable was rejected by the contempt of 
historians 52 and poets, 53 and the tacit or modest censure of 
the advocates of the Roman church. 54 The popes them- 
selves have indulged a smile at the credulity of the vulgar; 55 
but a false and obsolete title still sanctifies their reign ; and, 
by the same fortune which has attended the decretals and 
the Sibylline oracles, the edifice has subsisted after the 
foundations have been undermined. 

While the popes established in Italy their 
Restoration freedom and dominion, the images, the first 
the'^astV" cause of their revolt, were restored in the 
the ireT e resS Eastern empire. 56 Under the reign of Constan- 
a. d. 780,' &c. tine the fifth, the union of civil and ecclesiastical 
power had overthrown the tree, without extir- 
pating the root, of superstition. The idols, for such they 
were now held, were secretly cherished by the order and 
the sex most prone to devotion ; and the fond alliance of 
the monks and females obtained a final victory over the 
reason and authority of man. Leo the fourth maintained 
with less rigor the religion of his father and grandfather; 
but his wife, the fair and ambitious Irene, had imbibed 
the zeal of the Athenians, the heirs of the idolatry, rather 
than the philosophy, of their ancestors. During the life of 
her husband, these sentiments were inflamed by danger 

52 See Guieciardini. a servant of the popes, in that long and valuable digres- 
sion, which has resumed its place in the last edition, correctly published from the 
author's MS. and printed in four volumes in quarto, under the name of Friburgo, 
1775, {Istoria d' Italia, torn. i. pp. 385-395)- 

53 The Paladin Astolpho found it in the moon, among the things that were lost 
upon earth, {Orlando Eurioso, xxxiv, 80). 

Di vari fiore ad un grand monte passa, 

Ch' ebbe gia buono odore, or puzza forte; 

Questo era il dono (se pero dir lece) 

Che Constantino al buon Silvestro fece. 
Yet this incomparable poem has been approved by a bull of Leo X. 

w See Baronius, a. d. 324, No. 117-123, a. d. 1191, No. 51, &c. The cardinal 
wishes to suppose that Rome was offered by Constantine, and refused by Silvester. 
The act of donation he considers, strangely enough, as a forgery of the Greeks. 

55 Baronius n'en dit gueres contre ; encore en a-t'il trop dit, et Ton vouloit 
sans moi {Cardinal du Perron), qui 1'empechai, censurer cette partie de son his- 
toire. J'en devisai un jour avec le Pape, et il ne me repondit autre chose " che- 
" volete? i Canonici la lengono," il le disoit en riant. (Perroniana, p. 77). 

56 The remaining history of images, from Irene to Theodora, is collected, for 
the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi, (a. d. 780-840), Nalalis Alexander {Hist. JV. 

T. seculum viii. Panoplia adversus Hcereticos. pp. 118-178). and Dupin, {Bibliot. 
Eccles. torn. vi. pp. 136-154): for the Protestants, bv Spanheim, (Hist. hnag. pp. 
305-639 , Basnage, {Hist, de f Eglise. torn. i. pp. 556-572, torn. ii. pp. 1362-1385). and 
Mosheim, {Insiitut. Hist. Eccles. secul. viii. et. ix.) The Protestants, except 
Mosheim, are soured with controversy; but the Catholics, except Dupin. are in- 
flamed by the fury and superstition of' the monks; and even Le Beau, {Hist, du 
Bas Empire), a gentleman and a scholar, is infected by the odious contagion. 



SEVENTH GENERAL COUNCIL. 743 

and dissimulation, and she could only labor to protect and 
promote some favorite monks whom she drew from their 
caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the 
East. But as soon as she reigned in her own name and 
that of her son, Irene more seriously undertook the ruin of 
the Iconoclasts ; and the first step of her future persecution 
was a general edict for liberty of conscience. In the 
restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed 
to the public veneration ; a thousand legends were invented 
of their sufferings and miracles. By the opportunities of 
death or removal, the episcopal seats were judiciously 
filled ; the most eager competitors for earthly or celestial 
favor anticipated and flattered the judgment of their 
sovereign; and the promotion of her secretary Tarasius 
gave Irene the patriarch of Constantinople, and the com- 
mand of the oriental church. But the decrees of a general 
council could only be repealed by a similar assembly : 57 the 
Iconoclasts whom she convened, were bold in possession, 
and averse to debate ; and the feeble voice of the bishops 
was re-echoed by the more formidable clamor of the 
soldiers and people of Constantinople. Thedelay seventhgen- 
and intrigues of a year, the separation of the e ^ e 1 C ond n of* 
disaffected troops, and the choice of Nice for a Nice, 
second orthodox synod, removed these obstacles ; 4"ept* 5?' 
and the episcopal conscience was again, after ° ct - 2 3- 
the Greek fashion, in the hands of the prince. No more 
than eighteen days were allowed for the consummation of 
this important work : the Iconoclasts appeared, not as 
judges, but as criminals or penitents ; the scene was 
decorated by the legates of pope Adrian and the Eastern 
patriarch ; 58 the decrees were framed by the president 
Tarasius, and ratified by the acclamations and subscriptions 
of three hundred and fifty bishops. They unanimously 
pronounced, that the worship of images is agreeable to 
Scripture and reason, to the fathers and councils of the 
church : but they hesitate whether that worship be relative 
or direct; whether the Godhead, and the figure of Christ, 

57 See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second Council of Nice, with a 
number of relative pieces, in the eighth volume of the Councils, pp. 645-1600. A 
faithful version, with some critical notes, would provoke, in different readers, a 
sigh or a smile. 

58 The pope's legates were casual messengers, two priests without any special 
commission, and who were disavowed on their return. Some vagabond monks 
were persuaded by the Catholics to represent the Oriental patriarchs, This 
curious anecdote is revealed by Theodore Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirniond. Opp. 
torn. v. p. 1319), one of the warmest Iconoclasts of the age. 



744 FINAL ESTABLISHMENT OF IMAGES. 

be entitled to the same mode of adoration. Of this second 
Nicene council, the acts are still extant ; a curious monu- 
ment of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly. 
I shall only notice the judgment of the bishops, on the 
comparative merit of image worship and morality. A monk 
had concluded a truce with the daemon of fornication, on 
condition of interrupting his daily prayers to a picture that 
hung in his cell. His scruples prompted him to consult 
the abbot. " Rather than abstain from adoring Christ and 
" his mother in their holy images, it would be better for 
" you," replied the casuist, "to enter every brothel, and 
" visit every prostitute, in the city." 69 
Final estab- ^or *ke nonor °f orthodoxy, at least the 
lishment of orthodoxy of the Roman church, it is somewhat 
im efnpress the unfortunate, that the two princes who convened 
Theodora, the two councils of Nice are both stained with 
42 ' the blood of their sons. The second of these 
assemblies was approved and rigorously executed by the 
despotism of Irene, and she refused her adversaries the 
toleration which at first she had granted to her friends. 
During the five succeeding reigns, a period of thirty-eight 
years, the contest was maintained, with unabated rage and 
various success, between the worshipers and the breakers 
of the images ; but I am not inclined to pursue with minute 
diligence the repetition of the same events. Nicephorus 
allowed a general liberty of speech and practice ; and the 
only virtue of his reign is accused by the monks as the 
cause of his temporal and eternal perdition. Superstition 
and weakness formed the character of Michael the first, 
but the saints and images were incapable of supporting 
their votary on the throne. In the purple, Leo the fifth 
asserted the name and religion of an Armenian ; and the 
idols, with their seditious adherents, were condemned to a 
second exile. Their applause would have sanctified the 
murder of an impious tyrant, but his assassin and successor, 
the second Michael, was tainted from his birth with the 
Phrygian heresies : he attempted to mediate between the 
contending parties ; and the intractable spirit of the Catholics 
insensibly cast him into the opposite scale. His moderation 

59 'Zvfifyepet, 6e ooi //?) KaTdXineiv hv ri? koTiel ravtij rropvEiov eIq 6 fir) kIgeW^c 
7} Iva dpvT/arj to TipocncvvELv rbv nvpiov ijfiuv ndl &eov 'Itjoovv XpiOTov (ietiL 
ri/g Idiag avrov /J-r/rpog hv eIkovi. These visits could not be innocent, since the 
Aatfiuv TropvEiag, (the demon of fornication), e-koIejieI 6e avrbv * * * hv (lig, 
ovv ug ettkeito avTij) o<j)6dpa, &c. Actio, iv. p. 901, Actio, v. 1031. 



RELUCTANCE OF THE FRANKS. 745 

was guarded by timidity; but his son Theophilus, alike 
ignorant of fear and pity, was the last and most cruel of 
the Iconoclasts. The enthusiasm of the times ran strongly 
against them ; and the emperors, who stemmed the torrent, 
were exasperated and punished by the public hatred. After 
the death of Theophilus, the final victory of the images was 
achieved by a second female, his widow Theodora, whom 
he left the guardian of the empire. Her measures were 
bold and decisive. The fiction of a tardy repentance 
absolved the fame and the soul of her deceased husband : 
the sentence of the Iconoclast patriarch was commuted 
from the loss of his eyes to a whipping of two hundred 
lashes ; the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and the 
festival of orthodoxy preserves the annual memory of the 
triumph of the images. A single question yet remained, 
whether they are endowed with any proper and inherent 
sanctity : it was agitated by the Greeks of the eleventh 
century; 60 and as this opinion has the strongest recom- 
mendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it was not more 
explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West, pope 
Adrian the first accepted and announced the decrees of the 
Nicene assembly, which is now revered by the Catholics as 
the seventh in rank of the general councils. Rome and 
Italy were docile to the voice of their father ; but the 
greatest part of the Latin Christians were far behind in the 
race of superstition. The churches of France, Reluctance of 
Germany, England, and Spain, steered a middle the a ^f a o' f ks ' 
course between the adoration and the destruction Charlemagne, 
of images, which they admitted into their temples, A - Dl 794, &c " 
not as objects of worship, but as lively and useful memorials 
of faith and history. An angry book of controversy was 
composed and published in the name of Charlemagne; 61 
under his authority a synod of three hundred bishops was 
assembled at Frankfort: 62 they blamed the fury of the 
Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure 

60 See an account of this controversy in the Alexius of Anna Comnena, (1. v. p. 
129), and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ec'cles. pp. 371, 372). 

61. The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, pp. 443-529). composed in the palace or winter 
quarters of Charlemagne, at Worms, a. d. 790, and sent by Engebert to Pope 
Hadrian I., who answered them by a grandis et verbosa epistola, {Condi, torn, 
viii. p. 1553). The Carolines propose 120 objections against the Nicene synod, and 
such words as these are the flowers of their rhetoric— Dementiam * * * priscse 
Gentilitatis obseletum errorem * * * argumenta insanissima et absurdissima 
* * * derisione dignas naenias, &c. &c. 

62 The assemblies of Charlemagne were political as well as ecclesiastical : and 
the three hundred members, (Nat. Alexander, sec. viii. p. 53), who sat and voted 
at Frankfort, must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, and even the 
principal laymen. 1 



746 FINAL SEPARATION OF THE POPES. 

against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of 
their pretended council, which was long despised by the 
barbarians of the West. 63 Among them the worship of 
images advanced with a silent and insensible progress ; 
but a large atonement is made for their hesitation and 
delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages which precede 
the Reformation, and of the countries, both in Europe 
and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of 
superstition. 
_; , It was after the Nicene synod, and under the 

Final separa- . r . . T J . \ 

tion of the reign of the pious Irene, that the popes con- 
Uie P EasteTn summated the separation of Rome and Italy, 
empire, by the translation of the empire to the less 
774-300. ort i 10 d ox Charlemagne. They were compelled 
to choose between the rival nations : religion was not the 
sole motive of their choice ; and while they dissembled the 
failings of their friends, they beheld, with reluctance and 
suspicion, the Catholic virtues of their foes. The difference 
of language and manners had perpetuated the enmity of the 
two capitals ; and they were alienated from each other by 
the hostile opposition of seventy years In that schism 
the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of 
sovereignty : their submission would have exposed them 
to the revenge of a jealous tyrant ; and the revolution of 
Italy had betrayed the impotence, as well as the tyranny, 
of the Byzantine court. The Greek emperors had restored 
the images, but they had not restored the Calabrian estates 64 
and the Illyrian diocese, 65 which the Iconoclasts had torn 
away from the successors of St. Peter ; and pope Adrian 
threatens them with a sentence of excommunication unless 
they speedily abjure this practical heresy. 66 The Greeks 

63 Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et sacerdotes) omnimodis ser- 
vitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes contempserunt, atque consentientes 
condemnaverunt. {Concil. torn. ix. p. ioi, Canon, ii. Franckfurd). A polemic must 
be hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of Baronius, Pagi, Alex- 
ander, Maimbourg, &e., to elude this unlucky sentence. 

64 Theophanes, (p. 343), specifies those of Sicily and Calabria, which yielded an 
annual rent of three talents and a half of gold (perhaps 7000/. sterling). Liut- 
prand more pompously enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in 
Greece, Judaea, Persia, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Egypt, and Libya, which were 
detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor, (Legal, ad Niceptiorum, in Script. 
Rerum Italicariim, torn. ii. pars i. p. 481). 

65 The great diocese of the Eastern Illyricum, with Apulia, Calabria, and 
Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de I'Eglise, torn. i. p. 145) : by the confession of the 
Greeks, the patriarch of Constantinople had detached from Rome the Metropoli- 
tans of Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Nicopolis, and Patrae, {Luc. Holsten Geo- 
graph. Sacra, p. 22) ; and his spiritual conquests extended to Naples and Amalphi, 
(Giannone, Istoria Civile di Napoli, torn. i. pp. 517-524, Pagi, a. d. 730, No. 11). 

66 in hoc ostenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore reversis, in aliis duobus, 
in eodeni (was it the same?) permaneaut errore * * * de diocesi S. R. E. seu de 



CORONATION OF CHARLEMAGNE. 747 

were now orthodox, but their religion might be tainted by 
the breath of the reigning monarch : the Franks were now 
contumacious ; but a discerning eye might discern their 
approaching conversion from the use, to the adoration, of 
images. The name of Charlemagne was stained by the 
polemic acrimony of his scribes ; but the conqueror himself 
conformed, with the temper of a statesman, to the various 
practice of France and Italy. In his four pilgrimages or 
visits to the Vatican, he embraced the popes in the com- 
munion of friendship and piety ; knelt before the tomb, and 
consequently before the image, of the apostle; and joined, 
without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the 
Roman liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the 
pontiffs to renounce their benefactor ? Had they a right 
to alienate his gift of the Exarchate ? Had they power to 
abolish his government of Rome ? The title of patrician 
was below the merit and greatness of Charlemagne ; and it 
was only by reviving the Western empire that they could 
pay their obligations or secure their establishment. By this 
decisive measure they would finally eradicate the claims 
of the Greeks : from the debasement of a provincial town, 
the majesty of Rome would be restored : the Latin 
Christians would be united, under a supreme head, in their 
ancient metropolis ; and the conquerors of the West would 
receive their crown from the successors of St. Peter. The 
Roman church would acquire a zealous and respectable 
advocate; and, under the shadow of the Carlovingian 
power, the bishop might exercise, with honor and safety, 
the government of the city. 67 

Before the ruin of Paganism in Rome, the 
competition for a wealthy bishopric had often char^magn", 
been productive of tumult and bloodshed. The as emperor of 

, x , ... Rome and of 

people was less numerous, but the times were the west, 
more savage, the prize more important, and the A ^^; J? ' 
chair of St. Peter was fiercely disputed by the 
leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the rank of sovereign. 

patrimoniis iterum increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereti- 
cum eum pro hujusmodi errore perseverantia decernemus, (Epist. Hadrian, Papae 
ad Carolum Magnum, in Condi, torn. viii. p. 1598) ; to which he adds a reason, 
most directly opposite to his conduct, that he preferred the salvation of souls and 
rule of faith to the goods of this transitory world. 

6" Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than the advocates of the 
church (advocatus et defensor S. R. E. See Ducange, Gloss. Lai. torn. i. p. 297). 
His antagonist Muratori reduces the popes to be no more than the exarchs of the 
emperor. In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Inst Hut. Hist. Eccles pp 
264, 265), they held Rome under the empire as the most honorable species of fief 
or benefice — premuntur nocte caliginosa ! 



748 leo in. 

The reign of Adrian I. 68 surpasses the measure of past or 
succeeding ages ; 69 the walls of Rome, the sacred patrimony, 
the ruin of the Lombards, and the friendship of Charle- 
magne, were the trophies of his fame : he secretly edified 
the throne of his successors, and displayed in a narrow 
space the virtues of a great prince. His memory was 
revered ; but in the next election, a priest of the Lateran, 
Leo III. was preferred to the nephew and the favorite of 
Adrian, whom he had promoted to the first dignities of the 
church. Their acquiescence or repentance disguised, 
above four years, the blackest intention of revenge, till the 
day of a procession, when a furious band of conspirators 
dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with blows 
and wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their 
enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps 
by their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead 
on the ground ; on his revival from the swoon, the effect 
of his loss of blood, he recovered his speech and sight ; 
and this natural event was improved to the miraculous 
restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been 
deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins. 70 
From his prison he escaped to the Vatican ; the duke of 
Spoleto hastened to his rescue, Charlemagne sympathized 
in his injury, and in his camp of Paderborn in Westphalia 
accepted, or solicited, a visit from the Roman pontiff. Leo 
repassed the Alps with a commission of counts and bishops, 
the guards of his safety and the judges of his innocence ; 
and it was not without reluctance, that the conqueror of 
the Saxons delayed till the ensuing year the personal dis- 
charge of this pious office. In his fourth and last pilgrimage, 
he was received at Rome with the due honors of king and 

es His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of thirty-eight verses 
of which Charlemagne declares himself the author, (Concil. torn. viii. p. 520). 
Post patrem lacrymans Carolus haec carmina scripsi. 
Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo plango pater * * * 
Nomina jungo simul titulis, clarissime, nostra 
Adrianus, Carolus, rex ego, tuque pater. 
The poetry might be supplied by Alcuin ; but the tears, the most glorious tribute, 
can only belong to Charlemagne. 

69 Every new pope is admonished—" Sancte Pater, non videbis annos Petri," 
twenty-five years. On the whole series the average is about eight years— a short 
hope for an ambitious cardinal. 

"0 The assurance of Anastasius, (torn. iii. pars i. pp. 197, 198), is supported by 
the credulity of some French annalists; but Eginhard, and other writers of the 
same age, are more natural and sincere. " Unus ei oculus paullulum est laesus," 
says John the deacon of Naples, ( Vit. Episcop. Napol. in Scriptores Muratori, 
torn. i. pars. ii. p. 512). Theodolphus, a contemporary bishop of Orleans, observes 
with prudence, (1. iii. carm. 3), 

Reddita sunt? mirum est : mirum est auferre nequisse. 
Est tamen in dubio, nine mirer an hide magis. 



REIGN OF CHARLEMAGNE. 749 

patrician : Leo was permitted to purge himself by oath of 
the crimes imputed to his charge : his enemies were 
silenced, and the sacrilegious attempt against his life was 
punished by the mild and insufficient penalty of exile. On 
the festival of Christmas, the last year of the eighth century, 
Charlemagne appeared in the church of St. Peter ; and, to 
gratify the vanity of Rome, he had exchanged the simple 
dress of his country for the habit of a patrician. 71 After the 
celebration of the holy mysteries, Leo suddenly placed a 
precious crown on his head, 72 and the dome resounded 
with the acclamations of the people, " Long life and victory 
" to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God 
" the great and pacific emperor of the Romans ! " The 
head and body of Charlemagne were consecrated by the 
royal unction : after the example of the Caesars, he was 
saluted or adored by the pontiff; his coronation oath 
represents a promise to maintain the faith and privileges 
of the church ; and the first-fruits were paid in his rich 
offerings to the shrine of the apostle. In his familiar con- 
versation, the emperor protested his ignorance of the 
intentions of Leo, which he would have disappointed by 
his absence on that memorable day. But the preparations 
of the ceremony must have disclosed the secret ; and the 
journey of Charlemagne reveals his knowledge and 
expectation : he had acknowledged that the imperial title 
was the object of his ambition, and a Roman synod had 
pronounced, that it was the only adequate reward of his 
merit and services. 73 

The appellation of great has been often be- 
stowed, and sometimes deserved, but Charle- character of 
magne is the only prince in whose favor the < J h ^ Iei g^" e ' 
title has been indissolubly blended with the 
name. That name, with the addition of saint, is inserted 

fl Twice, at the request of Hadrian and Leo, heappeared at Rome — longa 
tunica et chlamyde amictus, et calceamentis quoque Romano more formatis. 
Eginhard, (c. xxiii. pp, 109-113), describes, like Suetonius, the simplicity of his 
dress, so popular in the nation, that when Charles the Bald returned to France 
in a foreign habit, the patriotic dogs barked at the apostate, (Gaillard, Vie de 
Charlemagne, torn. iv. p. 109.) 

ra See Anastasius, (p. 199), and Eginhard, (c. xxviii. pp. 124-12S.) The unction is 
mentioned by Theophanes,(p. 399), the oath by Sigonius, (from the Ordo Romanus), 
and the pope's adoration, more antiquorum principum, by the Aunales Bertiniani. 
{Script. Murator. torn. ii. pars 2, p. 505.) 

M This great event of the translation or restoration of the empire is related and 
discussed by Natalis Alexander, fsecul. ix. dissert, i. pp. 390-397), Pagi, (torn. 
iii. p. 418), Muratori, (Annali. d 'Italia, torn. vi. pp. 339-352), Sigonius, (de Regno 
Italic, 1. iv. Opp. torn. ii. pp. 247-251), Spanheim, (de ficta Translatione Imperii^, 
Giannone, (torn. i. pp. 395-405), St. Marc, (Abregi Chronologique, torn. i. pp. 438- 
450), Gaillard, (Hist, by Charlemagne, torn. ii. pp. 386-44(5;. Almost all these 
moderns have some religious or national bias. 



750 CHARACTER OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

in the Roman calendar ; and the saint, by a rare felicity, is 
crowned with the praises of the historians and philosophers 
of an enlightened age. 74 His real merit is doubtless 
enhanced by the barbarism of the nation and the times 
from which he emerged : but the apparent magnitude of an 
object is likewise enlarged by an unequal comparison ; and 
the ruins of Palmyra derive a casual splendor from the 
nakedness of the surrounding desert. Without injustice 
to his fame, I may discern some blemishes in the sanctity 
and greatness of the restorer of the Western empire. Of 
his moral virtues, chastity is not the most conspicuous : 75 
but the public happiness could not be materially injured 
by his nine wives or concubines, the various indulgence of 
meaner or more transient amours, the multitude of his 
bastards whom he bestowed on the church, and the long 
celibacy and licentious manners of his daughters, 76 whom 
the father was suspected of loving with too fond a passion.* 
I shall be scarcely permitted to accuse the ambition of a 
conqueror; but in a day of equal retribution, the sons of 
his brother Carloman, the Merovingian princes of Aquitain, 
and the four thousand five hundred Saxons who were be- 
headed on the same spot, would have something to allege 
against the justice and humanity of Charlemagne. His 
treatment of the vanquished Saxons " was an abuse of the 
right of conquest ; his laws were not less sanguinary than his 
arms ; and in the discussion of his motives, whatever is sub- 
tracted from bigotry must be imputed to temper. * * * 

i* By Mably, (Observations sur V Histoire de France); Voltaire, (Histoire 
G.ncrale) ; Robertson, {History of Charles V.) ; and Montesquieu, {Esprit des 
Loix, 1. 31, c. i3). In the year 1782, M. Gaillard published his Histoire de 
Charlemagne, (in four vols, duodecimo,) which I have freely and profitably used. 
The author is a man of sense and humanity, and his work is labored with 
industry and elegance. But I have likewise examined the original monuments 
of the reigns of Pepin and Charlemagne, in the fifth volume of the Historians of 
France. 

"' The vision of Weltin, composed by a monk, eleven years after the death of 
Charlemagne, shows him in purgatory, with a vulture who is perpetually gnawing 
the guilty member, while the rest of his body, the emblem of his virtues, is sound 
and perfect. (See Gaillard. torn. ii. pp. 317-360.) 

"6 The marriage of Eginhard with Imma, daughter of Charlemagne, is, in my 
opinion, sufficiently refuted by the probnun and suspicio that sullied these fair 
damsels, without excepting his own wife, c. xix. pp. 98-100, cum Notis Schmincke). 
The husband must have been too strong for the historian. 

" Besides the massacres and transmigrations, the pain of death was pronounced 
against the following crimes: 1. The refusal of baptism. 2. The false pretence of 
baptism. 3. A relapse to idolatry. 4. The murder of a priest or bishop. 5. Human 
sacrifices. 6. Eating meat in Lent. But every crime might be expiated by baptism 
or penance, (Gaillard, torn. ii. pp. 241-247); and the Christian Saxons became the 
friends and equals of the Frank's, (Struv, Corpus Hist. Germaniccz, p. 133.) 

* This charge of incest, as Mr. Hallam justly observes, " seems to have origi- 
" nated in a misinterpreted passage of Eginhard." Hallam's Middle Ages, vol. i. 
p. 16.— Milman. 



AUTHORITY OF THE EMPERORS. 751 

In the north, Christianity was propagated by the sword 
of Otho, the conqueror and apostle of the Slavic nations of 
the Elbe and Oder. * * * From that memorable sera, two 
maxims of public jurisprudence were introduced by force and 
ratified by time. I. That the prince, who was elected in the 
German diet, acquired, from that instant, the subject king- 
doms of Italy and Rome. II. But that he might not legally 
assume the titles of emperor and Augustus, till he had re- 
ceived the crown from the hands of the Roman pontiff. * * * 

These emperors, in the election of the popes, Authoritv of 
continued to exercise the powers which had been the emperors 
assumed by the Gothic and Grecian princes ; E^sof the 
and the importance of this prerogative increased r? ^ 63 ' - 
with the temporal estate and spiritual jurisdiction 
of the Roman church. In the Christian aristocracy, the 
principal members of the clergy still formed a senate to 
assist the administration, and to supply the vacancy/ of the 
bishop. Rome was divided into twenty-eight parishes, and 
each parish was governed by a cardinal-priest, or presbyter, 
a title which, however common and modest in its origin, 
has aspired to emulate the purple of kings. Their number 
was enlarged by the association of the seven deacons of the 
most considerable hospitals, the seven palatine judges of 
the Lateran, and some dignitaries of the church. This 
ecclesiastical senate was directed by the seven cardinal- 
bishops of the Roman province, who were less occupied in 
the suburb dioceses of Ostia, Porto, Velitrae, Tusculum, 
Praeneste, Tibur, and the Sabines, than by their weekly 
service in the Lateran, and their superior share in the 
honors and authority of the apostolic see. On the death of 
the pope, these bishops recommended a successor to the 
suffrage of the college of cardinals, and their choice was 
ratified or rejected by the applause or clamor of the Roman 
people. But the election was imperfect; nor could the 
pontiff be legally consecrated till the emperor, the advocate 
of the church, had graciously signified his approbation and 
consent. The royal commissioner examined the form and 
freedom of the proceedings ; nor was it till after a previous 
scrutiny into the qualifications of the candidates, that he 
accepted an oath of fidelity, and confirmed the donations 
which had successively enriched the patrimony of St. Peter. 
In the frequent schisms, the rival claims were submitted to the 
emperor ; and in a synod of bishops he presumed to judge, 
to condemn, and to punish, the crimes of a guilty pontiff. 



752 DEGRADATION OF THE PAPACY. 

Otho I. imposed a treaty on the senate and people, who 
engaged to prefer the candidate most acceptable to his 
majesty : * 8 his successors anticipated or prevented their 
choice : they bestowed the Roman benefice, like the 
bishoprics of Cologne or Bamberg, on their chancellors or 
preceptors : and whatever might be the merit of a Frank 
or Saxon, his name sufficiently attests the interposition of 
foreign power. These acts of prerogative were most 
speciously excused by the vices of a popular election. The 
competitor who had been excluded by the cardinals, 
appealed to the passions or avarice of the multitude : the 
Vatican and the Lateran were stained with blood ; and the 
most powerful senators, the marquises of Tuscany and the 
counts of Tusculum, held the apostolic see in a long and 
Disorder disgraceful servitude. The Roman pontiffs, of 
the ninth and tenth centuries, were insulted, 
imprisoned, and murdered, by their tyrants ; and such was 
their indigence after the loss and usurpation of the 
ecclesiastical patrimonies, that they could neither support 
the state of a prince, nor exercise the charity of a priest. 79 
The influence of two sister prostitutes, Marozia and Theo- 
dora, was founded on their wealth and beauty, their political 
and amorous intrigues : the most strenuous of their lovers 
were rewarded with the Roman mitre, and their reign 80 
may have suggested to the darker ages 81 the fable of a 

"s Firmiter jurantes, nunquam se papam electuros aut ordinaturos, praeter 
consensum et electionem Othonis et filii sui, (Liutprand, 1. vi. c. 6, p. 472). This 
important concession may either supply or confirm the decree of the clergy and 
people of Rome, so fiercely rejected by Baronius, Pagi, and Muraton, (a. d. 964 1 , 
and so well defended and explained by St. Marc, {Abrege, torn. ii. pp. 808-816, torn. 
iv. pp. 1167-1185). Consult that historical critic, and the Annals of Muratori, for 
the election and confirmation of each pope. 

is The oppression and vices of the Roman church, in the tenth century, are 
strongly painted in the history and legation of Liutprand, (see pp. 440, 450, 471-476. 
479, &c.) ; and it is whimsical enough to observe Muratori tempering the invec- 
tives of Baronius against the popes. But these popes had been chosen, not by 
the cardinals, but by lay-patrons. 

80 The time of pope Joan, {papissa yoanna,) is placed somewhat earlier than 
Theodora or Marozia ; and the two years of her imaginary reign are forcibly 
inserted between Leo IV. and Benedict III. But the contemporary Anastasius 
indissolubly links the death of Leo and the elvevation of Benedict, (illico, mox, 
p. 247) ; and the accurate chronology of Pagi, Muratori, and Leibnitz, fixes both 
events in the year 857. 

si The advocates for pope Joan produce one hundred and fifty witnesses, or 
rather echoes, of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. They bear 
testimony against themselves and the legend, by multiplying the proof that so 
curious a story musi have been repeated by writers of every description to whom 
it was known. On those of the ninth and tenth centuries, the recent event would 
have flashed with a double force. Would Photius have spared such a reproach ? 
Could Liutprand have missed such scandal ? It is scarcely worth while to discuss 
the various readings of Martinus Polonus, Sigebert of Gemblours, or even 
Marianus Scots ; but a most palpable forgery is the passage of pope Joan, which 
has been foisted into some MSS. and editions of the Roman Anastasius. 



THE GRANDSON OF MAROZIA. 753 

female 82 pope. 83 The bastard son,* the grandson, and the 
great-grandson, of Marozia, a rare genealogy, were seated 
in the chair of St. Peter, and it was at the age of nineteen 
years that the second of these became the head of the 
Latin church.| His youth and manhood were of a suitable 
complexion ; and the nations of pilgrims could bear 
testimony to the charges that were urged against him in a 
Roman synod, and in the presence of Otho the Great. As 
John XII. had renounced the dress and the decencies of 
his profession, the soldier may not perhaps be dishonored 
by the wine which he drank, the blood that he spilt, the 
flames that he kindled, or the licentious pursuits of gaming 
and hunting. His open simony might be the consequence 
of distress : and his blasphemous invocation of Jupiter and 
Venus, if it be true, could not possibly be serious. But we 
read with some surprise, that the worthy grandson of 
Marozia lived in public adultery with the matrons of Rome: 
that the Lateran palace was turned into a school for prosti- 
tution, and that his rapes of virgins and widows had deterred 
the female pilgrims from visiting the tomb of St. Peter, 
lest, in the devout act, they should be violated by his 
successor. 54 The Protestants have dwelt with malicious 

82 As false, it deserves that name; but I would not pronounce it incredible. 
Suppose a famous French chevalier of our own times to have been born in Italy, 
and educated in the church, instead of the army : her merit or fortune might have 
raised her to St. Peter's chair; her amours would have been natural ; her delivery 
in the streets unlucky, but not improbable. t 

S3 Till the Reformation the tale was repeated and believed without offence : 
and Joan's female statue long occupied her place among the popes in the cathe- 
dral of Sienna, (Pagi, Critica, torn. iii. pp. 624-626). She has been annihilated by 
two learned Protestants, Blondel and Bayie, {Dictionnaire Critique, Papesse, 
Polonus, Blondel) ; but their brethren were scandalized by this equitable and 
generous criticism. Spanheim and Lefant attempt to save this poor engine of 
controversy; and even Mosheim condescends to cherish some doubt and suspi- 
cion, (p. 289.) 

84 Lateranense palatium * * * prostibulum meretricum * * * Testis omnium 
gentium, prasterquam Romanorum, absentia mulierum, quae sanctorum aposto- 
lorum limina orandi gratia timent visere, cum nonnullas ante dies paucos, nunc 
audierint conjugatas, viduas, virgines vi oppressisse, (Liutprand, HistA. vi. c. 6, 
p, 471. See the whole affair of John XII., pp. 471-476). 

* Muratori confesses the " vita disonesta " of Maria or Marozia ; but contends 
that John XL was her legitimate son by her husband Alberico, marquis of 
Camerino, and discredits the " slander of Liutprand," who asserted that this 
pontiff was the offspring of her adultery with pope Sergius III. Cardinal Baronius, 
however, believed these "calumniators," and called John XI. " pseudo-pontifex." 
(Annali d' Italia, xii. 273, 277, 380.)— Eng. Ch. 

f John XI. was the son of her husband Alberic, not of her lover, Pope Sergius 
III., as Muratori has distinctly proven, Ann. ad arm. 911, torn. . . p. 628. Her 
grandson Octavian, otherwise called John XII., was pope : but a great-grandson 
cannot be discovered in any of the succeeding popes ; nor does our historian him- 
self, in his subsequent narration, (p. 202), seem to know of one. Hobhouse, Illus- 
trations of Childe Harold, p. 309.— Milman 

% Gibbon here alludes to the Chevalier D'Eon, whose sex at that period was so 
much a matter of doubt as to cause him to be deprived of a public office, which 
he had held for many years in France. After his death in England, all doubts 
as to his sex were removed by medical examination.— Eng. Ch. 



754 



REFORMATION OF THE CHURCH. 



Reformation 
and claims of 

the church, 
A. D. 1073, &c. 



pleasure on these characters of antichrist ; but to a philoso- 
phic eye, the vices of the clergy are far less dangerous 
than their virtues. After a long series of scandal, 
the apostolic see was reformed and exalted by 
the austerity and zeal of Gregory VII. That 
ambitious monk devoted his life to the execution 
of two projects. I. To fix in the college of cardinals the 
freedom and independence of election, and for ever to 
abolish the right or usurpation of the emperors and the 
Roman people. II. To bestow and resume the Western 
empire as a fief or benefice 85 of the church, and to extend 
his temporal dominion over the kings and kingdoms of the 
earth. After a contest of fifty years, the first of these 
designs was accomplished by the firm support of the 
ecclesiastical order, whose liberty was connected with that 
of their chief. But the second attempt, though it was 
crowned with some partial and apparent success, has been 
vigorously resisted by the secular power, and finally 
extinguished by the improvement of human reason. 

ss A new example of the mischief of equivocation is the benejicium, (Ducange, 
torn. i. p. 617, &c.,) which the pope conferred on the emperor Frederic I., since 
the Latin word may signifv either a legal fief, or a simple favor, an obligation, 
(we want the word bienfait.) (See Schmidt, Hist, des Allemands, torn. iii. pp. 
393-498. Pfeffel, Abrege Chronologique, torn. i. pp. 229, 296, 317, 324, 420, 430, 500, 
505. 509> &c -) 




Isis. 




MINERVA. 



MINERVA. 

THE blue-eyed Minerva sprang forth in complete armor, from Jove's iin 
mortal head — the goddess of wisdom arose in warlike panoply from the 
brain of Jupiter. This is the poetic conceit of the ancient Pagan mycologists, 
and this myth is simply equivalent to teaching that Wisdom came from God. 
Christians will not deny this assertion, although Moses, whom they reverence, 
held a different belief, and taught that wisdom came from Satan, the prince of 
darkness. For, by eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, Adam and Eve, says 
the Jewish lawgiver, disobeyed God, acquired wisdom, and lost Paradise. 

With the Greeks and Romans Minerva, also called Pallas Athene, was the 
personification of the reasoning faculty, and was also worshiped as the patroness 
of the arts and sciences. Among other gifts, she kindly taught the art of weaving to 
mankind. For vainly boasting of skillful workmanship, she transformed her pupil 
Arachne, into a spider, and this insect still possesses a knowledge of the weaver's 
art. In a trial of skill with Neptune for the honor of naming a new city, founded by 
the Egyptian Cecrops, Wisdom conquered Power, and the assembled gods 
awarded the prize to the olive tree of Minerva, as being more useful to mankind 
than the horse which Neptune produced by striking his trident upon the sand. 

In the contest between Minerva, Juno, and Venus for the prize of beauty — 
the golden apple inscribed To the Fairest, and presented by Eris or Discord, 
the youthful shepherd named Paris, was appointed by Jupiter to decide the 
difficult problem. Minerva sought to influence his judgment by promising him 
glory and renown in war; Ju^-'o. by promising power and riches; Venus by 
promising the fairest women for his wile. In this contest Wisdom was defeated. 
Paris awarded the golden apple to Venus ; and Wisdom may never hope to con- 
tend successfully with Beauty, when mortals are the judges. 

The fertile imagination and sublime genius of the Greeks enabled them to 
beautify, if they did not originate, these allegorical fancies concerning the gods ; 
and the great German poet Goethe, awards the highest praise to this creative 
faculty; and thus invokes blessings upon Fancy — the never resting, ever 
changing, whimsical daughter of Jupiter. 

" May she, crowned with roses and bearing the stem of a lily, enter the flowery 
" valleys, to rule over the butterflies, and suck with bees' lips the light nutritious 
" dew trom the blossoms; or, with dishevelled hair and gloomy aspect, rush 
" through the yielding wind, round rocky walls, appearing in a thousand different 
" colors, ever changing like morning and eve, as moon-glances appear to mortal 
" eyes. Let us all praise the old venerable father, who has granted to mortal men 
" so fair a companion, endowed with never fading charms. For to us alone he 
" has united her with heavenly ties, bidding her never to forsake us, to abide 
" with us in joy and sorrow, as becomes a faithful companion. Treat her with 

affection, like a beloved one : And let the old grave mother-in-law, Wisdom, by 
" no means distress the tender little soul ! I know her sister also, the elder ami 

more serious of the two, my gentle friend ! O that she may never forsake me 
" while the light of life continues, she the noble encourager, comforter— Hope. " 

The mythical creations of Fancy, with which the Greeks and Romans peopled 
high Olympus — the religions they invented — the gods they worshiped and adored, 
" All these have vanished. 
" They live no longer in the faith of reason ; 
" But still the heart doth need a language : still 

Doth the old instinct bring back the old names — 
" Spirits or gods — that used to share this earth 
" With man as with their friend." 

" The sleeping and the dead," says Lady Macbeth, " are but as pictures : 'tis 
" the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil !" But the childhood of the 
race demanded what the manhood of the race hath discarded— the worship and 
reverence of the immortal gods ! Jupiter and Juno, Hercules and Mercury. 
Bacchus and Apollo, Diana, Minerva. Venus, and all the heavenly host, now 
exist only in the realms of literature and art. They still lend inspiration to the 
poet's fancy, the painter's canvas, and the sculptor's marble : but in the domain 
of reason and philosophy, their memory is but a shadowy dream swiftly vanishing 
into the mists of oblivion. — E. 




Triton and Nereides/ 



xv.t 

ORIGIN AND DOCTRINE OF THE PAULICIANS. — THEIR 
PERSECUTION BY THE GREEK EMPERORS. — REVOLT IN 
ARMENIA, &C. — TRANSPLANTATION INTO THRACE. — 
PROPAGATION IN THE WEST. — THE SEEDS, CHARACTER, 
AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE REFORMATION. 

IN the profession of Christianity, the variety supine super- 
of national characters may be clearly dis- stition of the 
tinguished. The _ natives of Syria and Greekchu ^ ch - 
Egypt abandoned their lives to lazy and contemplative 
devotion : Rome again aspired to the dominion of the 
world; and the wit of the lively and loquacious Greeks 
was consumed in the disputes of metaphysical theology. 
The incomprehensible mysteries of the Trinity and Incarna- 
tion, instead of commanding their silent submission, were 
agitated in vehement and subtle controversies, which 
enlarged tiieir faith at the expense, perhaps, of their charity 
and reason. From the council of Nice to the end of the 
seventh century, the peace and unity of the church was 

* Triton was a sea-deity, son of Neptune and Amphitrite. Above the waist, his 
figure was human, and below, a dolphin. Some represent him with the fore feet 
of a horse. In works of art, he is represented as blowing a shell, with which he 
could soothe the restless waves of the sea, and abate the fury of storms. 

The Nereides, daughters of Nereus and Doris, were the marine nymphs of the 
Mediterranean, in contradistinction to the Naiades, the nymphs of fresh water, 
and the Oceanides, the nymphs of the great ocean. Thetis, mother of Achilles, 
was one of the most celebrated of the Nereides. They are described as lovely 
divinities, dwelling in marine grottos and caves, which they ornamented with 
sea- shells and gems from the ocean. They are frequently represented as riding 
on the backs of dolphins, sometimes holding in their hands the trident of Neptune, 
at others, garlands of flowers, or ornamental scarfs. They are often engraved on 
gems as half maidens and half fishes. Their appearance was always considered 
propitious to mariners. They were worshiped in Greece, chiefly in the marine 
towns, and on the coast of the sea; and the piety of mankind placed on their 
altars offerings of milk and honey. — E. 

f Chap. liv. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

(755) 



756 THE GREEK CHURCH. 

invaded by these spiritual wars ; and so deeply did they 
affect the decline and fall of the empire, that the historian 
has too often been compelled to attend the synods, to 
explore the creeds, and to enumerate the sects, of this 
busy period of ecclesiastical annals. From the beginning 
of the eighth century to the last ages of the Byzantine 
empire, the sound of controversy was seldom heard : 
curiosity was exhausted, zeal was fatigued, and, in the 
decrees of six councils, the articles of the Catholic faith had 
been irrevocably defined. The spirit of dispute, however 
vain and pernicious, requires some energy and exercise of 
the mental faculties ; and the prostrate Greeks were content 
to fast, to pray, and to believe, in blind obedience to the 
patriarch and his clergy. During a long dream of super- 
stition, the Virgin and the Saints, their visions and miracles, 
their relics and images, were preached by the monks and 
worshiped by the people ; and the appellation of people 
might be extended, without injustice, to the first ranks of 
civil society. At an unseasonable moment, the Isaurian 
emperors attempted somewhat rudely to awaken their 
subjects ; under their influence, reason might obtain some 
proselytes, a far greater number was swayed by interest or 
fear; but the Eastern world embraced or deplored their 
visible deities, and the restoration of images was celebrated 
as the feast of orthodoxy. In this passive and unanimous 
state the ecclesiastical rulers were relieved from the toil, 
or deprived of the pleasure, of persecution. The Pagans 
had disappeared ; the Jews were silent and obscure : the 
disputes with the Latins were rare and remote hostilities 
against a national enemy ; and the sects of Egypt and 
Syria enjoyed a free toleration under the shadow of the 
Arabian caliphs. About the middle of the seventh century, 
a branch of Manichaeans was selected as the victims of 
spiritual tyranny ; their patience was at length exasperated 
to despair and rebellion ; and their exile has scattered over 
the West the seeds of reformation. These important events 
will justify some inquiry into the doctrine and story of the 
Paulicians; 1 and, as they cannot plead for themselves, 

i The errors and virtues of the Paulicians are weighed, with his usual judgment 
and candor, by the learned Mosheim. {Hist. Ecclesiast. seculum ix. p. 311, &c.) 
He draws his original intelligence from Photius, {contra Manichceos, 1. i.). and 
Peter Siculus, {Hist. Manichceorxim). The first of tFTese accounts has not fallen 
into my hands ; the second, which Mosheim prefers, I have read in a Latin ver- 
sion inserted in the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, (torn, xvi, pp. 754-764), from the 
edition of the Jesuit Raderus. 1 Ingolstadii, 1604, in 4to.)* 

* Compare Hallain's Middle Ages, pp. 461-471. Mr. Hallam jastly observes 
that this chapter " appears to be accurate as well as luminous, and is at least far 
M superior to any modern work on the subject."— Milman. 



ORIGIN OF THE PAULICIANS. 757 

our candid criticism will magnify the good, and abate or 
suspect the evil, that is reported by their adversaries. 

The Gnostics, who had distracted the infancy, origin of the 
were oppressed by the greatness and authority, Paulicians or 
of the church. Instead of emulating or surpass- st! Paul? 
ing the wealth, learning, and numbers, of the A - D - 66o > &c - 
Catholics, their obscure remnant was driven from the 
capitals of the East and West, and confined to the villages 
and mountains along the borders of the Euphrates. Some 
vestige of the Marcionites may be detected in the fifth 
century ; 2 but the numerous sects were finally lost in the 
odious name of the Manichseans ; and these heretics, who 
presumed to reconcile the doctrines of Zoroaster and 
Christ, were pursued by the two religions with equal and 
unrelenting hatred. Under the grandson of Heraclius, in 
the neighborhood of Samosata, more famous for the birth 
of Lucian than for the title of a Syrian kingdom, a reformer 
arose, esteemed by the Paulicians as the chosen messenger 
of truth. In his humble dwelling of Mananalis, Constantine 
entertained a deacon, who returned from Syrian captivity, 
and received the inestimable gift of the New Testament, 
which was already concealed from the vulgar by the 
prudence of the Greek, and perhaps of the Gnostic clergy. 3 
These books became the measure of his studies and the 
rule of his faith ; and the Catholics, who dispute his 
interpretation, acknowledge that his text was genuine and 
sincere. But he attached himself with peculiar devotion to 
the writings and character of St. Paul. The name of the 
Paulicians is derived by their enemies from some unknown 
and domestic teacher; but I am confident that they gloried 
in their affinity to the apostle of the Gentiles. His disciples, 
Titus, Timothy, Sylvanus, Tychicus, were represented by 
Constantine and his fellow-laborers : the names of the 
apostolic churches were applied to the congregations which 
they assembled in Armenia and Cappadocia; and this 

2 In the time of Theodoret, the diocese of Cyrrhus, in Syria, contained eight 
hundred villages. Of these, two were inhabited by Arians and Eunomians, and 
eight by Marcionites. whom the laborious bishop reconciled to the Catholic church, 
(.Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclesiastique, torn. iv. pp. 81, 82).* 

3 Nobis profanis ista {sacra Evangelia) legere non licet sed sacerdotibus dun- 
taxat, was the first scruple of a Catholic when he was advised to read the Bible. 
(Petr. Sicul. p. 761.) 

* In former notes, more particularly to chapter 15 and 21. it was shown, that the 
innumerable forms of Gnosticism were the desultory efforts of individuals, each 
to adapt Christianity to his peculiar philosophical notions, before they had an 
authorized standard of faith. When this was given to them, such theories fell 
into disrepute, and sank into a deeper obscurity, in proportion as the growing 
stateliness of the hierarchy discountenanced and discarded philosophy.— E. C. 



758 SIMPLICITY OF THE PAULICIAN WORSHIP. 

innocent allegory revived the example and memory of the 
Th • Bbi ^ rst a £ es - ^ n tne Gospel, and the Epistles of St. 
Paul, his faithful follower investigated the creed 
of primitive Christianity ; and, whatever might be the 
success, a Protestant reader will applaud the spirit, of the 
inquiry. But if the scriptures of the Paulicians were pure, 
they were not perfect. Their founders rejected the two 
epistles of St Peter, 4 the apostle of the circumcision, whose 
dispute with their favorite for the observance of the law 
could not easily be forgiven. 6 They agreed with their 
Gnostic brethren in the universal contempt Jbr the Old 
Testament, the book of Moses and the prophets, which 
have been consecrated by the decrees of the Catholic 
church. With equal boldness, and doubtless with more 
reason, Constantine, the new Sylvanus, disclaimed the 
visions, which, in so many bulky and splendid volumes, 
had been published by the Oriental sects; 6 the fabulous 
productions of the Hebrew patriarchs and the sages of the 
East ; the spurious gospels, epistles, and acts, which in the 
first age had overwhelmed the orthodox code ; the theology 
of Manes, and the authors of the kindred heresies ; and the 
thirty generations, or aeons, which had been created by 
the fruitful fancy of Valentine. The Paulicians sincerely 
condemned the memory and opinions of the Manichaean 
sect, and complained of the injustice which impressed that 
invidious name on the simple votaries of St. Paul and of 
Christ. 

The simplicity Of the ecclesiastical chain, many links had 
of their belief been broken by the Paulician reformers ; and 
ip. t k e j r liberty was enlarged, as they reduced the 
number of masters, at whose voice profane reason must 
bow to mystery and miracle. The early separation of the 
Gnostics had preceded the establishment of the Catholic 

4 In rejecting the Second Epistle of St. Peter, the Paulicians are justified by 
some of the most respectable of the ancients and moderns, (see Wetstein ad loc. 
Simon, Hist. Critique du Nouveau Testament, c. 17.) They likewise overlooked 
the Apocalypse, (Petr. Sicul. p. 756) ; but as such neglect is not imputed as a 
crime, the Greeks of the ninth century must have been careless of the credit and 
honor of the Revelations. 

5 This contention, which has not escaped the malice of Porphyry, supposes 
some error and passion in one or both of the apostles. By Chrysostom, Jerome, 
and Erasmus, it is represented as a sham quarrel, a pious fraud, for the benefit 
of the Gentiles and the correction of the Jews. (Middleton's Works, vol. ii. 
pp. 1-20.) 

6 Those who are curious of this heterodox library, may consult the researches 
of Beausobre, {Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, torn. i. pp. 305-437.) Even in 
Africa, St. Austin could describe the Manichaean books, tam multi, tarn grandes, 
tam pretiosi codices, (contra Faust, xiii. 14) : but he adds, without pity, Incendite 
o 111 nes illas membranas ; and his advice has been rigorously followed. 



HOLY RELICS. 759 

worship ; and against the gradual innovations of discipline 
and doctrine, they were as strongly guarded by habit and 
aversion, as by the silence of St. Paul and the Evangelists. 
The objects which had been transformed by the magic of 
superstition, appeared to the eyes of the Paulicians in their 
genuine and naked colors. An image made without hands, 
was the common workmanship of a mortal artist, to whose 
skill alone the wood and canvass must be indebted for their 
merit or value. The miraculous relics were a heap of bones 
and ashes, destitute of life or virtue, or of any relation, 
perhaps, with the person to whom they were ascribed. The 
true and vivifying cross * was a piece of sound or rotten 
timber ; the body and blood of Christ, a loaf of bread and 

* [In chapter lxi. Gibbon records the sale or gift of the Holy Crown of Thorns, 
by the emperor of Constantinople, Baldwin II., to the king of France, as fol- 
lows : ] The emperor and empire were still possessed of an ideal treasure 
which drew its fantastic value from the superstition of the Christian world. 
The merit of the true cross was somewhat impaired by its frequent division ; 
and a long captivity among the infidels might shed some suspicion on the frag- 
ments that were produced in the East and West. But another relic of the 
Passion was preserved in the imperial chapel of Constantinople ; and the crown 
of thorns which had been placed on the head of Christ was equally precious 
and authentic. It had formerly been the practice of the Egyptian debtors to 
deposit, as a security, the mummies of their parents ; and both their honor and 
religion were bound for the redemption of the pledge. In the same manner, 
and in the absence of the emperor, the Barons of Romania borrowed the sum 
of thirteen thousand one hundred and and thirty-four pieces of gold on the 
credit of the holy crown : they failed in the performance of their contract ; and 
a rich Venetian, Nicholas Querini, undertook to satisfy their impatient creditors, 
on condition that the relic should be lodged at Venice, to become his absolute 
property, if it were not redeemed within a short and definite term. The barons 
apprized their sovereign of the hard treaty aud impending loss ; and as the em- 
pire could not afford a ransom of seven thousand pounds sterling, Baldwin was 
anxious to snatch the prize from the Venetians, and to vest it with more honor and 
emolument in the hands of the most Christian king. Yet the negotiation was 
attended with some delicacy^ In the purchase of relics, the saint would have 
started at the guilt of simony : but if the mode of expression were changed, he 
might lawfully repay the debt, accept the gift, and acknowledge the obligation. 
His ambassadors, two Dominicans, were despatched to Venice to redeem and 
receive the holy crown, which had escaped the dangers of the sea and the galleys 
ofVataces. On opening a wooden box, they recognized the seals of the doge 
and barons, which were applied on a shrine of silver; and within this shrine the 
monument of the Passion was enclosed in a golden vase. The reluctant Vene- 
tians yielded to justice and power: the emperor Frederic granted a free and 
honorable passage ; the court of France advanced as far as Troves in Cham- 
pagne, to meet with devotion this inestimable relic; it was borne in triumph 
through Paris by the king himself, barefoot, and in his shirt ; and a free gift of 
ten thousand marks of silver reconciled Baldwin to his loss. The success of this 
transaction tempted the Latin emperor, to offer with the same generosity the 
remaining furniture of his chapel ; a large and authentic portion of the true 
cross ; the baby-linen of the Son of God, the lance, the sponge, and the chain, 
ofhis Passion ; the rod of Moses, and part oftheskullof St. John the Baptist. For 
the reception of all these spiritual treasures, twenty thousand marks were ex- 
pended by St. Louis on a stately foundation, the holy chapel of Paris, on which 
the muse of Boileau has bestowed a comic immortality. The truth of such re- 
mote and ancient relics, which cannot be proved by any human' testimony, 
must be admitted by those who believe in the miracles which they have per- 
formed. About the middle of the last age, an inveterate ulcer was touched and 
cured by a holy prickle of the holy crown : the prodigy is attested by the most 
pious and enlightened Christians of France ; nor will the fact be easily dis- 
proved, except by those who are armed with a general antidote against 
religious credulity. 



760 THE TWO PRINCIPLES OF THE MAGIANS. 

a cup of wine, the gifts of nature and the symbols of grace. 
The mother of God was degraded from her celestial honors 
and immaculate virginity ; and the saints and angels were 
no longer solicited to exercise the laborious office . of 
mediation in heaven, and ministry upon earth. In the 
practice, or at least in the theory, of the sacraments, the 
Paulicians were inclined to abolish all visible objects of 
worship, and the words of the gospel were, in their 
judgment, the baptism and communion of the faithful. 
They indulged a convenient latitude for the interpretation 
of Scripture; and as often as they were pressed by the 
literal sense, they could escape to the intricate mazes of 
figure and allegory. Their utmost diligence must have 
been employed to dissolve the connection between the Old 
and the New Testament ; since they adored the latter as 
the oracles of God, and abhorred the former, as the fabulous 
and absurd invention of men or daemons. We cannot be 
surprised, that they should have found in the gospel the 
orthodox mystery of the Trinity: but instead of confessing 
the human nature and substantial sufferings of Christ, 
they amused their fancy with a celestial body that passed 
through the Virgin like water through a pipe ; with a 
fantastic crucifixion, that eluded the vain and impotent 
malice of the Jews, A creed thus simple and spiritual was 

not adapted to the genius of the times ; 7 and the 
Svo'pr&cipies rational Christian, who might have been con- 
of the Magians tented with the light yoke and easy burthen of 
Mauichaeans. Jesus and his apostles, was justly offended, 

that the Paulicians should dare to violate the 
unity of God, the first article of natural and revealed 
religion. Their belief and their trust was in the Father, of 
Christ, of the human soul, and of the invisible world. But 
they likewise held the eternity of matter ; a stubborn and 
rebellious substance, the origin of a second principle, of an 
active being, who has created this visible world, and 
exercises his temporal reign till the final consummation of 
death and sin. 8 The appearances of moral and physical 
evil had established the two principles in the ancient 
philosophy and religion of the East; from whence this 
doctrine- was transfused to the various swarms of the 

? The six capital errors of the Paulicians are defined by Peter Siculus, (p. 756,) 
with much prejudice and passion. 

8 Primum illorum axioma est, duo rerum esse principia ; Deum malum et Deum 
bonum, aliumque hujus mundi conditorem et principem, et alium futuri tevi. 
(Petr. Sicul. p. 756.) 



ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PAULICIANS. 761 

Gnostics. A thousand shades may be devised in the nature 
and character of Ahriman, from a rival god to a subordinate 
daemon, from passion and frailty to pure and perfect 
malevolence : but, in spite of our efforts, the goodness and 
the power of Ormuzd are placed at the opposite extremities 
of the line ; and every step' that approaches the one must 
recede in equa/ proportion from the other. 9 

The apostolic labors of Constantine Sylvanus 
soon multiplied the number of his disciples, the ^Jfofjif 
secret recompense of spiritual ambition. The Pauii'cians in 
remnant of the Gnostic sects, and especially the pontus"&c. 
Manichaeans of Armenia, were united under his 
standard ; many Catholics were converted or seduced by 
his arguments ; and he preached with success in the regions 
of Pontus 10 and Cappadocia, which had long since imbibed 
the religion of Zoroaster. The Paulician teachers were 
distinguished only by their scriptural names, by the modest 
title of Fellow-pilgrims, by the austerity of their lives, their 
zeal or knowledge, and the credit of some extraordinary 
gifts of the Holy Spirit. But they were incapable of 
desiring, or at least of obtaining, the wealth and honors of 
the Catholic prelacy. Such anti- Christian pride they bitterly 
censured ; and even the rank of elders or presbyters was 
condemned as an institution of the Jewish synagogue. The 
new sect was loosely spread over the provinces of Asia 
Minor to the westward of the Euphrates; six of their 
principal congregations represented the churches to which 
St. Paul had addressed his epistles ; and their founder 
chose his residence in the neighborhood of Colonia, 11 in the 

9 Two learned critics, Beausobre, {Hist. Critique du Manicheisme , 1. i. iv. v. vi.,) 
and Mosheim, {Institut. Hist. Eccles. and de Rebus Christianis ante Const an- 
tinum, sec. i ii. iii.,) have labored to explore and discriminate the various sys- 
tems of the Gnostics on the subject of the two principles. 

10 The countries between the Euphrates and the Halys were possessed above 
350 years by the Medes, (Herodot. 1. i. c. 103,) and Persians; and the kings of 
Pontus were of the royal race of the Achasmenides, (Sallust. Fragment. 1. iii. with 
the French supplement and notes of the president de Brosses.) * 

in Most probably founded by Pompey after the conquest of Pontus. This 
Colonia, on the Lycus, above Neo-Csesarea, is named by the Turks Coulei-hisar, 
or Chonac, a populous town in a strong country, (D'Anville, Geographie Ancienne, 
torn. ii. p. 34. Tournefort, Voyage du Levant, torn. iii. lettre xxi p. 293.) 

* For the kings of Pontus, see Clinton, [F. H. iii. p. 421-428) ; Sallust is contra- 
dicted by Polybius, (v. 43) ; and after him by Diodorus Siculus, (xix. 40) ; Appian, 
(Mithr. c. 9) ; Florus, (iii. 5) ; and Jerome, {De Vir. Elust. p. 300), who all trace 
the descent of this dynasty from one of the seven Persian chiefs, who assassinated 
the false Smerdis, (521 b. a), and placed Darius Hystaspes on the throne. The 
Achsemenides had their origin during the dark fifteen centuries that preceded 
the time of Cyrus, {L 1 Art de verifier les Dates, p. 214) ; they were the roval 
family of Persia. {Herodot. vii. c. 11.) Had there been one of'them among the 
seven conspirators, it is to be presumed that he would have been chosen king. 
Polybius adds, that the progenitor of the kings of Pontus received from Darius 
the government of the district bordering on the Euxine, where the.y afterwards 
founded an independent kingdom.— Eng. Ch. 



762 PERSECUTION BY THE GREEK EMPERORS. 

same district of Pontus which had been celebrated by the 
altars of Bellona 12 and the miracles of Gregory. 13 After a 
mission ol twenty-seven years, Sylvanus, who had retired 
from the tolerating government of the Arabs, fell a sacrifice 
Persecution to R° man persecution. The laws of the pious 
by the Greek emperors, which seldom touched the lives of 
less odious heretics, proscribed without mercy 
or disguise the tenets, the books, and the persons of the 
Montanists and Manichaeans : the books were delivered to 
the flames ; and all who should presume to secrete such 
writings, or to profess such opinions, were devoted to an 
ignominious death. 14 A Greek minister armed with legal 
and military powers, appeared at Colonia to strike the 
shepherd, and to reclaim, if possible, the lost sheep. By a 
refinement of cruelty, Simeon placed the unfortunate 
Sylvanus before a line of his disciples, who were com- 
manded, as the price of their pardon and the proof of their 
repentence, to massacre their spiritual father. They turned 
aside from the impious office ; the stones dropped from their 
filial hands, and of the whole number, only one executioner 
could be found, a new David, as he is styled by the 
Catholics, who boldly overthrew the giant of heresy. This 
apostate, Justus was his name, again deceived and betrayed 
his unsuspecting brethren, and a new conformity to the 
acts of St. Paul may be found in the conversion of Simeon: 
like the apostle, he embraced the doctrine which he had 
been sent to persecute, renounced his honors and fortunes, 
and acquired among the Paulicians the fame of a missionary 
and a martyr. They were not ambitious of martyrdom, 15 
but in a calamitous period of one hundred and fifty years, 
their patience sustained whatever zeal could inflict; and 

12 The temple of Bellona, at Comana in Pontus, was a powerful and wealthy 
foundation, and the high priest was respected as the second person in the 
kingdom As the sacerdotal office had been occupied by his mother's family, 
Strabo, (1. xii. pp. S09, 835, 836, 837,) dwells with peculiar complacency on the 
temple, the worship, and festival which was twice celebrated every year. But 
the Bellona of Pontus had the features and character of the goddess, not of war, 
but of love. 

13 Gregory, bishop of Neo-Csesarea, (a. d. 240-265,) surnamed Thaumaturgus, 
or the Wonder-worker. An hundred years afterwards, the history or romance 
of his life was composed by Gregory of Nyssa, his namesake and countryman, 
the brother of the great St. Basil. 

M Hoc caeterum ad sua egregia facinora divini atque orthodoxi Imperatores 
addiderunt. ut Manichaeos Montanosque capitali puniri sententia juberent, 
eorumque libros, quocunque in loco inventi essent, flammis tradi : quod si quis 
uspian eosdem occultasse deprehenderetvr, hunc eundem mortis pcenae addiri, 
ejusque bona in fiscum inferri. (Petr. Sicul. p. 759.) What more could bigotry 
and persecution desire? 

15 It should seem that the Paulicians allowed themselves some latitude of 
equivocation and mental reservation, till the Catholics discovered the pressing 
questions, which reduced them to the alternative of apostasy or martyrdom. 
{Petr. Sicul. p. 760). 



REVOLT OF THE PAULICIANS. 763 

power was insufficient to eradicate the obstinate vegetation 
of fanaticism and reason. From the blood and ashes of the 
first victims, a succession of teachers and congregations 
repeatedly arose : amidst their foreign hostilities, they 
found leisure for domestic quarrels : they preached, they 
disputed, they suffered ; and the virtues, the apparent 
virtues, of Sergius, in a pilgrimage of thirty-three years, 
are reluctantly confessed by the orthodox historians. 16 The 
native cruelty of Justinian the second was stimulated bv a 
pious cause ; and he vainly hoped to extinguish, in a single 
conflagration, the name and memory of the Paulicians. By 
their primitive simplicity, their abhorrence of popular 
superstition, the Iconoclast princes might have been recon- 
ciled to some erroneous doctrines ; but they themselves 
were exposed to the calumnies of the monks, and they 
chose to be the tyrants, lest they should be accused as the 
accomplices, of the Manichseans. Such a reproach has 
sullied the clemency of Nicephorus, who relaxed in their 
favor the severity of the penal statues, nor will his character 
sustain the honor of a more liberal motive. The feeble 
Michael the first, the rigid Leo the Armenian, were fore- 
most in the race of persecution ; but the prize must doubtless 
be adjudged to the sanguinary devotion of Theodora, who 
restored the images to the Oriental church. Her inquisitors 
explored the cities and mountains of the lesser Asia, and 
the flatterers of the empress have affirmed that, in a short 
reign, one hundred thousand Paulicians were extirpated by 
the sword, the gibbet, or the flames. Her guilt or merit 
has perhaps been stretched beyond the measure of truth ; 
but if the account be allowed, it must be presumed that 
many simple Iconoclasts were punished under a more 
odious name ; and that some who were driven from the 
church, unwillingly took refuge in the bosom of heresy. 

The most furious and desperate of rebels are Revolt of the 
the sectaries of a religion long persecuted, and Paulicians, 
at length provoked. In a holy cause they are 
no longer susceptible of fear or remorse : the justice of their 
arms hardens them against the feelings of humanity ; and 
they revenge their father's wrongs on the children of their 
tyrants. Such have been the Hussites of Bohemia and the 
Calvinists of France, and such in the ninth century, were 

16 The persecution is told by Petrus Siculus, (p. 579-763), with satisfaction and 
pleasantry. Justus justa persolvit. ..Simeon w<>: not TLToq, but ktjtoc; (.the pro- 
nunciation of the two vowels must have been nearly the same), a great whale 
that drowned the mariners who mistook him for an Island. See likewise 
Cedrenus, (p. 43>435)- 



764 FORTIFICATION OF TEPHRICE. 

the Paulicians of Armenia and the adjacent provinces." 
They were first awakened to the massacre of a governor 
and bishop, who exercised the imperial mandate of con- 
verting or destroying the heretics : and the deepest recesses 
of mount Argaeus protected their independence and 
revenge.* A more dangerous and consuming flame was 
kindled by the persecution of Theodora, and the revolt of 
Carbeas, a valiant Paulician, who commanded the guards 
of the general of the East. His father had been impaled 
by the Catholic inquisitors ; and religion, or at least nature, 
might justify his desertion and revenge. Five thousand 
of his brethren were united by the same motives ; they 
renounced the allegiance of anti-Christian Rome ; a Saracen 
emir introduced Carbeas to the caliph ; and the commander 
of the faithful extended his sceptre to the implacable enemy 
They fortify of the Greeks. In the mountains between Siwas 
Tephrice, anc j Trebizond he founded or fortified the city 
of Tephrice, 18 which is still occupied by a fierce and licentious 
people, and the neighboring hills were covered with the 
Paulician fugitives, who now reconciled the use of the Bible 
and the sword. During more than thirty years, Asia was 
afflicted by the calamities of foreign and domestic war : in 
their hostile inroads the disciples of St. Paul were joined 
with those of Mahomet; and the peaceful Christians, the 
aged parent and tender virgin, who were delivered into 
barbarous servitude, might justly accuse the intolerant 
spirit of their sovereign. So urgent was the mischief, so 
intolerable the shame, that even the dissolute Michael, the 
son of Theodora, was compelled to march in person against 
the Paulicians : he was defeated under the walls of 
Samosata ; and the Roman emperor fled before the heretics 
whom his mother had condemned to the flames. The 

i" Petrus Siculus, (p. 763, 764), the continuator of Theophanes, (1. iv. c. 4, p. 103, 
104), Cedrenus (p. 541, 542, 545), and Zonaras (torn. ii. 1. xvi. p. 156), describes the 
revolt and exploits of Carbeas and his Paulicians. 

18 Otter, ( Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, torn, ii.), is probably the only Frank 
who has visited the independent barbarians of Tephrice, now Divrigni, from 
whom he fortunately escaped in the train of a Turkish officer. 

* Mount Argaeus, now called by the Turk Arstschisch, was between the ancient 
provinces of Cappadocia and Cilicia. According to Strabo, (Lib. xii. 538), it was 
so lofty, that it was crowned with perpetual snow, and from its summit the 
Euxine could be seen to the north, and the bay of Issus in the south. In its 
neighborhood, Tyana gave birth to the noted Apollonius, of whose adventures 
Wieland has made so amusing a romance. At its foot, Eunomius first saw the 
light in the village of Cadora, and ended his days there in exile. To the list of 
heretics produced in this district, may also be added Paul of Samosata. Some 
light will probably be thrown on its early history, when the rock-inscriptions, 
found by Mr. Layard at Wan, are fully interpreted. They record the victories 
of a king Arghistis, whose name indicates a connection with Mount Argaeus. 
Nin. and Bab. 397.— Eng. Ch. 



age 
nor. 



PILLAGE OF ASIA MINOR. 765 

Saracens fought under the same banners, but the victory- 
was ascribed to Carbeas ; and the captive generals, with 
more than a hundred tribunes, were either released by his 
avarice, or tortured by his fanaticism. The valor and 
ambition of Chrysocheir, 19 his successor, embraced a wider 
circle of rapine and revenge. In alliance with his faithful 
Moslems, he boldly penetrated into the heart of Asia ; the 
troops of the frontier and the palace were repeatedly over- 
thrown; the edicts of persecution were answered And pill 
by the pillage of Nice and Nicomedia, of Ancyra AsiaM ' 
and Ephesus ; nor could the apostle St. John protect from 
violation his city and sepulchre. The cathedral of Ephesus 
was turned into a stable for mules and horses ; and the 
Paulicians vied with the Saracens in their contempt and 
abhorrence of images and relics. It is not unpleasing to 
observe the triumph of rebellion over the same despotism 
which has disdained the prayers of an injured people. The 
emperor Basil, the Macedonian, was reduced to sue for 
peace, to offer a ransom for the captives, and to request, in 
the language of moderation and charity, that Chrysocheir 
would spare his fellow-Christians, and content himself with 
a royal donative of gold and silver and silk garments. " If 
" the emperor," replied the insolent fanatic, " be desirous 
" of peace, let him abdicate the East, and reign without 
" molestation in the West. If he refuse, the servants of the 
" Lord will precipitate him from the throne." The reluctant 
Basil suspended the treaty, accepted the defiance, and led 
his army into the land of heresy, which he wasted with fire 
and sword. The open country of the Paulicians was ex- 
posed to the same calamities which they had inflicted ; but 
when he had explored the strength of Tephrice, the multi- 
tude of the barbarians, and the ample magazines of arms 
and provisions, he desisted with a sigh from the hopeless 
seige. On his return to Constantinople he labored, by the 
foundation of convents and churches, to secure the aid of 
his celestial patrons, of Michael the archangel and the 
prophet Elijah ; and it was his daily prayer that he might 
live to transpierce, with three arrows, the head of his 
impious adversary. Beyond his expectations, the wish was 
accomplished : after a successful inroad, Chrysocheir was 
surprised and slain in his retreat ; and the rebel's head was 

19 In the history of Chrysocheir, Genesius, {Chron. pp. 69-70, edit. Venet.,) has 
exposed the nakedness of the empire. Constantine Porphyrogenitus. (in Vit. 
Basil, c. 37-43, pp. 166-171,) has displayed the glory of his grandfather. Cedrenus 
(pp. 570-573,) is without their passions or their knowledge. 



766 TRANSPLANTATION OF THE PAULICIANS. 

triumphantly presented at the foot of the throne. On the 
reception of this welcome trophy, Basil instantly called for 
his bow, discharged three arrows with unerring aim, and 
accepted the applause of the court, who hailed the victory 
Th • r of the royal archer. With Chrysocheir, the glory 

of the Paulicians faded and withered; 20 on the 
second expedition of the emperor, the impregnable Tephrice 
was deserted by the heretics, who sued for mercy or escaped 
to the borders. The city was ruined, but the spirit of 
independence survived in the mountains ; the Paulicians 
defended, above a century, their religion and liberty, infested 
the Roman limits, and maintained their perpetual alliance 
with the enemies of the empire and the gospel. 

About the middle of the eighth century, 

plantation Constantine, surnamed Copronymus by the 

f To m fhrace ia worshipers of images, had made an expedition 

into Armenia, and found, in the cities of Melitene 
and Theodosiopolis, a great number of Paulicians, his 
kindred heretics. As a favor, or punishment, he trans- 
planted them from the banks of the Euphrates to 
Constantinople and Thrace ; and by this emigration their 
doctrine was introduced and diffused in Europe. 21 If the 
sectaries of the metropolis were soon mingled with the 
promiscuous mass, those of the country struck a deep 
root in a foreign soil. The Paulicians of Thrace resisted 
the storms of persecution, maintained a secret correspon- 
dence with their Armenian brethren, and gave aid and 
comfort to their preachers, who solicited, not without 
success, the infant faith of the Bulgarians. 22 In the tenth 
century, they were restored and multiplied by a more 
powerful colony, which John Zimisces 23 transported from 
the Chalybian hills to the valleys of mount Haemus. The 
oriental clergy, who would have preferred the destruction, 
impatiently sighed for the absence of the Manichaeans: the 
warlike emperor had felt and esteemed their valor : their 
attachment to the Saracens was pregnant with mischief; 

20 Svva-efiapuvdi] Trucra y uvdovoa r;)f Te<ppiK7)c evavdpia. How elegant is 
the Greek tongue, even in the mouth of Cedrenus ! 

« Copronymus transported his avyyevelg, heretics ; and thus e^arvvdr] i] 
alpcaic tuv Hav/ataavtiv, says Cedrenus, (p. 463,) who has copied the annals 
of Theophanes. 

22 Petrus Siculus, who resided nine months at Tephrice, (A. d. 870,) for the 
ransom of captives, (p. 764,) was informed of their intended mission, and 
addressed his preservative, the Historia Manichtzorum, to the new archbishop 
of the Bulgarians, (p. 754.) 

23 The colony of Paulicians and Jacobites transplanted by John Zimisces, (a. d. 
970,) from Armenia to Thrace, is mentioned by Zonaras, (torn. ii. 1. xvii. p. 209,) 
and Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, I. xiv. p. 450, &c.) 



COURAGE OF THE PAULICIANS. 767 

but, on the side of the Danube, against the barbarians of 
Scythia, their service might be useful, and their loss would 
be desirable. Their exile in a distant land was softened by 
a free toleration : the Paulicians held the city of Philippo- 
polis and the keys of Thrace ; the Catholics were their 
subjects ; the Jacobite emigrants their associates : they 
occupied a line of villages and castles in Macedonia and 
Epirus ; and many native Bulgarians were associated to the 
communion of arms and heresy. As long as they were 
awed by power and treated with moderation, their voluntary 
bands were distinguished in the armies of the empire ; and 
the courage of these dogs, ever greedy of war, ever thirsty 
of human blood, is noticed with astonishment, and almost 
with reproach, by the pusillanimous Greeks. The same 
spirit rendered them arrogant and contumacious : they 
were easily provoked by caprice or injury ; and their 
privileges were often violated by the faithless bigotry of the 
government and clergy. In the midst of the Norman war, 
two thousand five hundred Manichseans deserted the 
standard of Alexius Comnenus, 24 and retired to their native 
homes. He dissembled till the moment of revenge ; invited 
the chiefs to a friendly conference ; and punished the 
innocent and guilty by imprisonment, confiscation, and 
baptism. In an interval of peace, the emperor undertook 
the pious office of reconciling them to the church and 
state : his winter-quarters were fixed at Philippopolis ; and 
the thirteenth apostle, as he is styled by his pious daughter, 
consumed whole days and nights in theological controversy. 
His arguments were fortified, their obstinacy was melted, 
by the honors and rewards which he bestowed on the most 
eminent proselytes ; and a new city, surrounded with 
gardens, enriched with immunities, and dignified with his 
own name, was founded by Alexius, for the residence of 
his vulgar converts. The important station of Philippopolis 
was wrested from their hands ; the contumacious leaders 
were secured in a dungeon, or banished from their country ; 
and their lives were spared by the prudence, rather than 
the mercy, of an emperor, at whose command a poor and 
solitary heretic was burnt alive before the church of St. 
Sophia. 25 But the proud hope of eradicating the prejudices 
of a nation was speedily overturned by the invincible zeal 

24 The Alexiad of Anna Comnena, (1. v. p. 131 ; 1. vi. pp. 154. 155; 1. xiv. pp. 450- 
457, with the Annotations of Ducange,) records the transactions of her apostolic 
father with the Manichseans. whose abominable heresy she was desirous of refuting. 

25 Basil, a monk, and the author of the Bogomiles, a sect of Gnostics, who soon 
vanished, (Anna Comnena, Alex. 1. xv. pp. 487-494. Mosheim, Hist. Eccl. p. 420.) 



768 THE PAULICIANS IN ITALY AND FRANCE. 

of the Paulicians, who ceased to dissemble or refused to 
obey. After the departure and death of Alexius, they soon 
resumed their civil and religious laws. In the beginning 
of the thirteenth century, their pope or primate (a manifest 
corruption) resided on the confines of Bulgaria, Croatia, 
and Dalmatia, and governed, by his vicars, the filial con- 
gregations of Italy and France. 26 From that aera, a minute 
scrutiny might prolong and perpetuate the chain of tradition. 
At the end of the last age, the sect or colony still inhabited 
the valleys of mount Haemus, where their ignorance and 
poverty were more frequently tormented by the Greek 
clergy than by the Turkish government. The modern 
Paulicians have lost all memory of their origin ; and their 
religion is disgraced by the worship of the cross, and the 
practice of bloody sacrifice, which some captives have 
imported from the wilds of Tartary. 27 

. In the West, the first teachers of the Mani- 

duction into chaean theology had been repulsed by the 
I France d people, or suppressed by the prince. The favor 
and success of the Paulicians in the eleventh 
and twelfth centuries must be imputed to the strong, though 
secret, discontent which armed the most pious Christians 
against the church of Rome.* Her avarice was oppressive, 
her despotism odious : less degenerate perhaps than the 
Greeks in the worship of saints and images, her innovations 
were more rapid and scandalous : she had rigorously defined 
and imposed the doctrine of transubstantiation : the lives 
of the Latin clergy were more corrupt, and the Eastern 
bishops might pass for the successors of the apostles, if 
they were compared with the lordly prelates, who wielded 
by turns the crosier, the sceptre, and the sword. Three 
different roads might introduce the Paulicians into the heart 
of Europe. After the conversion of Hungary, the pilgrims 

26 Matt. Paris, Hist. Major, p. 267. This passage of our English historian is 
alleged by Ducange in an excellent note on Villehardouin, (No. 2oS,) who found 
the Paulicians at Philippopolis the friends of the Bulgarians. 

2: See Marsigli, Stato Militare delV Imperio Ottomano, p. 24. 

* Gothic resistance to ecclesiastical tyranny grew in vigor as the new thrones 
became firmer and society more organized. Germany was the principal scene of 
the struggle. Indignantly enduring what it was yet to weak to shake off, captive 
mind welcomed the Paulicians as its fellow-sufferers and allies; it did not learn 
from them to know its wrongs or to desire enfranchisement. Mr. Hallam, {Middle 
Ages, iii. 463, note,) not more highly than justly, commends this chapter : and corf- 
curs with its "accurate and luminous " view of the influence, exercised by these 
persecuted and dispersed Eastern sectaries on the subsequent changes in the 
West. The Gothic mind must be studied in its infancy and growth ; its native 
strength and internal resources must be attentively scanned, in order to under- 
stand how it prepared its own eventual extrication. That the Paulicians or 
Manichaeans had but a small share in bringing on the Reformation, is evident 
from the absence of their doctrines in the creeds of Protestant Churches. — E. C. 



THE BULGARIANS. 769 

who visited Jerusalem might safely follow the course of the 
Danube : in their journey and return they passed through 
Philippopolis ; and the sectaries, disguising their name and 
heresy, might accompany the French or German caravans 
to their respective countries. The trade and dominion of 
Venice pervaded the coast of the Adriatic, and the hospitable 
republic opened her bosom to foreigners of every climate 
and religion. Under the Byzantine standard, the Paulicians 
were often transported to the Greek provinces of Italy and 
Sicily : in peace and war they freely conversed with strangers 
and natives, and their opinions were silently propagated in 
Rome, Milan, and the kingdoms beyond the Alps. 28 It was 
soon discovered, that many thousand Catholics of every 
rank, and of either sex, had embraced the Manichaean 
heresy ; and the flames which consumed twelve canons of 
Orleans was the first act and signal of persecution. The 
Bulgarians, 29 a name so innocent in its origin, so odious in 
its application, spread their branches over the face of 
Europe. United in common hatred of idolatry and Rome, 
they were connected by a form of episcopal and presbyterian 
government; their various sects were discriminated by 
some fainter or darker shades of theology ; but they 
generally agreed in the two principles, the contempt of the 
Old Testament, and the denial of the body of Christ, either 
on the cross or in the Eucharist. A confession of simple 
worship and blameless manners is extorted from their 
enemies ; and so high was their standard of perfection, that 
the increasing congregations were divided into two classes 
of disciples, of those who practiced, and of those who 
aspired. It was in the country of the Albigeois, 30 in the 
southern provinces of France, that the Paulicians were 

28 The introduction of the Paulicians into Italy and France is amply discussed 
by Muratori, {Antiquitat. Italics Medii sEvi, torn. v. dissert, lx. pp. 81-152,) and 
Mosheim, (pp. 379-382, 419-422.) Yet both have overlooked a curious passage of 
William the Apulian, who clearly describes them in a battle between the Greeks 
and Normans, a. d., 1040, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. torn. v. p. 256) ; 

Cum Graecis aderant quidam, quos pessimus error 

Fecerat amentes, et ab ipso nomen habebant. 
But he is so ignorant of their doctrine as to make them a kind of Sabellians or 
Patripassians. 

29 Bulgari, Boulgres, Bougres, a national appellation, has been applied by the 
French as a term of reproach to usurers and unnatural sinners. The Paterini, 
or Patelini, has been made to signify a smooth and flattering hypocrite, such as 
V Avocat Patelin of that original and pleasant farce, (Ducange, Gloss. Latinitat. 
Medii et Infimi sEvi). The Manichaeans were likewise named Cathari, or the 
pure, by corruption, Gazari, &c. 

so Of "the laws crusade, and persecution against the Albigeois, a just, though 
general, idea is expressed by Mosheim, (pp. 477-481). The detail maybe found in 
the ecclesiastical historians, ancient and modern, Catholics and Protestants, and 
amongst these Fleury is the most impartial and moderate. 



770 PERSECUTION OF THE ALBIGEOIS. 

Persecution most deeply implanted ; and the same vicis- 
Aibigeols, situdes of martyrdom and revenge which had 
a.d. i2oo,&c. been displayed in the neighborhood of the 
Euphrates, were repeated in the thirteenth century on the 
banks of the Rhone. The laws of the Eastern emperors 
were revived by Frederic the second. The insurgents of 
Tephrice were represented by the barons and cities of 
Languedoc. Pope Innocent III. surpassed the sanguinary 
fame of Theodora. It was in cruelty alone that her soldiers 
could equal the heroes of the Crusades, and the cruelty of 
her priests was far excelled by the founders of the Inquisi- 
tion ; 31 an office more adapted to confirm, than to refute, 
the belief of an evil principle. The visible assemblies of the 
Paulicians, or Albigeois, were extirpated with fire and sword ; 
and the bleeding remnant escaped by flight, concealment, or 
Catholic conformity. But the invincible spirit which they 
had kindled still lived and breathed in the Western world. 
In the state, in the church, and even in the cloister, a latent 
succession was preserved of the disciples of St. Paul ; who 
protested against the tyranny of Rome embraced the Bible 
as the rule of faith, and purified their creed from all the 
visions of the Gnostic theology. The struggles of Wickliffe 
in England, of Huss in Bohemia, were premature and ineffec- 
tual ; but the names of Zuinglius, Luther,and Calvin, are 
pronounced with gratitude as the deliverers of nations. 

A philosopher, who calculates the degree of 
consequent their merit and the value of their reformation, 
Reformation w *^ prudently ask from what articles of faith, 
above or against our reason, they have enfran- 
chised the Christians ; for such enfranchisement is doubt- 
less a benefit, so far as it may be compatible with truth and 
piety. After a fair discussion, we shall rather be surprised 
by the timidity, 32 than scandalized by the freedom, of our 

si The Acts, (Liber Sententiarum), of the Inquisition of Thoulouse, (a. d. 1307- 
1323), have been published by Limborch, (Amstelodami, 1692), with a previous 
History of the Inquisition in general. Thev deserved a more learned and critical 
editor. As we must not calumniate even Satan, or the Holy Office. I will observe, 
that of a list of criminals which fills nineteen folio pages, only fifteen men and 
four women were delivered to the secular arm. 

32 The opinions and proceedings of the reformers are exposed in part ii. of the 
general history of Mosheim : but the balance, which he has held with so clear an 
eye, and so steady a hand, begins to incline in favor of his Lutheran brethren.* 

* No salutary change has ever been sudden. Permanent reform has alwavs had 
such unsuccessful precursors as Wickliffe and Huss. The merit of their trium- 
phant followers was in the favorable conjuncture which called them into action. 
To estimate rightly the value of the Reformation, we must watch in all its stages, 
the long previous struggle by which it was preoared, and unveil the antagonist 
ascendancy in its earliest form. There is not a brighter hour in the history of man. 
It was the birth of public opinion, that offspring of Gothic mind, that dread of 
tyrants, that power which is now so rapidly advancing to govern the world.— E. C. 



THE SERVICES OF LUTHER. 771 

first reformers. With the Jews, they adopted the belief 
and defence of all the Hebrew Scriptures, with all their 
prodigies, from the garden of Eden to the visions of the 
prophet Daniel ; and they were bound, like the Catholics, 
to justify against the Jews the abolition of a divine law. In 
the great mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation, the 
reformers were severely orthodox : they freely adopted the 
theology of the four, or the six, first councils ; and with the 
Athanasian creed, they pronounced the eternal damnation 
of all who did not believe the Catholic faith. Transubstan- 
tiation, the invisible change of the bread and wine into the 
body and blood of Christ, is a tenet that may defy the 
power of argument and pleasantry ; but instead of consult- 
ing the evidence of their senses, of their sight, their feeling, 
and their taste, the first Protestants were entangled in their 
own scruples, and awed by the words of Jesus in the insti- 
tution of the sacrament. Luther maintained a corporeal, 
and Calvin a real, presence of Christ in the eucharist ; and 
the opinion of Zuinglius, that it is no more than a spiritual 
communion, a simple memorial has slowly prevailed in the 
reformed churches. 58 But the loss of one mystery was 
amply compensated by the stupendous doctrine of original 
sin, redemption, faith, grace, and predestination, which have 
been strained from the epistles of St. Paul. These subtle 
questions had most assuredly been prepared by the fathers 
and schoolmen : but the final improvement and popular 
use "may be attributed to the first reformers, who enforced 
them as the absolute and essential terms of salvation. 
Hitherto the weight of supernatural belief inclines against 
the Protestants ; and many a sober Christian would rather 
admit that a wafer is God, than that God is a cruel and 
capricious tyrant. 

Yet the services of Luther and his rivals are solid and 
important ; and the philosopher must own his obligations 
to these fearless enthusiasts. 34 I. By their hands, the lofty 
fabric of superstition, from the abuse of indulgences to the 
intercession of the Virgin, has been levelled with the 
ground. Myriads of both sexes of the monastic profession 
were restored to the liberty and labors of social life. A 

33 Under Edward VI. our reformation was more bold and perfect ; but in the 
fundamental articles of the church of England, a strong and explicit declaration 
against the real presence was obliterated in the original copy, to please the people, 
or the Lutherans, or Queen Elizabeth, (Burnet's History of the Reformation, 
vol. ii. pp. 82, 128, 302). 

34 " Had it not been for such men as Luther and myself," said the fanatic 
Whiston to Halley the philosopher " you would now be kneeling before an image 
" of St. Winifred." 



772 SERVETUS AND CALVIN. 

hierarchy of saints and angels, of imperfect and subordinate 
deities, were stripped of their temporal power, and reduced 
to the enjoyment of celestial happiness ; their images and 
relics were banished from the church ; and the credulity 
of the people was no longer nourished with the daily repe- 
tition of miracles and visions. The imitation of Paganism 
v/as supplied by a pure and spiritual worship of prayer and 
thanksgiving, the most worthy of man, the least unworthy 
of the Deity. It only remains to observe, whether such 
sublime simplicity be consistent with popular devotion ; 
whether the vulgar, in the absence of all visible objects, 
will not be inflamed by enthusiasm, or insensibly subside 
in languor and indifference. II. The chain of authority 
was broken, which restrains the bigot from thinking as 
he pleases, and the slave from speaking as he thinks : the 
popes, fathers, and councils, were no longer the supreme 
and infallible judges of the world ; and each Christian was 
taught to acknowledge no law but the Scriptures, no inter- 
preter but his own conscience. This freedom, however, was 
the consequence, rather than the design, of the Reformation. 
The patriot reformers were ambitious of succeeding the 
tyrants whom they had dethroned. They imposed with 
equal rigor their creeds and confessions ; they asserted the 
right of the magistrate to punish heretics with death. The 
pious or personal animosity of Calvin proscribed in Servetus 3 ' 
the guilt of his own rebellion ; 36 and the flames of Smithfield, 

35 The article of Servet in the Dictionnaire Critique of ChaufFepie is the best 
account which I have seen of this shameful transaction. See likewise the Abbe 
d'Artigny, Nouveaux Memoires d' Histoire, &c, torn. ii. pp. 55-154. 

36 I am more deeply scandalized at the single execution of Servetus, than at the 
hecatombs which have blazed in the auto-da-fes of Spain and Portugal. 1. The zeal 
of Calvin seems to have been envenomed by personal malice, and perhaps envy. 
He accused his adversary before their common enemies, the judges of Vienna, 
and betrayed, for his destruction, the sacred trust of a private correspondence. 
2. The deed of cruelty was not varnished by the pretence of danger to the church 
or state. In his passage through Geneva, Servetus was a harmless stranger, who 
neither preached, nor printed, nor made proselytes. 3. A Catholic inquisitor 
yields the same obedience which he requires, but Calvin violated the golden rule 
of doing as he would be done by ; a rule which I read in a moral treatise of 
Isocrates, (in Nicocles, torn. i. p. 93. edit. Battie), four hundred years before the 
publication of the gospel. * r A ndox ovT£ C *"}>' £Tepuv opyifrode, ravra toI( 
uXXotg fXTJ TroieiTE.-f 

* Gibbon has not accurately rendered the sense of this passage, which does 
not contain the maxim of charity. Do unto others as you would they should do 
unto you, but simply the maxim of Justice, Do not to others that which would 
offend you if they should do it to you.— Guizot. 

f M. Guizot complains that Gibbon's version of this passage is not accurate. The 
words of Isocrates may not have been rendered with literal exactness ; but their 
spirit has undoubtedly been preserved. The leaders of the Reformation did not 
understand the impulse by which they were carried forward ; they did not perceive 
that it could not be stopped at their point, that mind was set free from its confine- 
ment of twelve hundred years, and would not be again coerced. Calvin erected for 
himself a church, over which his sway was as absolute as that of another pope. 
To fortify this, he issued his intolerant decree : " Jure gladii hsereticos coercendos 
" esse," and darkened his fame by a deed, above all others, hideous for its malig- 



LUTHER AND CALVIN. 773 

in which he was afterwards consumed, had been kindled for 
the Anabaptists by the zeal of Cranmer. 37 The nature of the 
tiger was the same, but he was gradually deprived of his 
teeth and fangs. A spiritual and temporal kingdom was 
possessed by the Roman pontiff: the Protestant doctors 
were subjects of an humble rank, without revenue or juris- 
diction. His decrees were consecrated by the antiquity of 
the Catholic church : their arguments and disputes were 
submitted to the people ; and their appeal to private judg- 
ment was accepted beyond their wishes, by curiosity and 
enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret 
reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the 
reformed churches ; many weeds of prejudice were eradi- 
cated ; and the disciples of Erasmus 38 diffused a spirit of 
freedom and moderation. The liberty of conscience has 
been claimed as a common benefit, an inalienable right ; 39 
the free governments of Holland 40 and England introduced 
the practice of toleration ; and the narrow allowance of the 
laws has been enlarged by the prudence and humanity of 
the times. In the exercise, the mind has understood the 
limits of its powers, and the words and shadows that might 

3" See Burnet, vol. ii. pp. 84-86. The sense and humanity of the young king 
were oppressed by the authority of the primate. 

38 Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational theology. After a slumber 
of a hundred years, it was revived by the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, Lim- 
borch, and Le Clerc ; in England by Chillingworth, the Latitudinarians of Cam- 
bridge, (Burnet, Hist, of Own Times, vol. i. pp. 261-268, octavo edition), Tillotson, 
Clarke, Hoadley, &c. 

39 I am sorry to observe, that the three writers of the last age, by whom the 
rights of toleration have been so nobly defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are 
all laymen and philosophers. 

40 See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on the religion of the United 
Provinces. I am not satisfied with Grotius, (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. 1. i. p. 13, 
14, edit, in nmo.), who approves the imperial laws of persecution, and only con- 
demns the bloody tribunal of the Inquisition. * 

nity and hateful for its perfidy. The work for which Servetus suffered, Christian- 
ismi Restitutio, was doomed to share its author's fate. Every copy that could 
be found, was used by the bigots of Vienna for fuel when they burned his effigy. 
In the horrid tragedy at Geneva, " femori auctoris alligatus, cum ipso combustus 
" est." (See Pettigrew's Bibliotheca Sussexiana, Lat. MSS. No. 101.) A copy 
that had escaped destruction came into Dr. Mead's possession, who was pre- 
paring to publish it in 1723, when the impression was seized by Dr. Gibson, then 
bishop of London, and committed to the flames. Four copies were saved, which 
with two of the original edition are now the bibliographical treasures of royal and 
scientific libraries. But they have afforded to the press the means of multiplying 
the book, so that it is now generally obtainable.— Eng. Ch. 

* The " Reformed Church " of Holland imbibed too much the spirit, and followed 
the example, of its Genevan founder. As soon as it was itself secure, it began, 
under the second Staathouder, Moritz, to persecute the Arminian Remonstrants ; 
and the synod of Dordrecht emulated the council of Constance. Grotius himself 
was one of its victims. His escape from the castle of Leeuwensteen is a popular 
tale, read by many who do not know that he was confined there for his religious 
opinions. The progress of toleration has restrained, and now .forbids, such 
proceedings. But even as late as 1787, when the Prussian arms reinstated the 
expelled prince of Orange, licentious multitudes were let loose to assault and 
plunder the "godless heretics; " and even in these davs, the orthodox teachers 
do not discourage, as they ought, the prejudices of ignorant fanaticism.— E. C 



774 



LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 



amuse the child can no longer satisfy his manly reason. 41 
The volumes of controversy are overspread with cobwebs : 
the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the 
knowledge or belief of its private members ; and the forms 
of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a 
sigh or a smile by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of 
Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry 
and skepticism. The predictions of the Catholics are accom- 
plished ;f the web of mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, 
Arians, and Socinians, whose numbers must not be computed 
from their separate congregations ; and the pillars of reve- 
lation are shaken by those men who preserve the name 
without the substance of religion, who indulge the license, 
without the temper, of philosophy. 42 

■*i Sir Willian Blackstone, (Commentaries, vol. iv. pp. 53, 54,) explains the law 
of England as it was fixed at the Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of 
those who deny the Trinity, would still leave a tolerable scope for persecution, 
if the national spirit were not more effectual than a hundred statutes.* 

42 I shall recommend to public animadversion two passages in Dr. Priestley, 
which betray the ultimate tendency of his opinions. At the first of these, {Hist. 
0/ the Corruptions of Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276), the priest, at the second, 
(vol. ii. p. 484), the magistrate, may tremble ! 

* That spirit has since expunged these statutes from our code. Its charac- 
teristics and progress illuminate every page of English history, but more particu- 
larly those of the three centuries, since it broke from hierarchial bondage. Its 
distinguishing qualities cannot be found so conspicuously displayed in the annals 
of any other country. (See Hallam, 2, 374.) — Eng. Ch. 

t The Catholics clearly foresaw a decline of faith, if Reason should be permitted 
to contend with Authority. The Protestants, sincere and earnest in their work, 
scarcely realized the bright future for mental liberty their doctrines foreshadowed. 
When Luther. Calvin, and the early reformers, assumed the attitude of Protestants, 
and successfully protested against the hitherto invincible power of the Church of 
Rome, they were the real friends of religious freedom and human progress. If they 
were justified in protesting against papal authority and adopting reason as their 
guide in matters of faith, how could they logically refuse the same rights to other 
and more radical Protestants ? If the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the 
Lutheran might investigate, reason, and think, how could they consistently deny 
the same privilege to the Quaker, the Unitarian, or the Deist ? The Dark Ages of 
Medieval faith, which destroyed Pagan civilization and oppressed the nations of 
Europe, was the logical and legitimate result of the religion of Rome; and the 
returning light of reason and philosophy dates from the decadence of that faith 
and the advent of the intrepid and heterodox Protestant reformers.— E. 





VENUS MARINA— the d 



eified personification of beauty a:: 
The Goddess loves ■ , and fills 



" The air around with beauty." — Byron. 



VENUS AND ADONIS. 

IN the contest of the primeval gods, Saturn maimed Uranus, whose blood 
rendered the sea generative, and out of the foam of the waves arose that re- 
splendent goddess of beauty and of love, called Venus by the Romans and Aphro- 
dite bv the Greeks. In obedience to the will of Jupiter she was joined in wedlock 
with the deformed god Vulcan, and was beloved by many of the Olympian deities. 
In return she loved Mars, Bacchus, Mercury. Neptune, and other gods, and 
also the mortals Anchises, and Adonis. The early death of the latter, from a 
wound received while hunting a wild boar, Venus bitterly lamented and pathetic- 
ally exclaimed : 

" He must not die, 

" Till mutual overthrow of mortal kind ! 
" For he being dead, with him is beauty slain, 
" And beauty dead, black chaos comes again ! " — Shakspeare. 
To mitigate the frantic grief and despair of the ocean-born goddess, the kind 
hearted Proserpina, the daughter of Ceres and wife of Pluto, restored Adonis 
to life, on condition that he should spend six months alternately with Venus and 
herself. " This implies," says Lempriere, " the alternate return of summer and 
" winter. Adonis is often taken for Osiris, because the festivals of both were 
" often begun with mournful lamentations, and finished with a revival of joy, as 
" they were returning to life again." 

" In honor of Adonis," says Moritz, " festivals were celebrated, during which 
" the women bemoaned his death, and, exposing vessels filled only with such 
" flowers as soon wither away, and which were called little gardens of Adonis, 
" mourned life's short enduring blossoms. It would seem that the lamentation 
" on the death of Adonis, which has been general in the East, relates to a still 
" more ancient fiction, which is only renewed in the Greek fable." 

The learned German author, Prof. John Joachim Eschenburg, explains the myth, in 
his Manual of Classical Literature, as follows : " Adonis or Adotiia was an oriental 
" title of the sun, signifying Lord ; the boar was the emblem of winter, during which 
" the productive powers of nature being suspended, Vents was said to lament 
" the loss of Adonis until he was restored again to life; whence both the Syrian 
" and Argive women annually mourned his death, and celebrated his renovation. 
" Adonis is supposed to be the same deity with the Syrian Tammuz." 

" Tammuz came next behind, 

"Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured 
'' The Syrian damsels to lament his fate 
" In amorous ditties, all a summer's day; 
" While smooth Adonis from his native rock 
" Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood 
" Of Tammuz yearly wounded : the love-tale 
" Infected Sion's daughters with like heat; 
" Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch 
" Ezekiel saw." Paradise Lost, Book I. 

" Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which wastoward 
" the north ; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz." — EzekielxYn. 14. 
" Tlie worship of Adonis," says William Smith. LL.D., in his Classical Diction- 
ary, " was of Plnenician origin, and appears to have had reference to the death 
" of nature in winter and to its revival in spring : hence Adonis spends six months 
" in the lower and six months in the upper world. His death and his return to life 
" were celebrated in annual festivals {Adonia) at Byblos, Alexandria, Athens, &c." 
The sacred festival called Adonia was annually observed by the Greeks, 
Phoenicians, Lycians, Syrians, and Egyptians, and probably by the Jews and 
early Christians. It was still celebrated at Alexandria, the cradle'of the Christian 
faith, in the time of Saint Cyril, and probably at Antioch, "where the disciples were 
" first called Christians." It greatlv resembled the religious celebration of thedeath 
and resurrection of Jesus, called Easter, the Passover, or the Lord's Supper, by the 
Christians ; but Christian historians have neglected to point out the exact time 
when the Pagan festival called Adonia was abolished, and the Christian festival 
called Easter was established in its stead. Taylor, in his Diegesis, says that: 

" The Adonia were solemn feasts in honor of Venus, and in memory of her be- 
" loved son Adonis. Venus, as sprung from the seaj Mare, could not be more 
|| honorably distinguished than by her epithet Maria ; Adonia is literally Our 
I' Lord: so that these solemn feasts, without any change or substitution of names, 
" were unquestionably celebrated to the honor of Mary and her son, Our Lord." 
Thus can we clearly trace a marked resemblance between ancient Pagan idolatry 
and modern orthodox Christianity. The one faith seems to be a direct and lineal de- 
scendant from the other. Names have indeed been changed, and ceremonies some- 
what altered. But still the worship is essentially the same. Graven images are still 
adored. Christian statues have merely been substituted for Pagan idols ; and the 
saints and martvrs of Catholicism now usurp the consecrated shrines of the gods 
of the old mythology. — E. 




La Trinita, Antiquita di Salerno.* 

XVI.f 

COUNCIL OF THE GREEKS AND LATINS AT FERRARA AND 
FLORENCE. 

FOUR principal questions had been agitated between 
the Greek and Latin Churches : I. The use of un- 
leavened bread in the communion of Christ's body. 
II. The nature of purgatory. III. The supremacy of the 

* The above representation of the Trinity is from No. 47 of Die Gartenlaube, 
for 1882, published at Leipsic, Germany. It was copied from an oil painting, which 
had been taken from a convent in lower Italy during the revolution, and was 
exhibited at a hotel in Salerno. It is undoubtedly the work of a pious monk, 
and probably dates from the thirteenth century. The broad majestic head is 
painted on a dark background, and is surrounded with the golden halo, or 
aureola, which artists always employ to represent saints and divine personages. 
The hair, which is remarkably abundant, is slightly inclined to curl, and, like 
the beard, is of a dark brown color, contrasting strangely with the ghostly white 
of the face, and producing a weird and startling effect on the mind of the beholder. 
The features are unique. The full, voluptuous lips of the three mouths, suggest 
an Asiatic origin. The Grecian noses are elongated, but narrow, and present no 
Hebrew characteristics. The nostrils are broad and expanded, like representa- 
tives of the Mongolian or Ethiopian races. The forehead is large and massive, 
suggestive of strength and wisdom. The eyebrows are highly arched, and give 
prominence to the peculiarly round and full eyes, which are half closed as if in 
grave meditation. The aspect of the entire countenance is suggestive of deep 
melancholy, suffering, and grief. " The unity of the trinity," is shown by the 
three persons in one godhead,— their equality, by the remarkable resemblance 
between the three portraits. The magical effect of the four eyes, which appa- 
rently gives each portrait, when viewed separately, two complete visual organs, 
illustrates to the devout Trinitarian the mystical, if deceptive, nature of his 
faith ; and may suggest to the confident Unitarian and doubting Agnostic, that— 
" There are more things in heaven and earth, 
" Than are dreamt of in their philosophv." — E. 
fFrom Ch. lxvi. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 

(:-5) 



776 COUNCIL OF THE GREEKS AND LATINS. 

pope. And, IV. The single or double procession of the Holy 
Ghost. The cause of either nation was managed by ten 
theological champions ; the Latins were supported by the 
inexhaustible eloquence of cardinal Julian ; and Mark of 
Ephesus and Bessarion of Nice were the bold and able 
leaders of the Greek forces. We may bestow some praise 
on the progress of human reason, by observing, that the 
first of these questions was now treated as an immaterial 
rite, which might innocently vary with the fashion of the 
age and country. With regard to the second, both parties 
were agreed in the belief of an intermediate state of purga- 
tion for the venial sins of the faithful ; and whether their 
souls were purified by elemental fire, was a doubtful point, 
which in a few years might be conveniently settled on the 
spot by the disputants. The claims of supremacy appeared 
of a more weighty and substantial kind ; yet by the Orientals 
the Roman bishop had ever been respected as the first of the 
five patriarchs ; nor did they scruple to admit, that his juris- 
diction should be exercised agreeably to the holy canons ; 
a vague allowance, which might be defined or eluded by 
occasional convenience. The procession of the Holy Ghost 
from the Father alone, or from the Father and the Son, was 
an article of faith which had sunk much deeper into the 
minds of men ; and in the sessions of Ferrara and Florence, 
the Latin addition oifilioque was subdivided into two ques- 
tions, whether it were legal, and whether it were orthodox. 
Perhaps it may not be necessary to boast on this subject of 
my own impartial indifference ; but I must think that the 
Greeks were strongly supported by the prohibition of the 
council of Chalcedon, against adding any article whatsoever 
to the creed of Nice, or rather of Constantinople. In earthly 
affairs, it is not easy to conceive how an assembly of legis- 
lators can bind their successors, invested with powers equal 
to their own. But the dictates of inspiration must be true 
and unchangeable ; nor should a private bishop, or a pro- 
vincial synod, have presumed to innovate against the judg- 
ment of the Catholic church. On the substance of the 
doctrine, the controversy was equal and endless ; reason is 
confounded by the procession of a Deity ; the gospel, which 
lay on the altar, was silent ; the various texts of the fathers 
might be corrupted by fraud, or entangled by sophistry ; 
and the Greeks were ignorant of the characters and writings 
of the Latin saints. Of this at least we may be sure, that 



i 



LIGHT OF MOUNT THABOR. 777 

neither side could be convinced by the arguments of their 
opponents. Prejudice may be enlightened by reason, and 
a superficial glance may be rectified by a clear and more 
perfect view of an object adapted to our faculties ; but the 
bishops and monks had been taught from their infancy to 
repeat a form of mysterious words ; their national and per- 
sonal honor depended on the repetition of the same sounds ; 
and their narrow minds were hardened and inflamed by the 
acrimony of a public dispute. 

In the treaty between the two nations, several forms of con- 
sent were proposed, such as might satisfy the Latins, with- 
out dishonoring the Greeks ; and they weighed the scruples 
of words and syllables, till the theological balance trembled 
with a slight preponderance in favor of the Vatican. It was 
agreed (I must entreat the attention of the reader), that the 
Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as from 
one principle and one substance ; that he proceeds by the 
Son, being of the same nature and substance, and that he 
proceeds from the Father and the Son, by one spiration 
and production. ******* 

*The divine light of Mount Thabor, a memorable ques- 
tion, consummates the religious follies of the Greeks. The 
fakirs of India, and the monks of the Oriental church, were 
alike persuaded, that in total abstraction of the faculties of 
the mind and body, the purer spirit may ascend to the en- 
joyment and vision of the Deity. The opinion and practice 
of the monasteries of Mount Athos will be best represented 
in the words of an abbot, who flourished in the eleventh 
century. " When thou art alone in thy cell," says the ascetic 
teacher, "shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner; raise 
" thy mind above all things vain and transitory ; recline thy 
" beard and chin on thy breast ; turn thy eyes and thy 
" thought towards the middle of thy belly, the region of the 
" navel ; and search the place of the heart, the seat of the 
" soul. At first, all will be dark and comfortless ; but if you 
" persevere day and night, you will feel an ineffable joy ; 
" and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the 
i heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light." 
This light, the production of a distempered fancy, the creature 
of an empty stomach and an empty brain, was adored by the 
Quietists as the pure and perfect essence of God himself; 
and as long as the folly was confined to Mount Athos, the 

* From Chap, lxiii. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 



778 HERESY OF THE QUIETISTS. 

simple solitaries were not inquisitive how the divine essence 
could be a material substance, or how an immaterial sub- 
stance could be perceived by the eyes of the body. But in 
the reign of the younger Andronicus, these monasteries 
were visited by Barlaam, a Calabrian monk, who was equally 
skilled in philosophy and theology ; who possessed the lan- 
guages of the Greeks and Latins ; and whose versatile genius 
could maintain their opposite creeds, according to the in- 
terest of the moment. The indiscretion of an ascetic revealed 
to the curious traveller the secrets of mental prayer ; and 
Barlaam embraced the opportunity of ridiculing the Quietists, 
who placed the soul in the navel ; of accusing the monks of 
Mount Athos of heresy and blasphemy. His attack com- 
pelled the more learned to renounce or dissemble the simple 
devotion of their brethren : and Gregory Palamas introduced 
a scholastic distinction between the essence and operation 
of God. His inaccessible essence dwells in the midst of an 
uncreated and eternal light ; and this beatific vision of the 
saints had been manifested to the disciples on Mount Thabor, 
in the transfiguration of Christ. Yet this distinction could 
not escape the reproach of Polytheism ; the eternity of the 
light of Thabor was fiercely denied ; and Barlaam still charged 
the Palamites with holding two eternal substances, a visible 
and an invisible God. From the rage of the monks of Mount 
Athos, who threatened his life, the Calabrian retired to Con- 
stantinople, where his smooth and specious manners intro- 
duced him to the favor of the great domestic and the 
emperor. The court and the city were involved in this 
theological dispute, which flamed amidst the civil war; but 
the doctrine of Barlaam was disgraced by his flight and 
apostasy ; the Palamites triumphed ; and their adversary, 
the patriarch John of Apri, was deposed by the consent of 
the adverse factions of the state. In the character of emperor 
and theologian, Cantacuzene presided in the synod of the 
Greek church, which established, as an article of faith, the 
uncreated light of Mount Thabor; and, after so many insults, 
the reason of mankind was slightly wounded by the addition 
of a single absurdity. Many rolls of paper or parchment 
have been blotted ; and the impenitent sectaries who refused 
to subscribe the orthodox creed, were deprived of the honors 
of Christian burial ; but in the next age the question was for- 
gotten ; nor can I learn that the axe or the fagot were 
employed for the extirpation of the Barlaamite heresy. 



NEPTUNE. 

AFTER the pristine gods, Pontus, Oceanus, and Nereus, had disappeared in 
. the dim obscurity of the past, we see the mighty Neptune, the noble son 
of Saturn and Rhea, rising in kingly majesty from the bosom of the waves, and 
assuming undisputed dominion over oceans, rivers, and seas. On the preceding 
page is an engraving of this Pagan deity from one of Sir J. N. Paton's illustrations 
of Shelley's Prometheus Unbound. Like all true gods, this divinity is formed 
in the image of man, and is shown reclining on the seashore, holding in 
his hand the well-known trident — the symbol of his power over the treacherous 
waves — which always bear the traces of his sceptre in the furrows visible on 
their unstable surface as they forever assault and beat against all objects that 
rise above their level, like selfish mortals who strive to drag down to their own 
dull mediocrity those who aspire to a higher and nobler condition. 

It has been said, that while the divinities of Olympus still exist in the realms of 
literature and art, they have been banished forever from the domain of theology ; 
but in truth, though the names of our deities have undergone a change, their attri- 
butes remain the same, and the entire fabric of modern theology is undoubtedly 
of ancient mythological origin. The opposing principles of good and evil, now 
worshiped and feared by all religionists, were also worshiped and feared by the 
ancient fire-worshipers, who adored Jehovah under the name of Ormuzd — 
the author of every blessing — and who feared Satan — the essential principle of 
evil — then named Ahriman. Does not the Christian mystery of the trinity appear 
in the trimurti of Boodhism, and in the " divine " teachings of Plato? Is not the 
worship of Pagan images paralleled by the adoration of Christian saints? Are 
not the doctrines of the incarnation and resurrection— of heaven, and hell, and 
purgatory, and the judgment, essentially Pagan, and are they not now universally 
affirmed throughout Christendom by the hired advocates of Christianity ? 

When Confucius taught his countrymen the noble doctrine, " Do unto others 
" as ye would that others should do unto you," the sentiment was as true and 
pure as when in later years it was proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth to his disci- 
ples : but when Jesus admitted that some " made themselves eunuchs for the king- 
" dom of heaven's sake," the rite, although Christian, remained as ridiculous as 
when it originated in Phrygia and was practiced by the mad priests of Cybele. 
When Mazdak, the Persian, Pythagoras, the Greek, and Jesus, the Jew, taught their 
disciples to hold their property in common, they taught the same doctrine of Com- 
munism that the rich now oppose and the poor approve. It is neither Christian, 
nor Persian, nor Pagan, but expresses the common hope of suffering humanity. 
And all the doctrines that have survived from the classic age of Pagan civiliza- 
tion — the doubts and dreams of poets and seers, the thoughts and systems of 
sages and philosophers — will ultimately be preserved if found to be true, and 
will be discarded if found to be false. But the accumulated knowledge we 
now possess has not been derived from one sect, one country, one religion or 
one race, but rather from all countries, all races, and all religions ; and is the 
product of the wisdom and experience garnered during all the ages. 

" How many ideas of the ancient Stoics." says Castelar, "and how many ideas 
" of the primitive Christians form the foundation of our faith, of our code of morals? 
" What soul has conceived the law to whose empire I find myself submitting? 
" What apostle or what martyr has raised the altar of my belief? Useless ques- 
" tions. Ask not of the cloud where it has been formed, nor of the lightning 
" where it has been kindled; the universe is the laboratory of life, and the univer- 
" sal conscience is the laboratory of ideas. Thus some engender them, others 
" express them, these preach them, those die for them ; and even those -who 
" oppose and combat them aid in their development, till they become the common 
" property of mankind."— E. 



A 

VINDICATION 

OF 

Some Passages 

IN THE 

Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters 

OF THE 

History of the Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire, 

SY 

EDWARD GIBBON, Esq. 




NEW YORK : 

PETER ECKLER, No. 35 FULTON STREET. 

1887. 



Entered according to A«5t of Congress, in the year 1883, by 

PETER ECKLER, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



ECKLER, PRINTER, 36 FULTON BT., N. Y. 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 



The chain of authority was broken, which restrains the bigot from thinking 
as he pleases, and the slave from speaking as he thinks : the popes, 
fathers, and councils, were no longer the supreme and infallible judges 
of the world ; and each Christian was taught to acknowledge no law 
but the Scriptures ; no interpreter but his own conscience." — Gibbon. 



GIBBON was opposed to theological discussion. After 
stating his views in relation to the facts of history, and 
citing his authorities, he was content to leave the subject 
to the judgment of his readers. But the rude charges made by his 
opponents, of " willful misrepresentations, gross errors and servile 
"plagiarisms,"* forced him in self-defence to publish his Vindica- 
tion. " The whole sacerdotal order," says M. Guizot, in his Memoirs 
of Gibbon's Life, " was leagued against him. His most active 
" opponents were rewarded by dignities and favors. "f * * * 
" Theologians, especially, complained of those sections [of his 
" work] which related to ecclesiastical history. They assailed his 
" Fifteenth and Sixteenth chapters, sometimes justly, sometimes 
" acrimoniously, almost always with weapons weaker than those 
" of their adversary. If I may judge of them by what I have read 
"of their labors, they were far surpassed by him in information, 
"acquirements, and talents. "J * * * " His eye was never darkened 
" by the mists which time gathers round the dead. He saw that 
" man is ever the same, whether arrayed in the toga, or in the dress 
" of to-day, whether deliberating in the senate of old, or at the 
" modern council-board, and that the course of events, eighteen 
" centuries ago, was the same as at present." 

*For this polite language the world is indebted to Mr. Davis. 
fMr. Davis received a royal pension. Dr. Apthorpe an arehiepiscopal living. 
Dr. Watson, the most gentlemanly of Gibbon's opponents, was made a bishop. 
X Preface to second edition of Guizot's translation of Gibbon's Rome. 

(3) 



IV PUBLISHER S PREFACE. 

M I shall always seek the truth," said Gibbon, before he began 
to write history, " although as yet I have scarcely found anything 
" but its semblance." In the preface of the fourth volume of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he further remarks : "I 
" shall content myself with renewing my serious protestation, 
" that I have always endeavored to draw from the fountain-head ; 
" that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged 
" me to study the originals, and that, if they have sometimes 
" eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary 
" evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fa<5t were reduced to 
"depend." 

Although Gibbon carefully followed this prudent and reasonable 
course, yet his History was vigorously assailed, on its first appear- 
ance, by prominent Christian writers. " All the religious party, 
" so numerous and respected in England," continues M. Guizot, 
" united to condemn the last two chapters of the volume, — the 
" Fifteenth and Sixteenth of the work, — which contain the history 
" of the establishment of Christianity. Many and loud were their 
11 protests. To Gibbon, these were startling." His own judgment 
was impartial. He had conscientiously endeavored to state the 
truth in regard to the origin of Christianity ; and he was greatly 
astonished that truth should prove so unsatisfactory to Christian 
ears. "Had I believed," he says in his Memoirs, "that the 
" majority of English readers were so fondly attached even to the 
" name and shadow of Christianity, had I foreseen that the pious, 
" the timid, and the prudent, would feel, or affe6l to feel, with 
" such exquisite sensibility, I might, perhaps, have softened the 
" two invidious chapters, which would create many enemies and 
" conciliate few friends." But, as these chapters had been written 
and published to the world, they could not be recalled, nor could 
their influence be destroyed. Their author, however, could be 
assailed, and his motives might be misrepresented. Appeals could 
be made to sectarian faith and religious prejudice, and bigotry 
might, perchance, be stimulated and aroused. 

Although many books have been written in opposition to 
Gibbon, and although the crop of "Answers, Apologies, Remarks, 
"Examinations,''' dfc., proved fruitful and prolific, yet no new facT; 
in regard to the origin of Christianity has been given to the world 
by this army of truculent theologians. No new witnesses have 
by them been summoned ; no new evidence has been discovered ; 
no important testimony has been produced. Gibbon had entirely 
covered the ground, and thoroughly exhausted the subject ; and if 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. V 

the history of Christianity be incomplete, and the proof of its 
divine origin be insufficient, it is surely not the fault of the 
accomplished and learned historian of the Roman Empire. 

Christian writers have almost unanimously awarded the highest 
praise to Gibbon's History, with the exception of the Fifteenth and 
Sixteenth Chapters, in which an historical account is given of the 
origin and progress of Christianity. As presented by Gibbon, the 
chain of evidence seemed so defective and weak, that Christians, 
who believed their faith was grounded on the strongest historical 
proof, were naturally indignant. With more zeal than discretion, 
they accused Gibbon of misrepresentation and fraud — of pervert- 
ing evidence and suppressing facts. After boldly making these 
charges, they undertook the difficult task of proving them to be 
true. The shrewdest of their number, the famous Lord Bishop 
of Landaff, wrote an Apology for Christianity, which reads like an 
orthodox sermon, but which entirely omits the formality of pre- 
senting evidence. Gibbon, who understood the Bishop's motives, 
acknowledged his piety, and ignored his pamphlet. He fully 
realized Waston's difficult position, who was forced to resort to 
declamation or remain dumb. The statements and arguments of 
Gibbon's other opponents, which betray the assurance and intoler- 
ance of their authors, can be seen in this Vindication. Gibbon, who 
had quoted from the highest authorities, was convicted by these 
critics of quoting from other editions than those used by them ; 
and, therefore, although the quotations were right, the references 
were not. Some figures, in copying, had become transposed ; a 
passage which Gibbon described as containing half a dozen lines, 
was found, when accurately measured, to number perhaps eight 
or ten ; and, in addition to these great crimes, Gibbon's printer, 
following the traditions of his craft, had been guilty of several 
typographical blunders. The critics were so elated with these dis- 
coveries, that they quite forgot to present the evidence for Chris- 
tianity which, as they said, Gibbon had suppressed ; and they also 
l.eglected to prove their charges of misrepresentation and fraud. 
Indeed, the contrast between their statements and their evidence 
— their assertions and their facts — is remarkably suggestive. 

" It is impossible to have read Gibbon," says the Ecleblic Review, 
" without obtaining an increased clearness in our view of the 
" several grand changes of the civilized world, by means of which 
" ancient and modern history are linked together. By indefatiga- 
" ble study of such writers as describe the manners and customs 
" of the several countries and ages, Gibbon had become so inti- 
" mately acquainted with the modes of thinking and acting peculiar 



VI PUBLISHER'S PREFACE. 

' to those times and countries, as to have almost attained the 
' clearness of a contemporary author. A familiar acquaintance 
' of the emperor Julian, for instance, could scarcely have described 
' with greater precision whatever constitutes the chief interest of 
' that important reign. He appears to have taken Tacitus for his 
' model, and, like that author, to have aimed continually at making 
1 his words say as much as possible. It is indeed astonishing, 
' how he contrives to express the minutest shade of a thought, 
1 by an unusual, or more emphatic use of common words ; and 
' what a multiplicity of views he has the art to combine in the 
' same sentence. His Vindication of himself against the misinter- 
1 pretation of some of his phrases, gave him an opportunity of 
4 pointing out in those particular cases, how very delicately they 
' were poised. We may give as an instance the word accused, 
1 which, according to his own explanation, was purposely em- 
1 ployed without addition, to signify that the martyr Nemesion 
1 might or might not be guilty of robbery. The bishop Eusebius 
' presumed, that he was innocent ; the Pagan magistrate pre- 
' sumed, as a Pagan, that he was guilty. One thing only was 
1 certain — he was accused. But Mr. Gibbon's style, to be rightly 
' and fully appreciated, ought to be studied. A single reading 
1 will seldom give us a thorough conception of all he means to 
1 convey. On a repeated perusal, when the whole connexion has 
■ become tolerably familiar to the mind, new light breaks in upon 
' us ; and we are surprised to find the entire thought, with all its 
' appurtenances, much richer than we had at first apprehended." 

Peter Eckler. 





PLUTO OR HADES. 



PLUTO. 
' Great prince o' th' gloomy regions of the dead.'' 

PLUTO was a son of Saturn and Rhea, and brother to Jupiter and Neptune 
In the division of his father's empire he received as his portion, the lowei 
world, or the world of shades, and was recognized as the god of the infernal 
regions, of death, and of funerals. He is represented by poets and artists with a 
-tern and menacing air, and his gloomy features never relax into a smile. The 
spates of his dominions are watched by the triple-headed Cerebus, and before they 
can be reached four dismal rivers must be crossed. First, Acheron, the sighing 
river of bitter waters : second, Styx, a lake of horror, and terrible above all : third 
Cocytus the sound of whose waters imitate the groans and cries of the damned 
The fourth river, fhlegethon, rolls onward forever its seething waves of fire. 

But the more sensible Pagans, like the more sensible Christians, gradually dis- 
carded the sulphurous flames and brimstone fuel of their ancestors, and described 
the torments of hell as of a mental rather than of a physical nature. Virgil says 
" Just in the gate, and in the jaws of Hell, 
" Revengeful Care and sullen Sorrow dwell ; 
And pale Diseases, and repining Age, 
Want, Fear, and Famine's unresisted rage : 
" Here Toil and Death, and Death's half brother, Sleep. 

i.Forms terrible to view,) their sentry keep, 
' With anxious Pleasures of a guilty mind, 

Deep Fraud before, and open force behind ; 
' The Furies' iron beds, and Strife that shakes 
" Her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes." 
The Greeks named the realms inhabited by spirits Nodes, and this word, or its 
vnoiiym, Sheol, occurs often in the revised New Testament. By the sentence of 
Minos and his fellow judges in the Field of Truth departed souls were adjudged 
n cording to their deserts, either to that portion of Hades devoted to punishment 
and misery, called Tartarus, or to Elysium, the place of reward and happiness 
The description of the two places corresponds with modern oxthodox idea? 
i egarding the delights of heaven and the torments of hell, and does not conflict 
with The Revelation of St. John. A further agreement between the Christian and 
Pagan stories is shown in the fact, that both describe their spirits as being intelli 
gent, immaterial, capable of speech and action, sensible to pain and pleasure, and 
ioth have, apparently, all the wants and desires of living beings. St. Luke tells 
us that when the rich man lifted up his eyes in hell and saw Lazarus afar off in 
Abraham's bosom, he begged, "being in torments," for a drop of water to cool his 
parched tongue. When Ulysses went into the lower world his mother presented 
herself to him, but when he tried to embrace her, the empty shade receded 
telling him that after death the soul escaped every touch like a dream. Indeed 
Christiaus should not hesitate to acknowledge their indebtedness to Paganism 
for the principal dogmas of their faith, and they should not forget that at the time 
when the materialistic Jews still taught that "death ends all," and that " a man 
hath no preeminence above a beast," the more civilized Pagans had already 
proclaimed the doctrine of the soul's immortality — had kindled in Tartarus 
" torrents and rivers of flame" where the "worm dieth not, and the fire is not 
" quenched," and had pictured in Elysium the beatitude of heavenly bliss — of a 
home "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." For, in the Pagan heaven 
" There rage no storms ; the sun diffuses there 
" His temper'd beams, thro' skies forever fair. 
" There gentler airs, o'er brakes of myrtle blow ; 
" Hills greener rise, and purer waters flow ; 
" There bud the woodbine and Jes'mine pale, 
" With ev'ry bloom that scents the morning gale ; 
" While thousand melting sounds the breezes bear, 
" In silken dalliance to the dreaming ear, 
" And golden fruits, 'mid shadowy blossoms, shine, 
" In fields immortal and in groves divine."— E. 




A VINDICATION.* 



PERHAPS it may be necessary to inform the Public, 
that not long since an Examination of the Fifteenth 
and Sixteenth Chapters of the History of the Decline 
and Fall of the Roman Empire was published by Mr. Davis 
He styles himself a Bachelor of Arts, and a Member of 
Baiiol'College in the university of Oxlord. His title-page 
is a declaration of war; and in the prosecution of his 
religious crusade, he assumes a privilege of disregarding 
the ordinary laws which are respected in the most hostile 
transactions between civilized men or civilized nations. 
Some of the harshest epithets in the English language are 
repeatedly applied to the historian, a part of whose work 
Mr Davis has chosen for the object of his criticism. To 
this author Mr. Davis imputes the crime of betraying the 
confidence and seducing the faith of those readers, who 
may heedlessly stray in the flowery paths of his diction 
without perceiving the poisonous snake that lurks concealed 
in the Jrzss-Latet anguis in herba. The Examiner has 
assumed the province of reminding them of the unfair 
" proceedings of such an insidious friend, who otters the 
" deadly draught in a golden cup, that they mav be less 
" sensible of the danger. 1 In order to which Mr. Davis has 

i FKvis Preface p iL * This Vindication is reprinted verbatim trom the 

original quarto Ted itfon, published in ,796, and edited by John Lord bheiheld.-E. 



8 A VINDICATION. 

" selected several of the more notorious instances of his 
" misrepresentations and errors ; reducing them to their 
" respective heads, and subjoining a long list of almost 
" incredible inaccuracies: and such striking proofs of servile 
" plagiarism, as the world will be surprised to meet with in 
■' an author who puts in so bold a claim to originality and 
" extensive reading 2 ?" Mr. Davis prosecutes this attack 
through an octavo volume of not less than two hundred and 
eighty-four pages with the same implacable spirit; per- 
petually charges his adversary with perverting the ancients, 
and transribing the moderns ; and, inconsistently enough, 
imputes to him the opposite crimes of art and carelessness, 
of gross ignorance and of willful falsehood. The Examiner 
closes his work 3 with a severe reproof of those feeble critics 
who have allowed any share of knowledge to an odious 
antagonist. He presumes to pity and to condemn the first 
historian of the present age, for the generous approbation 
which he had bestowed on a writer, who is content that 
Mr. Davis should be his enemy, whilst he has a right to 
name Dr. Robertson for his friend. 

When I delivered to the world the First Volume of an 
important History, in which I had been obliged to connect 
the progress of Christianity with the civil state and revolu- 
tions of the Roman Empire, I could not be ignorant that 
the result of my enquiries might offend the interest of some 
and the opinions of others. If the whole work was favor- 
ably received by the Public, I had the more reason to expect 
that this obnoxious part would provoke the zeal of those 
who consider themselves as the Watchmen of the Holy City. 
These expectations were not disappointed ; and a fruitful 
crop of Answers, Apologies, Remarks, Examinations, &c, 
sprung up with all convenient speed. As soon as I saw the 
advertisement, I generally sent for them ; for I have never 
affected, indeed I have never understood, the stoical apathy, 
the proud contempt of criticism, which some authors have 
publicly professed. Fame is the motive, it. is the reward, of 
our labors ; nor can I easily comprehend how it is possible 
that we should remain cold and indifferent with regard to the 
attempts which are made to deprive us of the most valuable 
object of our possessions, or at least of our hopes. Besides 
this strong and natural impulse of curiosity, I was prompted 
by the more laudable desire of applying to my own, and the 
public benefit, the well-grounded censures of a learned ad- 

2 Davis, Preface, p. iii. 3 Davis, p. 282, 283. 



A VINDICATION. Q 

versary; and of correcting those faults which the indulgence 
of vanity and friendship had suffered to escape without obser- 
vation. I read with attention several criticisms which were 
published against the two last chapters of my History \ and 
unless I much deceived myself, I weighed them in my own 
mind without prejudice and without resentment. After I 
was clearly satisfied that their principal objections were 
founded on misrepresentation or mistake, I declined with 
sincere and disinterested reluctance the odious task of con- 
troversy, and almost formed a tacit resolution of committing 
my intentions, my writings, and my adversaries to the judg- 
ment of the Public, of whose favorable disposition I had 
received the most flattering proofs. 

The reasons which justified my silence were obvious and 
forcible : the respectable nature of the subject itself, which 
ought not to be rashly violated by the rude hand of contro- 
versy ; the inevitable tendency of dispute, which soon 
degenerates into minute and personal altercation ; the 
indifference of the Public for the discussion of such questions 
as neither relate to the business nor the amusement of the 
present age. I calculated the possible loss of temper and 
the certain loss of time, and considered, that while I was 
laboriously engaged in a humiliating task, which could add 
nothing to my own reputation, or to the entertainment of 
my readers, I must interrupt the prosecution of a work 
which claimed my whole attention, and which the Public, or 
at least my friends, seemed to require with some impatience 
at my hands. The judicious lines of Dr. Young sometimes 
offered themselves to my memory, and I felt the truth of 
his observation, That every author lives or dies by his own 
pen, and that the unerring sentence of Time assigns its 
proper rank to every composition and to every criticism, 
which it preserves from oblivion. 

I should have consulted my own ease, and perhaps I 
should have acted in stricter conformity to the rules of 
prudence, if I had still persevered in patient silence. But 
Mr. Davis may, if he pleases, assume the merit of extorting 
from me the notice which I had refused to more honorable 
foes. I had declined the consideration of their literary 
Objections ; but he has compelled me to give an answer to 
his criminal Accusations. Had he confined himself to the 
ordinary, and indeed obsolete charges of impious principles, 
and mischievous intentions, I should have acknowledged 
with readiness and pleasure that the religion of Mr. Davis 



IO A VINDICATION. 

appeared to be very different from mine. Had he contented 
himself with the use of that style which decency and 
politeness have banished from the more liberal part of man- 
kind, I should have smiled, perhaps with some contempt, 
but without the least mixture of anger or resentment. Every 
animal employs the note, or cry, or howl, which is peculiar 
to its species ; every man expresses himself in the dialect 
the most congenial to his temper and inclination, the most 
familiar to the company in which he has lived, and to the 
authors with whom he is conversant ; and while I was dis- 
posed to allow that Mr. Davis had made some proficiency 
in ecclesiastical studies, I should have considered the 
difference of our language and manners as an unsurmount- 
able bar of separation between us. Mr. Davis has overleaped 
that bar, and forces me to contend with him on the very 
dirty ground which he has chosen for the scene of our 
combat. He has judged, I know not with how mucji pro- 
priety, that the support of a cause, which would disclaim 
such unworthy assistance, depended on the ruin of my 
moral and literary character. The different misrepresenta- 
tions, of which he has drawn out the ignominious catalogue, 
would materially affect my credit as an historian, my 
reputation as a scholar, and even my honor and veracity 
as a gentleman. If I am indeed incapable of understanding 
what I read, I can no longer claim a place among those 
writers who merit the esteem and confidence of the Public. 
If I am capable of willfully perverting what I understand, I 
no longer deserve to live in the society of those men, who 
consider a strict and inviolable adherence to truth as the 
foundation of every thing that is virtuous or honorable in 
human nature. At the same time, I am not insensible that 
his mode of attack has given a transient pleasure to my 
enemies, and a transient uneasiness to my friends. The 
size of his volume, the boldness of his assertions, the 
acrimony of his style, are contrived with tolerable skill to 
confound the ignorance and candor of his readers. There 
are few who will examine the truth or justice of his accusa- 
tions ; and of those persons who have been directed by 
their education to the study of ecclesiastical antiquity, many 
will believe, or will affect to believe, that the success of 
their champion has been equal to his zeal, and that the 
serpent pierced with an hundred wounds lies expiring at 
his feet. Mr. Davis's book will cease to be read (perhaps 
the grammarians may already reproach me for the use of 



A VINDICATION. II 

an improper tense); but the oblivion towards which it 
seems to be hastening, will afford the more ample scope 
for the artful practices of those, who may not scruple to 
affirm, or rather to insinuate, that Mr. Gibbon was publicly- 
convicted of falsehood and misrepresentation ; that the evi- 
dence produced against him was unanswerable ; and that 
his silence was the effect and the proof of conscious guilt. 
Under the hands of a malicious surgeon, the sting of a wasp 
may continue to fester and inflame, long after the vexatious 
little insect has left its venom and its life in the wound. 

The defence of my own honor is undoubtedly the first 
and prevailing motive which urges me to repel with vigor 
an unjust and unprovoked attack ; and to undertake a 
tedious vindication, which, after the perpetual repetition of 
the vainest and most disgusting of the pronouns, will only 
prove that / am innocent, and that Mr. Davis, in his charge, 
has very frequently subscribed his own condemnation. And 
yet I may presume to affirm, that the Public have some 
interest in this controversy. They have some interest to 
know, whether the writer whom they have honored with 
their favor is deserving of their confidence ; whether they 
must content themselves with reading the History of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as a tale amusing 
enough, or whether they may venture to receive it as a fair 
and authentic history. The general persuasion of mankind, 
that where much has been positively asserted, something 
must be true, may contribute to encourage a secret sus- 
picion, which would naturally diffuse itself over the whole 
body of the work. Some of those friends who may now 
tax me with imprudence for taking this public notice of 
Mr. Davis's book, have perhaps already condemned me for 
silently acquiescing under the weight of such serious, such 
direct, and such circumstantial imputations. 

Mr. Davis, who in the last page of his work 4 appears to 
have recollected that modesty is an amiable and useful 
qualification, affirms, that his plan required only that he 
should consult the authors to whom he was directed by 
my references ; and that the judgment of riper years was 
not so necessary to enable him to execute with success the 
pious labor to which he had devoted his pen. Perhaps, 
before we separate, a moment to which I most fervently 
aspire, Mr. Davis may find that a mature judgment is 
indispensably requisite for the successful execution of any 

4 Davis, p. 284.' 



12 A VINDICATION. 

work of literature, and more especially of criticism. Perhaps 
he will discover, that a young student, who hastily consults 
an unknown author, on a subject with which he is unac- 
quainted, cannot always be guided by the most accurate 
reference to the knowledge of the sense, as well as to the 
sight of the passage which has been quoted by his adversary. 
Abundant proofs of these maxims will hereafter be suggested. 
For the present, I shall only remark, that it is my intention 
to pursue, in my defence, the order, or rather the course, 
which Mr. Davis has marked out in his Examijiation ; and 
that I have numbered the several articles of my impeachment 
according to the most natural division of the subject. And 
now let me proceed on this hostile march over a dreary 
and barren desert, where thirst, hunger, and intolerable 
weariness, are much more to be dreaded than the arrows 
of the enemy. 

I. 

" The remarkable mode of quotation which 
Qu gener°a n i! In " Mr. Gibbon adopts, must immediately strike 
" every one who turns to his notes. He some- 
" times only mentions the author, perhaps the book ; and 
" often leaves the reader the toil of finding out, or rather 
" guessing at the passage. The policy, however, is not 
" without its design and use. By endeavoring to deprive 
" us of the means of comparing him with the authorities he 
" cites, he flattered himself, no doubt, that he might safely 
" have recourse to ?riisreprese?itation? " Such is the style 
of Mr. Davis ; who in another place 6 mentions this mode of 
quotation " as a good artifice to escape detection ; " and 
applauds, with an agreeable irony, his own labors in turning 
over a few pages of the Theodosian code. 

I shall not descend to animadvert on the rude and illiberal 
strain of this passage, and I will frankly own that my indig- 
nation is lost in astonishment. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth 
Chapters of my History are illustrated by three hundred 
and eighty-three Notes ; and the nakedness of a few Notes, 
which are not accompanied by any quotation, is amply 
compensated by a much greater number, which contain 
two, three, or perhaps four distinct references ; so that upon 
the whole my stock of quotations, which support and 
justify my facts, cannot amount to less than eight hundred 
or a thousand. As I had often felt the inconvenience of 

5 Davis, Preface, p. ii. 6 id. p. 230. 



A VINDICATION. 13 

the loose and general method of quoting which is so falsely 
imputed to me, I have carefully distinguished the books, the 
chapters, the sections, the pages of the authors to whom I 
referred, with a degree of accuracy and attention, which 
might claim some gratitude, as it has seldom been so 
regularly practiced by any historical writers. And here I 
must confess some obligation to Mr. Davis, who, by staking 
my credit and his own on a circumstance so obvious and 
palpable, has given me this early opportunity of submitting 
the merits of our cause, or at least of our characters, to the 
judgment of the Public. Hereafter, when I am summoned 
to defend myself against the imputation of misquoting the 
text, or misrepresenting the sense of a Greek or Latin 
author, it will not be in my power to communicate the 
knowledge of the languages, or the possession of the books, 
to those readers who may be destitute either of one or of 
the other; and the part which they are obliged to take 
between assertions equally strong and peremptory, may 
sometimes be attended with doubt and hesitation. But, in 
the present instance, every reader who will give himself 
the trouble of consulting the first volume of my History, is 
a competent judge of the question. I exhort, I solicit him 
to run his eye down the columns of Notes, and to count 
hozv many of the quotations are minute and particular, how 
few are vague and general. When he has satisfied him- 
self by this easy computation, there is a word which may 
naturally suggest itself; an epithet, which I should be sorry 
either to deserve or use; the boldness of Mr. Davis's 
assertion, and the confidence of my appeal, will tempt, nay, 
perhaps, will force him to apply that epithet either to one 
or to the other of the adverse parties. 

I have confessed that a critical eye may discover some 
loose and general references ; but as they bear a very 
inconsiderable proportion to the whole mass, they cannot 
support, or even excuse, a false and ungenerous accusation, 
which must reflect dishonor either on the object or on the 
author of it. If the examples in which I have occasionally 
deviated from my ordinary practice were specified and 
examined, I am persuaded that they might always be fairly 
attributed to one of the following reasons. 1. In some rare 
instances, which I have never attempted to conceal, I have 
been obliged to adopt quotations, which were expressed 
with less accuracy than I could have wished. 2. I may 
have accidentally recollected the sense of a passage which 



14 A VINDICATION. 

I had formerly read, without being able to find the place, 
or even to transcribe from memory the precise words. 3. 
The whole tract (as in a remarkable instance of the second 
apology of Justin Martyr) was so short, that a more 
particular description was not required. 4. The form of the 
composition supplied the want of a local reference ; the 
preceding mention of the year fixed the passage of the 
annalist ; and the reader was guided to the proper spot in 
the commentaries of Grotius, Valesius, or Godefroy, by the 
more accurate citation of their original author. 5. The idea 
which I was desirous of communicating to the reader, was 
sometimes the general result of the author or treatise that 
I had quoted ; nor was it possible to confine, within the 
narrow limits of a particular reference, the sense or spirit 
which was mingled with the whole mass. These motives 
are either laudable, or at least innocent. In two of these 
exceptions, my ordinary mode of citation was superfluous ; 
in the other three, it was impracticable. 

In quoting a comparison which Terlullian had used to 
express the rapid increase of the Marcionites, I expressly 
declared that I was obliged to quote it from memory. 7 If I 
have been guilty of comparing them to bees instead of 
wasps, I can however most sincerely disclaim the sagacious 
suspicion of Mr. Davis, ? who imagines that I was tempted 
to amend the simile of Tertullian, from an improper 
partiality for those odious heretics. 

A rescript of Diocletian, which declared the old law (not 
an old law 9 ) had been alleged by me on the respectable 
authority of Fra- Paolo. The Examiner, who thinks that he 
has turned over the pages of the Theodosian code, informs 10 
his reader that it may be found, 1. vi. tit. xxiv. leg. 8. ; he will 
be surprised to learn that this rescript could not be found in 
a code where it does not exist, but that it may distinctly be 
read in the same number, the same title, and the same book 
of the code of Justinian. He who is severe should at least 
be just : yet I should probably have disdained this minute 
animadversion, unless it had served to display the general 
ignorance of the critic in the history of the Roman juris- 
prudence. If Mr^Davis had not been an absolute stranger, 
the most treacherous guide could not have persuaded him 
that a rescript of Diocletian was to be found in the Theo- 
dosian code, which was designed only to preserve the laws 

' Gibbon's History, p. 551. I shall usually refer to the third edition, unless 
there are any various readings. 
» Davis, p. 144. 9 Gibbon, p. 593. 10 Davis, p. 230. 



A VINDICATION. 1 5 

of Constantine and his successors. " Compendiosam (says 
" Theodosius himself) Divalium Constitutionum scientiam, 
" ex D. Constantini temporibus roboramus." (Novell, ad 
calcem Cod. Theod. L. i. tit. i. leg. i.) 

II. Few objects are below the notice of Mr. Errors of the 
Davis, and his criticism is never so formidable press. 

as when it is directed against the guilty corrector of the 
press, who on some occasions has shown himself negligent 
of my fame and of his own. Some errors have arisen 'rom 
the omission of letters ; from the confusion of cyphers, 
which perhaps were not very distinctly marked in the 
original manuscript. The two of the Roman, and the 
eleve?i of the Arabic numerals, have been unfortunately 
mistaken for each other ; the similar forms of a 2 and a 3, 
a 5 and a 6, a 3 and an 8, have improperly been transposed; 
A^tolycus for A^tolycus, Idolatria for Ido/<?latria, Holsterius 
for^iolstewius, had escaped my own observation, as well as 
the diligence of the person who was employed to revise 
the sheets of my History. These important errors, from the 
indulgence of a deluded Public, have been multiplied in the 
numerous impressions of three different editions ; and for 
the present I can only lament my own defects, while I 
deprecate the wrath of Mr. Davis, who seems ready to infer 
that I cannot either read or write. I sincerely admire his 
patient industry, which I despair of being able to imitate ; 
but if a future edition should ever be required, I could wish 
to obtain, on any reasonable terms, the services of so useful 
a corrector. 

III. Mr. Davis had been directed by my 
references to several passages of Optatus D Suon J. ° f 
Milevitanus^ and of the Bibliotheque Ecclesias- 

tique of M. Dupin. 12 He eagerly consults those places, is 
unsuccessful, and is happy. Sometimes the place which I 
have quoted does not offer any of the circumstances which 
I had alleged, sometimes only a few ; and sometimes the 
same passages exhibit a sense totally adverse and repugnant 
to mine. These shameful misrepresentations incline Mr. 
Davis to suspect that I have never consulted the original, 
(not even of a common French book ! ) and he asserts his 
right to censure my presumption. These important charges 
form two distinct articles in the list of misrepresentations ; 
but Mr. Davis has amused himself with adding to the slips 
of the pen or of the press, some complaints of his ill 

11 Davis, p. 73. 12 Id. p. 132-136. 



16 A VINDICATION. 

success, when he attempted to verify my quotations from 
Cyprian and from Shaw's Travels)* 

The success of Mr. Davis would indeed have been some- 
what extraordinary, unless he had consulted the same 
editions, as well as the same places. I shall content myself 
with mentioning the editions which I have used, and with 
assuring him, that if he renews his research, he will not, or 
rather that he will, be disappointed. 

t Mr. Gibbon's Editions. Mr. Davis's Editions. 

Optatus Milevitanus, by Dupin. fol. Paris, 1700. 
Dupin. Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, 410. Paris, 1690. 
Cyprumi Opera, Edit. Fell. fol. Amsterdam, 1700. 
Skaw's Travels, 4to. London, 1757. 



Fol. Antwerp, 1702. 
8vo. Paris, 1687. 
Most probably Oxon, 1682. 
The folio Edition. 



IV. The nature of my subject had led me to 
^^dtus?^' mention, not the real origin of the Jews, but 
their first appeara7ice to the eyes of other 
nations ; and I cannot avoid transcribing the short passage 
in which I had introduced them. " The Jews, who u^der 
11 the Assyrian and Persian monarchies had languished for 
" many ages the most despised portion of their slaves, 
" emerged from their obscurity under the successors of 
" Alexander. And as they multiplied to a surprising degree 
" in the East, and afterwards in the West, they soon excited 
11 the curiosity and wonder of other nations. 14 " This simple 
abridgment seems in its turn to have excited the wonder 
of Mr. Davis, whose surprise almost renders him eloquent. 
" What a strange assemblage," says he, " is here? It is like 
" Milton's chaos, without bound, without dimension, where 
" time and place is lost. In short, what does this display 
11 afford us, but a deal of boyish coloring to the prejudice 
" of much good history? 15 " If I rightly understand Mr. 
Davis's language, he censures, as a piece of confused 
declamation, the passage which he has produced from my 
History ; and if I collect the angry criticisms which he has 
scattered over twenty pages of controversy, 16 I think I can 
discover that there is hardly a period, or even a word in 
this unfortunate passage, which has obtained the approbation 
of the Examiner. 

As nothing can escape his vigilance, he censures me for 
including the twelve tribes of Israel under the common 
appellation of Jews, 17 and for extending the name of 
Assyrians to the subjects of the kings of Babylon ; 18 and 
again censures me, because some facts which are affirmed 
or insinuated in my text, do not agree with the strict and 

u Davis, p. 151-155. M Gibbon, p. 537. 15 Davis, p. 5. 

16 Id. p. 2-22. 17 Id. p. 3. is Id, p. 2. 



A VINDICATION. 1 7 

proper limits which he has assigned to those national 
denominations. The name of Jews has indeed been 
established by the sceptre of the tribe of Judah, and, in the 
times which precede the captivity, it is used in the more 
general sense with some sort of impropriety ; but surely I am 
not peculiarly charged with a fault which has been conse- 
crated with the consent of twenty centuries, the practice of 
the best writers, ancient as well as modern, (see Josephus and 
Prideaux, even in the titles of their respective works,) and by 
the usage of -modern languages, of the Latin, the Greek, and 
if I may credit Reland, of the Hebrew itself, (see Palestin, 
L. i. c. 6.) With regard to the other word, that of Assyrians, 
most assuredly I will not lose myself in the labyrinth of 
the Asiatic monarchies before the age of Cyrus ; nor indeed 
is any more required for my justification, than to prove 
that Babylon was considered as the capital and royal 
seat of Assyria. If Mr. Davis were a man of learning, 
I might be morose enough to censure his ignorance of 
ancient geography, and to overwhelm him under a load 
of quotations, which might be collected and transcribed 
with very little trouble : but as I must suppose that he has 
received a classical education, I might have expected him 
to have read the first book of Herodotus, where that his- 
torian describes, in the clearest and most elegant terms, the 
situation and greatness of Babylon : T^ 6e Aaavpnjc ra jiev kov nai 
aXka ■aoTiiafiara fieyaka noTJ^a, to de ovofiaarorarov teat taoxvporarov nai 
ev&a <7(j)L, Nivov avaararov yevofievrjg, ra fiaoLArjia KareaTTjKe^, rjv Ba&Xuv. 
(Clio. c. 178.) I may be surprised that he should be so 
little conversant with the Cyropcedia of Xenophon, in the 
whole course of which the King of Babylon, the adversary 
of the Medes and Persians, is repeatedly mentioned by the 
style and title of the Assyrian, f de Kocvpioc, 6 BafyAwa re 
exuv Kai ttjv aXkr\v kcovpiav. (L. ii. p. 102, 103, edit. Hutchin- 
son.) But there remains something more : and Mr. Davis 
must apply the same reproaches of i?iacctiracy, if not 
ignorance, to the prophet Isaiah, who, in the name of 
Jehovah, announcing the downfall of Babylon and the 
deliverence of Israel, declares with an oath, " And as I have 
" purposed the thing shall stand : to crush the Assyrian 
" in my land, and to trample him on my mountains. Then 
" shall his yoke depart from off them ; and his burthen 
shall be removed from off their shoulders." (Isaiah, xiv. 
24, 25. Lowth's new translation. See likewise the Bishop's 
note, p. 98.) Our old translation expresses, with less 



1 8 A VINDICATION. 

elegance, the same meaning ; but I mention with pleasure 
the labors of a respectable Prelate, who in this, as well as 
in a former work, has very happily united the most critical 
judgment, with the taste and spirit of poetry. 

The jealousy which Mr. Davis affects for the honor of 
the Jewish people will not suffer him to allow that they 
were slaves to the conquerors of the East : and while he 
acknowledges that they were tributary and dependent, he 
seems desirous of introducing, or even inventing, some 
milder expression of the state of vassalage and subservi- 
ence ; X9 from whence Tacitus assumed the words of 
despectissima pars servientmm. Has Mr. Davis never heard 
of the distinction of civil and political slavery ? Is he 
ignorant that even the natural and victorious subjects of an 
Asiatic despot have been deservedly marked with the 
opprobrious epithet of slaves by every writer acquainted 
with the name and advantage of freedom ? Does he not 
know that, under such a government, the yoke is imposed 
with double weight on the necks of the vanquished, as the 
rigor of tyranny is aggravated by the abuse of conquest ? 
From the first invasion of Judaea by the arms of the 
Assyrians, to the subversion of the Persian monarchy by 
Alexander, there elapsed a period of above four hundred 
years, which included about twelve ages or generations of 
the human race. As long as the Jews asserted their 
independence, they repeatedly suffered every calamity which 
the rage and insolence of a victorious enemy could inflict : 
the throne of David was overturned, the temple and city 
were reduced to ashes, and the whole land, a circumstance 
perhaps unparalleled in history, remained threescore and 
ten years without inhabitants, and without cultivation. 
(// Chronicles, xxxvi. 21.) According to an institution which 
has long prevailed in Asia, and particularly in the Turkish 
government, the most beautiful and ingenious youths were 
carefully educated in the palace, where superior merit 
sometimes introduced these fortunate slaves to the favor of 
the conqueror, and to the honors of the state. (See the 
book and example of Daniel.) The rest of the unhappy 
Jews experienced the hardships of captivity and exile in 
distant lands ; and while individuals were oppressed, the 
nation seemed to be dissolved or annihilated. The gracious 
edict of Cyrus was offered to all those who worshiped the 
God of Israel in the temple of Jerusalem ; but it was 

19 Davis, p. 6. 



A VINDICATION. 1 9 

accepted by no more than forty-two thousand persons of 
either sex and of every age, and of these about thirty 
thousand derived their origin from the tribes of Judah, of 
Benjamin, and of Levi. (See Ezra, i. Nehe7niah, vii. and 
Prideaux's Connections, vol. i. p. 107. fol. edit. London, 
1718.) The inconsiderable band of exiles, who returned to 
inhabit the land of their fathers, cannot be computed as the 
hundred and fiftieth part of the mighty people that had 
been numbered by the impious rashness of David. After a 
survey, which did not comprehend the tribes of Levi and 
Benjamin, the monarch was assured that he reigned over 
one million Jive hundred and seventy thousand men that 
drew sword, (/ Chronicles, xxi. 1 — 6,) and the country 
of Judaea must have contained near seven millions of free 
inhabitants. The progress of restoration is always less 
rapid than that of destruction ; Jerusalem, which had been 
ruined in a few months, was rebuilt by the slow and 
interrupted labors of a whole century ; and the Jews, who 
gradually multiplied in their native seats, enjoyed a servile 
and precarious existence, which depended on the capricious 
will of their master. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah do 
not afford a very pleasing view of their situation under the 
Persian empire ; and the book of Esther exhibits a most 
extraordinary instance of the degree of estimation in which 
they were held at the court of Susa. A minister addressed 
his king in the following words, which may be considered 
as a commentary on the despectissima pars servientium of 
the Roman historian : " And Haman said to king Ahasuerus, 
" There is a certain people scattered abroad, and dispersed 
" among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom ; 
" and their laws are diverse from all people, neither keep 
" they the King's laws ; therefore it is not for the King's 
" profit to suffer them. If it please the King, let it be 
" written that they may be destroyed ; and I will pay ten 
" thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have 
" the charge of the business, to bring it to the King's 
" treasuries. And the king took his ring from his hand, 
" and gave it to Haman, the son of Hammedatha the 
" Agagite, the Jews' enemy. And the king said unto Haman, 
" The silver is given unto thee ; the people also, to do with 
" them as it seemeth good to the." {Esther, iii. 8 — 11.) 
This trifling favor was asked by the Minister, and granted 
by the Monarch, with an easy indifference, which expressed 
their contempt for the lives and fortunes of the Jews ; the 



20 A VINDICATION. 

business passed without difficulty through the forms of 
office ; and had Esther been less lovely, or less beloved, a 
single day would have consummated the universal slaughter 
of a submissive people, to whom no legal defence was 
allowed, and from whom no resistance seems to have been 
dreaded. I am a stranger to Mr. Davis's political principles ; 
but I should think that the epithet of slaves, and of despised 
slaves, may, without injustice, be applied to a captive 
nation, over whose head the sword of tyranny was suspended 
by so slender a thread. 

The policy of the Macedonians was very different from 
that of the Persians ; and yet Mr. Davis, who reluctantly 
confesses that the Jews were oppressed by the former, does 
not understand how long they were favored and protected 
by the latter. 20 In the shock of those revolutions which 
divided the empire of Alexander, Judaea, like the other 
provinces, experienced the transient ravages of an advancing 
or retreating enemy, who led away a multitude of captives. 
But, in the age of Josephus, the Jews still enjoyed the 
privileges granted by the kings of Asia and Egypt, who 
had fixed numerous colonies of that nation in the new cities 
of Alexandria, Antioch, &c, and placed them in the same 
honorable condition (iGo-o/urac, laoTipvs) as the Greeks and 
Macedonians themselves. (Joseph. Antiquitat. L. xii. c. i. 
3. p. 585. 596. vol. i. edit. Havercamp.) Had they been 
treated with less indulgence, their settlement in those 
celebrated cities, the seats of commerce and learning, was 
enough to introduce them to the knowledge of the world, 
and to justify my absurd proposition, that they emerged 
from obscurity under the successors of Alexander. 

The Jews remained and flourished under the mild do- 
minion of the Macedonian princes, till they were compelled 
to assert their civil and religious rights against Antiochus 
Epiphanes, who had adopted new maxims of tyranny ; and 
the age of the Maccabees is perhaps the most glorious period 
of the Hebrew annals. Mr. Davis, who on this occasion is 
bewildered by the subtlety of Tacitus, does not comprehend 
why the historian should ascribe the independence of the 
Jews to three negative causes, " Macedonibus invalidis, 
" Parthis nondum adultis, et Romani procul aberant." To 
the understanding of the critic, Tacitus might as well have 
observed, that the Jews were not destroyed by a plague, a 
famine, or an earthquake ; and Mr. Davis cannot see, for his 

20 Davis, p. 4. 



A VINDICATION. 21 

own part, any reason why they may not have elected kings 
of their own two or three hundred years before. 21 Such in- 
deed was not the reason of Tacitus : he probably considered 
that every nation, depressed by the weight of a foreign power, 
naturally rises towards the surface, as soon as the pressure 
is removed ; and he might think that, in a short and rapid 
history of the independence of the Jews, it was sufficient for 
him to show that the obstacles did not exist, which, in an 
earlier or in a later period, would have checked their efforts. 
The curious reader, who has leisure to study the Jewish and 
Syrian history, will discover, that the throne of the As- 
monsean princes was confirmed by the two great victories of 
the Parthians over Demetrius Nicator, and Antiochus Sidetes 
(see Joseph. Antiquitat. Jud. L. xiii. c. 5, 6, 8, 9. Justin^ xxxvi. 
i. xxxviii. 10. with Usher and Prideaux, before Christ 141 and 
130) ; and the expression of Tacitus, the more closely it is 
examined, will be the more rationally admired. 

My quotations 22 are the object of Mr. Davis's criticism, 23 
as well as the text of this short, but obnoxious passage. He 
corrects the error of my memory, which had suggested 
servitutis instead oiservientium; and so natural is the alliance 
between truth and moderation, that on this occasion he for- 
gets his character, and candidly acquits me of any malicious 
design to misrepresent the words of Tacitus. The other 
references, which are contained in the first and second Notes 
of my Fifteenth Chapter, are connected with each other, and 
can only be mistaken after they have been forcibly separated. 
The silence of Herodotus is a fair evidence of the obscurity 
of the Jews, who had escaped the eyes of so curious a traveler. 
The Jews are first mentioned by Justin, when he relates the 
siege of Jerusalem by Antiochus Sidetes ; and the conquest 
of Judaea, by the arms of Pompey, engaged Diodorus and 
Dion to introduce that singular nation to the acquaintance 
of their readers. These epochs, which are within seventy 
years of each other, mark the age in which the Jewish people/ 
emerging from their obscurity, began to act a part in the so- 
ciety of nations, and to excite the curiosity of the Greek and 
Roman historians. For that purpose only, I had appealed 
to the authority of Diodorus Siculus, of Justin, or rather of 
Trogus Pompeius, and of Dion Cassius. If I had designed 
to investigate the Jewish antiquities, reason, as well as faith, 
must have directed my inquiries to the Sacred Books, which, 
even as human productions, would deserve to be studied as 
one of the most curious and original monuments of the East. 

21 Davis, p. 8. : 22 Gibbon, p. 537. Note 1, 2. 23 Davis, p. 10, 11, 20. 



22 A VINDICATION. 

I stand accused, though not indeed by Mr. Davis, for pro- 
fanely depreciating the promised Land, as well as the chosen 
People. The Gentleman without a name has placed this 
charge in the front of his battle, 24 and if my memory does 
not deceive me, it is one of the few remarks in Mr. Apthorpe's 
book, which have any immediate relation to my History. 
They seem to consider in the light of a reproaeh, and of an 
unjust reproach, the idea which I had given of Palestine, as 
of a territory scarcely superior to Wales in extent and fer- 
tility i 25 and they strangely convert a geographical observa- 
tion into a theological error. When I recollect that the 
imputation of a similar error was employed by the implacable 
Calvin, to precipitate and to justify the execution of Servetus, 
I must applaud the felicity of this country, and of this age, 
which has disarmed, if it could not mollify, the fierceness 
of ecclesiastical criticism. (See Dictionnaire Critique de 
Chauffepie, torn. iv. p. 223.) 

As I had compared the narrow extent of Phoenicia and 
Palestine with the important blessings which those celebrated 
countries had diffused over the rest of the earth, their minute 
size became an object not of consure but of praise. 
Ige?ites a?ii?nos angusto in pectore versant. 
The precise measure of Palestine was taken from Temple- 
man's Survey of the Globe : he allows to Wales 701 1 square 
English miles, to the Morea or Peloponnesus 7220, to the 
Seven United Provinces 7546, and to Judaea or Palestine 
7600. The difference is not very considerable, and if any 
of these countries has been magnified beyond its real size, 
Asia is more liable than Europe to have been affected by the 
inaccuracy of Mr. Templeman's maps. To the authority 
of this modern survey, I shall only add the ancient and 
weighty testimony of Jerom, who passed in Palestine above 
thirty years of his life. From Dan to Bershebah, the two 
fixed and proverbial boundaries of the Holy Land, he reckons 
no more than one hundred and sixty miles {Hieronym. ad 
Dardanum, torn. iii. p. 66), and the breadth of Palestine 
cannot by any expedient be stretched to one half of its 
length. (See Reland, Palestin. L. ii. c. 5. p. 421.) 

The degrees and limits of fertility cannot be ascertained 
with the strict simplicity of geographical measures. When- 
ever we speak of the productions of the earth, in different 
climates, our ideas must be relative, our expressions vague 
and doubtful ; nor can we always distinguish between the 

24 Remarks, p. i. 25 Gibbon, p. 30. 



A VINDICATION. 23 

gifts of Nature and the rewards of industry. The emperor 
Frederick II., the enemy and the victim of the Clergy, is ac- 
cused of saying, after his return from his Crusade, that the 
God of the Jews would have despised his promised land, if he 
had once seen the fruitful realms of Sicily and Naples. (See 
Giannone Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli, torn. ii. p. 245.) 
This raillery, which malice has perhaps falsely imputed to 
Frederick, is inconsistent with truth and piety ; yet it must 
be confessed, that the soil of Palestine does not contain that 
inexhaustible, and as it were spontaneous principle of 
fecundity, which, under the most unfavorable circumstance, 
has covered with rich harvests the banks of the Nile, the 
fields of Sicily, or the plains of Poland. The Jordan is the 
only navigable river of Palestine : a considerable part of 
the narrow space is occupied, or rather lost, in the Dead 
Sea, whose horrid aspect inspires every sensation of disgust, 
and countenances every tale of horror. The districts which 
border on Arabia partake of the sandy quality of the ad- 
jacent desert. The face of the country, except the sea-coast 
and the valley of the Jordan, is covered with mountains, 
which appear for the most part as naked and barren rocks; 
and in the neighborhood of Jerusalem there is a real scarcity 
of the two elements of earth and water, (See MaundreVs 
Travels, p. 65, and Reland, Palestin. torn. i. p. 238 — 395.) 
These disadvantages, which now operate in* their fullest ex- 
tent, were formerly corrected by the labors of a numerous 
people, and the active protection of a wise government. 
The hills were clothed with rich beds of artificial mould, 
the rain was collected in vast cisterns, a supply of fresh 
water was conveyed by pipes and aqueducts to the dry 
lands, the breed of cattle was encouraged in those parts 
which were not adapted for tillage, and almost every spot 
was compelled to yield some production for the use of the 
inhabitants. (See the same testimonies and observations 
of Maundrel and Reland.) 

Pater ipse colendi 

Haudfacilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem 
Movit agros ; curis acuens mortalia corda 
Nee torpere gravi passus sua Regna veterno. 
Such are the useful victories which have been achieved by 
Man on the lofty mountains of Switzerland, along the rocky 
coast of Genoa, and upon the barren hills of Palestine ; and 
since Wales has flourished under the influence of English 
freedom, that rugged country has surely acquired some 



24 A VINDICATION. 

share of the same industrious merit and the same artificial 
fertility. Those Critics who interpret the comparison of 
Palestine and Wales as a tacit libel on the former, are them- 
selves guilty of an unjust satire against the latter, of those 
countries. Such is the injustice of Mr. Apthorpe and of 
the anonymous Gentleman : but if Mr. Davis (as we may 
suspect from his name) is himself of Cambrian origin, his 
patriotism on this occasion has protected me from his zeal. 

V. I shall begin this article by the confession of an error 
which candor might perhaps excuse, but which my Adver- 
sary magnifies by a pathetic interrogation. " When he tells 
" us, that he has carefully examined all the original materials, 
" are we to believe him ? or is it his design to try how far 
" the credulity and easy disposition of the age will suffer 
" him to proceed unsuspected and undiscovered ? " 26 
Quonsque tandem abuteris Catilina patientia nostra ? 

In speaking of the danger of idolatry, I had quoted the 
picturesque expression of Tertullian, " Recogita sylvam et 
quantse latitant spinae," and finding it marked c. 10. in my 
Notes, I hastily, though naturally, added de Idololatria, in- 
stead of de Corona Militis, and referred to one Treatise of 
Tertullian instead of another. 27 And now let me ask in my 
turn, whether Mr. Davis had any real knowledge of the 
passage which I^had misplaced, or whether he made an un- 
generous use of his advantage, to insinuate that I had in- 
vented or perverted the words of Tertullian ? Ignorance is 
less criminal than malice, and I shall be satisfied if he will 
plead guilty to the milder charge. 

The same observation may be extended to a passage of 
Le Clerc, which asserts, in the clearest terms, the ignorance 
of the more ancient Jews with regard to a future state. Le 
Clerc lay open before me, but while my eye moved from 
the book to the paper, I transcribed the reference c. I. sect. 
8. instead of sect. i. c 8. from the natural, but erroneous 
persuasion, that Chapter expressed the larger, and Section 
the smaller division : 28 and this difference, of such trifling 
moment and so easily rectified, holds a distinguished place 
in the list of Misrepresentations which adorn Mr. Davis's 
Table of Contents. 29 But to return to Tertullian. 

The infernal picture, which I had produced 30 from that 
vehement writer, which excited the horror of every humane 
reader, and which even Mr. Davis will not explicitly defend, 
has furnished him with a few critical cavils. 31 Happy should 

26 Davis, p. 25. 27 Gibbon, p. 553. Note 40. 28 Gibbon, p. 560. Note 58. 

29 Davis, p. 19. 30 Gibbon, p. 566. si Davis, p. 29-33. 



A VINDICATION. 25 

I think myself, if the materials of my History could be 
always exposed to the Examination of the Public ; and I 
shall be content with appealing to the impartial Reader, 
whether my Version of this Passage is not as fair and as 
faithful, as the more literal translation which Mr. Davis has 
exhibited in an opposite column. I shall only justify two 
expressions which have provoked his indignation. 1. I had 
observed that the zealous African pursues the infernal 
description in a long variety of affected and unfeeling 
witticisms ; the instances of Gods, of Kings, of Magistrates, 
of Philosophers, of Poets, of Tragedians, were introduced 
into my Translation. Those which I had omitted, relate to 
the Dancers, the Charioteers, and the Wrestlers ; and it is 
almost impossible to express those conceits which are con- 
nected with the language and manners of the Romans. But 
the reader will be sufficiently shocked, when he is informed 
that Tertullian alludes to the improvement which the agility 
of the Dancers, the red livery of the Charioteers, and the 
attitudes of the Wrestlers, would derive from the effects of 
fire. " Tunc histriones cognoscendi solutiores multo per 
" ignem ; tunc spectandus Auriga in flammea rota totus 
" ruber. Tunc Xystici contemplandi, non in Gvmnasiis, 
" sed in igne jaculati." 2. I cannot refuse to answer Mr. 
Davis's very particular question, Why I appeal to Tertullian 
for the condemnation of the wisest and most virtuous of the 
Pagans ? Because I am inclined to bestow that epithet on 
Trajan and the Antonines, Homer and Euripides, Plato 
and Aristotle, who are all manifestly included within the 
fiery description which I had produced. 

I am accused of misquoting Tertullian ad Scapulam, 32 
as an evidence that Martyrdoms were lately introduced into 
Africa. 33 Besides Tertullian, I had quoted from Ruinart 
{Acta Sine era, p. 84.) the Acts of the Scy /titan Martyrs; 
and a very moderate knowledge of Ecclesiastical History 
would have informed Mr. Davis, that the two authorities 
thus connected establish the proposition asserted in my 
Text. Tertullian, in the above-mentioned Chapter, speaks 
of one of the Proconsuls of Africa, Vigellius Saturninus, 
" qui primus hie gladium in nos egit ; " the Acta Sincera 
represent the same Magistrate as the Judge of the Scyllitan 
Martyrs ; and Ruinart, with the consent of the best critics, 
ascribes their sufferings to the persecution of Severus. 
Was it my fault if Mr. Davis was incapable of supplying 
the intermediate ideas ? 

32 Davis, p. 35, 36. 33 Gibbon, p. 609. N. 172. 



26 A VINDICATION. 

Is it likewise necessary that I should justify the frequent 
use which I have made of Tertullian ? His copious writings 
display a lively and interesting- picture of the primitive 
Church, and the scantiness of original materials scarcely 
left me the liberty of choice. Yet as I was sensible, that the 
Montanism of Tertullian is the convenient screen which our 
orthodox Divines have placed before his errors, I have, with 
peculiar caution, confined myself to those works which were 
composed in the more early and sounder part of his life. 

As a collateral justification of my frequent appeals to 
this African Presbyter, I had introduced, in the third edition 
of my History, two passages of Jerom and Prudentius, 
which prove that Tertullian was the master of Cyprian, 
and that Cyprian was the master of the Latin Church" 
Mr. Davis assures me, however, that I should have done 
better not to have " added this note, 35 as I have only accu- 
" mulated my inaccuracies." One inaccuracy he has indeed 
detected, an error of the press, Hieronym. de Viris illustribus, 
c. 53 for 63 ; but this advantage is dearly purchased by Mr. 
Davis. Etti<5os tov 6i6arjna?.ov, which he produces as the original 
words of Cyprian, has a braver and more learned sound, than 
Da magistrum ; but the quoting in Greek, a sentence which 
was pronounced, and is recorded, in Latin, seems to bear 
the mark of the most ridiculous pedantry; unless Mr. Davis, 
consulting for the first time the Works of Jerom, mistook 
the Version of Sophronius, which is printed in the opposite 
column, for the Text of his original Author. My reference 
to Prudentius, Hymn. xiii. 100. cannot so easily be justified, 
as I presumptuously believed that my critics would continue 
to read till they came to a full stop. I shall now place before 
them, not the first verse only, but the entire period, which 
they will find full, express, and satisfactory. The Poet says 
of St. Cyprian, whom he places in Heaven, 

Nee minus involitat terris, nee ab hoc recedit o?'be : 
Disserit, eloquitur, tractat, docet, instruit, prophetat ; 
Nee Libyae populos tantum reget, exit usque in ortuni 
So/is, et usque obitum ; Gallos fovet, ivibuit Britannos, 
Presidet Hesperiae, Christum scrit ultimis Hibernis. 
suipicius VI. On the subject of the imminent dangers 

Se ^ind US which the Apocalypse has so narrowly escaped, 36 
Fra-Paoio. Mr. Davis accuses me of misrepresenting the 
sentiments of Suipicius Severus and Fra- Paolo, 37 with this 

34 Gibbon, p. 566. N. 72. 35 Davis, p. 145. 

36 Gibbon, p. 563, 564. N. 67. 37 Davis, p. 40-44. 



A VINDICATION. 27 

difference, however, that I was incapable of reading or 
understanding the text of the Latin author ; but that I will- 
fully perverted the sense of the Italian historian. These 
imputations I shall easily wipe away, by showing that, in 
the first instance, I am probably in the right ; and that, in 
the second, he is certainly in the wrong. 

1. The concise and elegant Sulpicius, who has been 
justly styled the Christian Sallust, after mentioning the 
exile and Revelations of St. John in the isle of Patmos, 
observes (and surely the observation is in the language of 
complaint), " Librum sacrae Apocalypsis, qui quidem a 
" plerisque aut stulte aut impie non recipitur, conscriptum 
11 edidit." I am found guilty of supposing plerique to 
signify the greater number ; whereas Mr. Davis, with 
Stephens's Dictionary in his hand, is able to prove that 
plerique has not always that extensive meaning, and that a 
classic of good authority has used the word in a much more 
limited and qualified sense. Let the Examiner therefore try 
to apply his exception to this particular case. For my part, 
/ stand under the protection of the general usage of the 
Latin language, and with a strong presumption in favor of 
the justice of my cause, or at least of the innocence and fair- 
ness of my intentions ; since I have translated a familiar word, 
according to its acknowledged and ordinary acceptation. 

But, " if I had looked into the passage, and found that 
" Sulpicius Severus there expressly tells us, that the 
" Apocalypse was the work of St. John, I could not have 
" committed so unfortunate a blunder, as to cite this Father 
" as saying, That the greater number of Christians denied 
" its Canonical authority. 38 " Unfortunate indeed would 
have been my blunder, had I asserted that the same 
Christians who denied its Canonical authority, admitted it 
to be the work of an Apostle. Such indeed was the opinion 
of Severus himself, and his opinion has obtained the sanction 
of the Church ; but the Christians whom he taxes with folly 
or impiety for rejecting this sacred book, must have 
supported their error by attributing the Apocalypse to some 
uninspired writer ; to John the Presbyter, or to Cerinthus 
the Heretic. 

If the rules of grammar and of logic authorize, or at least 
allow me to translate plerique by the greater number, the 
Ecclesiastical History of the fourth century illustrates and 
justifies this obvious interpretation. From a fair comparison 
of the populous ness and learning of the Greek and Latin 

33 Davis, p. 270 



28 A VINDICATION. 

Churches, may I not conclude that the former contained 
the greater number of Christians qualified to pass sentence 
on a mysterious prophecy composed in the Greek language? 
May I not affirm, on the authority of St. Jerom, that the 
Apocalypse was generally rejected by the Greek Churches? 
" Quod si earn itlie Epistle to the Hebrews) Latinorum con- 
" suetudo non recipit inter Scripturas Canonicas ; nee Grae- 
" corum Ecclesiae Apocalypsim Johannis eadem libertate 
" suscipiunt. Et tamen nos utramque suscipimus, nequaqam 
" hujus temporis consuetudinem, sed veterum auctoritatem 
"sequentes." Epistol. ad Dardanum, torn. iii. p. 68. 

It is not my design to enter any further into the contro- 
verted history of that famous book ; but I am called upon 39 
to defend my Remark that the Apocalypse was tacitly ex- 
cluded from the sacred canon by the council of Laodicea. 
(Canon LX.) To defend my Remark, I need only state 
the fact in a simple but more particular manner. The 
assembled Bishops of Asia, after enumerating all the books 
of the Old and New Testament which should be read in 
churches, omit the Apocalypse, and the Apocalypse alone; 
at a time when it was rejected or questioned by many pious 
and learned Christians, who might deduce a very plausible 
argument from the silence of the Synod. 

2. When the Council of Trent resolved to pronounce 
sentence on the Canon of Scripture, the opinion which 
prevailed, after some debate, was to declare the Latin 
Vulgate authentic and almost infallible ; and this sentence, 
which was guarded by formidable anathemas, secured 
all the books of the Old and New Testament which com- 
posed that ancient version, " che si dichiarassero tutti in 
" tutte le parte come si trovano nella Biblia Latina, esser 
" di Divina e ugual autorita." (Zstorza del Co?icilio Tride7i- 
tino, L. ii. p. 147. Helmstadt ^Vicenza) 1761.) When the 
merit of that version was discussed, the majority of the 
theologians urged, with confidence and success, that it was 
absolutely necessary to receive the Vulgate as authentic 
and inspired, unless they wished to abandon the victory to 
the Lutherans, and the honors of the church to the 
Grammarians. " In contrario della maggior parte de 

" teologi era detto che-questi nuovi Grammatici 

" consonderanno ogni cosa, e sara fargli giudici e arbitri 
" della fede ; e in luogo de teologi e canonisti, converra 
" tener il primo conto nell' assumere a Vescovati e 
11 Cardinalati de pedanti." (Istoria del Concilio Tride?iti?io } 

39 By Mr. Davis, p. 41, and by Dr. Chelsum, Remarks, p. 57. 



A VINDICATION. 29 

L. ii. p. 149.) The sagacious historian, who had studied 
the Council, and the judicious Le Courayer, who had 
studied his author (Histoire du Concile de Trente, torn. i. 
p. 245. Londres 1736.), consider this ridiculous reason as 
the most powerful argument which influenced the debates 
of the Council : but Mr. Davis, jealous of the honor of a 
synod which placed tradition on a level with the Bible, 
affirms that Fra- Paolo has given another more substantial 
reason on which these Popish bishops built their determina- 
tion, That after dividing the books under their consideration 
into three classes ; of those which had been always held 
for divine ; of those whose authenticity had formerly been 
doubted, but which by use and custom had acquired canon- 
ical authority ; and of those which had never been properly 
certified ; the Apocalypse was judiciously placed by the 
Fathers of the Council in the second of these classes. 

The Italian passage, which, for that purpose, Mr. Davis 
has alleged at the bottom of his page, is indeed taken from 
the text of Fra-Paolo ; but the reader, who will give himself 
the trouble, or rather the pleasure, of perusing that incom- 
parable historian, will discover that Mr. Davis has only 
mistaken a motion of the opposition, for a measure of the 
administration. He will find that this critical division, which 
is so erroneously ascribed to the public reason of the council, 
was no more than the ineffectual proposal of a temperate 
minority, which was soon over-ruled by a majority of artful 
statesmen, bigoted monks, and dependent bishops. 

" We have here an evident proof that Mr. Gibbon is 
" equally expert in misrepresenting a modern as an ancient 
" writer, or that he willfully conceals the most material 
" reason, with a design, no doubt, to instill into his reader a 
" notion, that the authenticity of the Apocalypse is built on 
" the slightest foundation." 40 

VII. I had cautiously observed (for I was ap- 
prized of the obscurity of the subject) that the 
Epistle of Clemens does not lead us to discover any traces 
of Episcopacy either at Corinth or Rome. 41 In this obser- 
vation I particularly alluded to the republican form of 
salutation. " The church of God inhabiting Rome, to the 
" church of God inhabiting Corinth ; " without the least 
mention of a Bishop or President in either of those ecclesi- 
astical assemblies. 

Yet the piercing eye of Mr. Davis 42 can discover not only 
traces, but evident proofs, of Episcopacy, in this Epistle of 

40 Davis, p. 44. 41 Gibbon, p. 592. N. no. 42 Davis, p. 44, 45. 



30 A VINDICATION. 

Clemens ; and he actually quotes two passages, in which he 
distinguishes by capital letters the word Bishops, whose in- 
stitution Clemens refers to the Apostles themselves. But 
can Mr. Davis hope to gain credit by such egregious 
trifling ? While we are searching for the origin of bishops, 
not merely as an ecclesiastical title, but as the peculiar name 
of an order distinct from that of presbyters, he idly produces 
a passage, which, by declaring that the Apostles established 
in every place bishops and deacons, evidently confounds the 
presbyters with one or other of those two ranks. I have 
neither inclination nor interest to engage in a controversy 
which I had considered only in an historical light; but I 
have already said enough to show that there are more traces 
of a disingenuous mind in Mr. Davis, than of an episcopal 
order in the Epistle of Clemens. 
Eus bius VIII. Perhaps, on some future occasion, I may 

examine the historical character of Eusebius ; 
perhaps I may inquire, how far it appears from his words 
and actions, that the learned Bishop of Caesarea was averse 
to the use of fraud, when it was employed in the service of 
religion. At present, I am only concerned to defend my 
own truth and honor, from the reproach of misrepresenting 
the sense of the ecclesiastical historian. Some of the charges 
of Mr. Davis on this head are so strong, so pointed, so 
vehemently urged, that he seems to have staked, on the 
event of the trial, the merits of our respective characters. 
If his assertions are true, I deserve the contempt of 
learned, and the abhorrence of good men. If they are 

joiCfi *(•% 3fS 3JC 5p 5JC J|C 2j* 

i. I had remarked, without any malicious intention, that 
one of the seventeen Christians who suffered at Alexandria 
was likewise accused of robbery. 43 Mr. Davis 44 seems en- 
raged because I did not add that he was falsely accused, 
takes some unnecessary pains to convince me that the 
Greek word eavKo^avT^dj] signifies /also accusatus, and " can 
" hardly think that anyone who had looked into the original, 
" would dare thus absolutely to contradict the plain testi- 
" mony of the author he pretends to follow." A simple 
narrative of this fact, in the relation of which Mr. Davis has 
really suppressed several material circumstances, will afford 
the clearest justification. 

43 Gibbon, p. 654. N. 75. 

4-t Davis, p. 61, 62, 63. This ridiculous charge is repeated by another sycophant, 
(in the Greek sense of the word,) and forms one of the valuable communications, 
which the learning of a Randolph suggested to the candor of a Chelsum. See 
Remarks, p. 209. 



A VINDICATION. 3 1 

Eusebius has preserved an original letter from Dionysius 
Bishop of Alexandria to Fabius Bishop of Antioch, in which 
the former relates the circumstances of the persecution 
which had lately afflicted the capital of Egypt. He allows 
a rank among the martyrs to one Nemesion, an Egyptian, 
who was falsely or maliciously accused as a companion of 
robbers. Before the Centurion he justified himself from this 
calumny, which did not relate to him ; but being charged 
as a Christian, he was brought in chains before the governor. 
That unjust magistrate, after inflicting on Nemesion a double 
measure of stripes and tortures, gave orders that he should 
be burnt with the robbers. (Dionys. apud Euseb. L. vi. c. 41.) 

It is evident that Dionysius represents the religious suf- 
ferer as innocent of the criminal accusation which had been 
falsely brought against him. It is no less evident, that 
whatever might be the opinion of the Centurion, the su- 
preme magistrate considered Nemesion as guilty, and that 
he affected to show, by the measure of his tortures, and by 
the companions of his execution, that he punished him, not 
only as a Christian, but as a robber. The evidence against 
Nemesion, and that which might be produced in his favor, 
are equally lost ; and the question (which fortunately is of 
little moment) of his guilt or innocence rests solely on the 
opposite judgments of his ecclesiastical and civil superiors. 
I could easily perceive that both the bishop and the gov- 
ernor were actuated by different passions and prejudices 
towards the unhappy sufferer ; but it was impossible for me 
to decide which of the two was the most likely to indulge 
his prejudices and passions at the expense of truth. In this 
doubtful situation I conceived that I had acted with the most 
unexceptionable caution, when I contented myself with ob- 
serving that Nemesion was accused; a circumstance of a pub- 
lic and authentic nature, in which both parties were agreed. 

Mr. Davis will no longer ask, " What possible evasion can 
" Mr. Gibbon have recourse to, to convince the world that 
" I have falsely accused him of a gross misrepresentation 
" of Eusebius ? " 

2. Mr. Davis 45 charges me with falsifying (falsifyi?ig is a 
very serious word) the testimony of Eusebius ; because it 
suited my purpose to magnify the humanity and even kind- 
ness of Maxentius towards the afflicted Christians. 46 To 
support this charge, he produces some part of a chapter of 
Eusebius, the English in his text, the Greek in his notes, 

45 Davis, p. 64, 65. 46 Gibbon, p. 693. N. 168. 



32 A VINDICATION. 

and makes the ecclesiastical historian express himself in the 
following terms : " Although Maxentius at first favored the 
" Christians with a view of popularity, yet afterwards, being 
" addicted to magic, and every other impiety, he exerted 
" himself in persecuting the Christians, in a more severe 
" and destructive manner than his predecessors had done 
" before him." 

If it were in my power to place the volume and chapter 
of Eusebius {Hist. Eccles. L. viii. c. 14.) before the eyes of 
every reader, I should be satisfied and silent. I should not 
be under the necessity of protesting that in the passage 
quoted, or rather abridged, by my adversary, the second 
member of the period, which alone contradicts my account 
of Maxentius, has not the most distant reference to that 
odious tyrant. After distinguishing the mild conduct which 
he affected towards the Christians, Eusebius proceeds to 
animadvert with becoming severity on the general vices of 
his reign ; the rapes, the murders, the oppression, the pro- 
miscuous massacres, which I had faithfully related in their 
proper place, and in which the Christians, not in their reli- 
gious, but in their civil capacity, must occasionally have 
shared with the rest of his unhappy subjects. The ecclesi- 
astical historian then makes a transition to another tyrant, 
the cruel Maximin, who carried away from his friend and 
ally Maxentius the prize of superior wickedness ; for he 
was addicted to Magic arts, and was a cruel persecutor of 
the Christians. The evidence of words and facts, the plain 
meaning of Eusebius, the concurring testimony of Csecilius 
or Lactantius, and the superfluous authority of versions and 
commentators, establish beyond the reach of doubt or cavil, 
that Maximin, and not Maxentius, is stigmatized as a per- 
secutor, and that Mr. Davis alone has deserved the reproach 
of falsifying the testimony of Eusebius. 

Let him examine the chapter on which he founds his ac- 
cusation. If in that moment his feelings are not of the most 
painful and humiliating kind, he must indeed be an object 
of pity ! 

3. A gross blunder is imputed to 'me by this polite an- 
tagonist,* 7 for quoting, under the name of Jerom, the Chron- 
icle which I ought to have described as the work and 
property of Eusebius ; 48 and Mr. Davis kindly points out 
the occasion of my blunder, That it was the consequence of 
my looking no farther than Dodwell for this remark, and 

41 Davis, p. 66. *8 Gibbon, p. 673. N. 125. 



A VINDICATION. 33 

of not rightly understanding his reference. Perhaps the 
Historian of the Roman Empire may be credited, when he 
affirms that he frequently consulted a Latin Chronicle of the 
affairs of that empire ; and he may the sooner be credited, 
if he shows that he knows something more of the Chronicle 
besides the name and the title-page. 

Mr. Davis who talks so familiarly of the Chronicle of Eu- 
sebius, will be surprised to hear that the Greek original no 
longer exists. Some chronological fragments, which had 
successively passed through the hands of Africanus and 
Eusebius, are still extant, though in a very corrupt and mu- 
tilated state, in the compilations of Syncellus and Cedrenus. 
They have been collected, and disposed by the labor and 
ingenuity of Joseph Scaliger ; but that proud critic, always 
ready to applaud his own success, did not flatter himself 
that he had restored the hundredth part of the genuine 
Chronicle of Eusebius. " Ex eo {syncello) omnia Eusebiana 
" excerpsimus quae quidem deprehendere potuimus ; quae, 
" quanquam ne centesima quidem pars eorum esse videtur 
" quae ab Eusebio relicta sunt, aliquod tamen justum volu- 
" men explere possunt." (Jos Scaliger Animadversiones 
in Grczca Eusebii in Thesauro Temponwi, p. 401. Am- 
stelod. 1658.) While the Chronicle of Eusebius was perfect 
and entire, the second book was translated into Latin by 
Jerom, with the freedom, or rather license, which that volu- 
minous author, as well as his friend or enemy Rufinus, al- 
ways assumed. Plurima in vertendo mutat, infuleit, praeterit," 
says Scaliger himself, in the Prolegomena p. 22. In the 
persecution of Aurelian, which has so much offended Mr. 
Davis, we are able to distinguish the work of Eusebius from 
that of Jerom, by comparing the expressions of the Ecclesi- 
astical History with those of the Chronicle. The former af- 
firms, that towards the end of his reign, Aurelian was moved 
by some councils to excite a persecution against the Chris- 
tians ; that his design occasioned a great and general rumor; 
but that when the letters were prepared, and as it were 
signed, divine justice dismissed him from the world. Hcfy 
rial ^slais uc av diujjuov nad' tj^uv eyeipeiev avetciveiro. izolv£ rer/v 6 irapa 
nacu irepi thth "koyoQ. fieXkovra 6e 7}6r} nai ax^ov enreiv roig naff ijuuv 
ypa/ifiaaiv VKOOTjfieiBnevov, Oeia fiereiaiv Siktj. Euseb. Hist. EccleS- 
L. vii. c. 30. Whereas the Chronicle relates, that Aurelian 
was killed after he had excited or moved a persecution 
against the Christians, " cum adversum nos persecutionem 
" movisset." 



34 A VINDICATION. 

From this manifest difference I assume a right to assert; 
first, that the expression of the Chronicle of Jerom, which 
is always proper, became in this instance necessary ; and 
secondly, that the language of the fathers is so ambiguous 
and incorrect, that we are at a loss to determine how far 
Aurelian had carried his intention before he was assassin- 
ated. I have neither perverted the fact, nor have I been 
guilty of a gross blunder. 

IX. " The persons accused of Christianity 
ar yr. „ ^ ac j ^ convenient time allowed them to settle 
" their domestic concerns, and to prepare their answer. 49 " 
This observation had been suggested, partly by a general 
expression of Cyprian (de Lapsis, p. 88. Edit. Fell. Amstelod. 
1700.), and more especially by the second Apology of 
Justin Martyr, who gives a particular and curious example 
of this legal delay. 

The expressions of Cyprian, "dies negantibus prsestitu- 
" tus, &c," which Mr. Davis most prudently suppresses, 
are illustrated by Mosheim in the following words : *' Pri- 
" mum qui delati erant aut suspecti, illis certum dierum 
" spatium judex definiebat, quo decurrente, secum delibe- 
" rare poterant, utrum profited Christum an negare 
" mallent ; exploranda* fidei prcefiniebantur dies, per hoc 
u tempus liberi manebant in domibus suis ; nee impediebat 
11 aliquis quod ex consequentibus apparet, ne fuga sibi 
" consulerent. Satis hoc erat humanum." {De Rebus Chris - 
tianis ante Constantinum, p. 480.) The practice of Egypt 
was sometimes more expeditious and severe; but this 
humane indulgence was still allowed in Africa during the 
persecution of Decius. 

But my appeal to Justin Martyr is encountered by Mr. 
Davis with the following declaration: 50 "The reader will 
" observe, that Mr. Gibbon does not make any reference 
" to any section or division of this part of Justin's work ; 
" with what view we may shrewdly suspect, when I tell 
" him, that after an accurate perusal of the whole second 
" Apology, I can boldly affirm, that the following instance 
" is the only one that bears the most distant similitude to 
" what Mr. Gibbon relates as above on the authority of 
" Justin. What I find in Justin is as follows : " A woman 
" being converted to Christianity, is afraid to associate with 
" her husband, because he is an abandoned reprobate, lest 
" she should partake of his sins. Her husband, not being 

49 Gibbon, p. 663. so Davis, p. 71, 72. 



A VINDICATION. 



35 



" able to accuse her, vents his rage in this manner on one 
" Ptolemseus, a teacher of Christianity, and who had con- 
" verted her, &c." Mr. Davis then proceeds to relate the 
severities inflicted on Ptolemaeus, who made a frank and 
instant profession of his faith ; and he sternly exclaims, that 
if I take every opportunity of passing encomiums on the 
humanity of Roman magistrates, it is incumbent on me to 
produce better evidence than this. 

His demand may be easily satisfied, and I need only for 
that purpose transcribe and translate the words of Justin, 
which immediately precede the Greek quotation alleged at 
the bottom of my adversary's page. I am possessed of two 
editions of Justin Martyr, that of Cambridge, 1768, in 8vo. 
by Dr. Ashton, who only published the two Apologies ; and 
that of all his works, published in fol. Paris, 1742, by the 
Benedictines of the Congregation of St. Maar : the following 
curious passage may be found, p. 164, of the former, and p. 
89, of the latter edition : Karrjyopiav t:ekoi7]tcu, leycov avTrjv xp'°- 
riavTjv eivai, kcli i] fiev fli&tdiov cot to avTonparopL avadedune, nporepov 
Gvvxup7}Qr\vai avrij (hoiKijaaa^ai ra eavrrig a^tnaa. eireira airoloynaao$ai 
7rept t« KarrjyopiiaroQ, fiera ttjv tuv Trpayftaruv avTijj; Swikijuiv. nai 
mrvexofnioas tsto. « He brought an accusation against her, 
" saying, that she was a Christian. But she presented a 
" petition to the Emperor, praying that she might first be 
" allowed to settle her domestic concerns ; and promising, 
" that after she had settled them, she would then put in her 
" answer to the accusation. This you granted." 

I disdain to add a single reflection ; nor shall I qualify 
the conduct of my adversary with any of those harsh epi- 
thets, which might be interpreted as the expressions of re- 
sentment, though I should be constrained to use them as the 
only words in the English language which could accurately 
represent my cool and unprejudiced sentiments. 

X. In stating the toleration of Christianity 
during the greatest part of the reign of Diocletian, 
I had observed, 51 that the principal officers of the palace, 
whose names and functions were particularly specified, en- 
joyed, with their wives and children, the free exercise of 
the Christian religion. Mr. Davis twice affirms, 52 in the most 
deliberate manner, that this pretended fact, which is asserted 
on the sole authority, is contradicted by the positive evi- 
dence, of Lactantius. In both these affirmations Mr. Davis 
is inexcusably mistaken. 

51 Gibbon, p. 676. N. 133, 134. 62 Davis, p. 75, 76. 



36 A VINDICATION. 

i. When the storms of persecution arose, the priests, who 
were offended by the sign of the Cross, obtained an order 
from the Emperor, that the profane, the Christians, who 
accompanied him to the Temple, should be compelled to 
offer sacrifice ; and this incident is mentioned by the 
rhetorician, to whom I shall not at present refuse the name 
of Lactantius. The act of idolatry, which, at the expiration 
of eighteen years, was required of the officers of Diocletian, 
is a manifest proof that their religious freedom had hitherto 
been inviolate, except in the single instance of waiting on 
their master to the Temple ; a service less criminal than the 
profane compliance for which the minister of the King of 
Syria solicited the permission of the prophet of Israel. 

2. The reference which I made to Lactantius expressly 
pointed out this exception to their freedom. But the proof 
of the toleration was built on a different testimony, which 
my disingenuous adversary has concealed ; an ancient and 
curious instruction composed by Bishop Theonas, for the 
use of Lucian, and the other Christian eunuchs of the palace 
of Diocletian. This authentic piece was published in the 
Spicilegium of Dom Luc d'Acheri : as I had not the oppor- 
tunity of consulting the original, I was contented with 
quoting it on the faith of Tillemont, and the reference to it 
immediately precedes (ch. xvi. note 133.) the citation of 
Lactantius (note 134). 

Mr. Davis may now answer his own question, " What 
" apology can be made for thus asserting, on the sole 
" authority of Lactantius, facts which Lactantius so ex- 
" pressly denies ? " 
_. _ XL " I have already <nven a curious instance 

DionCassms. M r . , J <? . - c 

ol our author s asserting, on the authority 01 
" Dion Cassius, a fact not mentioned by that historian. I 
" shall now produce a very singular proof of his endeavoring 
" to conceal from us a passage really contained in him. 53 " 
Nothing but the angry vehemence with which these charges 
are urged, could engage me to take the least notice of 
them. In themselves they are doubly contemptible ; they 
are trifling, and they are false. 

1. Mr. Davis 54 had imputed to me as a crime, that I had 
mentioned, on the sole testimony of Dion (L. lxviii. p. 
1 145), the spirit of rebellion which inflamed the Jews, from 
the reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, 55 whilst the 
passage of that historian is confined to an insurrection in 

53 Davis, p. 83. 54 Id. p. n. 55 Gibbon, p. 66.2. 



A VINDICATION. 37 

Cyprus and Cyrene, which broke out within that period. 
The reader who will cast his eye on the note (ch. xvi. note 
i.), which is supported by that quotation from Dion, will 
discover that it related only to this particular fact. The 
general position, which is indeed too notorious to require 
any proof, I had carefully justified in the course of the same 
paragraph; partly by another reference to Dion Cassius, 
partly by an allusion to the well-known history of josephus, 
and partly by several quotations from the learned and judi- 
cious Basnage, who has explained, in the most satisfactory 
manner, the principles and conduct of the rebellious Jews. 
2. The passage of Dion, which I am accused of endeavor- 
ing to conceal, might perhaps have remained invisible, even 
to the piercing eye of Mr. Davis, if / had not carefully re- 
ported it in its proper place : 56 and it was in my power to 
report it, without being guilty of any inconsiderate contra- 
dictio?i. I had observed, that, in the large history of Dion 
Cassius, Xiphilin had not been able to discover the name of 
Christians: yet I afterwards quote a passage, in which Marcia, 
the favorite concubine of Commodus, is celebrated as the 
patroness of the Christians. Mr. Davis has transcribed my 
quotation, but he has concealed the important words which 
I now distinguish by Italics. (Ch. xvi. note 106. Dion 
Cassius, or rather his abbreviator Xiphilin, L. Ixxii. p. 1206.) 
The reference is fairly made and cautiously qualified : I am 
already secure from the imputations of fraud or inconsis- 
tency ; and the opinion which attributes the last-mentioned 
passage to the abbreviator, rather than to the original 
historian, may be supported by the most unexceptionable 
authorities. I shall protect myself by those of Reimer (in 
his edition of Dion Cassius, torn, ii, p. 1207. note 34), and 
of Dr. Lardner ; and shall only transcribe the words of the 
latter, in his Collection of Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, 
vol. iii. p. 57. 

" This paragraph I rather think to be Xiphilin's than 
Dion's. The style at least is Xiphilin's. In the other pas- 
sages before quoted, Dion speaks of impiety, or atheism, 
or Judaism ; but never useth the word Christians. An- 
other thing that may make us doubt whether this obser- 
vation be entirely Dion's, is the phrase, ' it is related 
' (wTopBirai).' For at the beginning of the reign of Com- 
modus, he says, ' These things, and what follows, I write 
' not from the report of others, but from my own knowledge 

56 Gibbon, p. 667. N. 107. 



38 A VINDICATION. 

" • and observation.' However, the sense may be Dion's ; 
" but I wish we had also his style, without any adulteration." 
For my own part, I must, in my private opinion, ascribe even 
the sense of this passage to Xiphilin. The Monk might 
eagerly collect and insert an anecdote which related to the 
domestic history of the church ; but the religion of a courte- 
zan must have appeared an object of very little moment in 
the eyes of a Roman consul, who, at least in every other 
part of his history, disdained or neglected to mention the 
name of the Christians. 

" What shall we say now ? Do we not discover the name 
" of Christians in the History of 'Dion? With what assurance 
11 then can Mr. Gibbon, after asserting a fact manifestly un- 
" true, lay claim to the merits of diligence and accuracy, 
" the indispensable duty of an historian ? Or can he expect 
" us to credit his assertion, that he has carefully examined 
" all the original materials ? " " 

Mr. Gibbon may still maintain the character of an his- 
torian ; but it is difficult to conceive how Mr. Davis will sup- 
port his pretentions, if he aspires to that of a gentleman. 

I almost hesitate whether I should take any notice of an- 
other ridiculous charge which Mr. Davis includes in the 
article of Dion Cassius. My adversary owns, that I have 
occasionally produced the several passages of the Augustan 
History which relates to the Christians ; but he fiercely con- 
tends that they amount to more than six lines.™ I really 
have not measured them : nor did I mean that loose expres- 
sion as a precise and definite number. If, on a nicer survey, 
those short hints, when they are brought together, should 
be found to exceed six of the long lines of my folio edition, 
I am content that my critical antagonist should substitute 
eight, or ten, or twelve, lines ; nor shall I think either my learn- 
ing or veracity much interested in this important alteration, 
piin - & XII. After a short description of the unworthy 

conduct of those Apostates who, in a time of 
persecution, deserted the Faith of Christ, I produced the 
evidence of a Pagan Proconsul, 59 and of two Christian Bishops, 
Pliny, Dionysius of Alexandria, and Cyprian. And here the 
unforgiving Critic remarks, " That Pliny has not particu- 
" larized that difference of conduct (in the different Apos- 
" tates) which Mr. Gibbon here describes : yet his name 
" stands at the head of those Authors whom he has cited 
" on the occasion. It is allowed indeed that this distinction 

6-' Davis, p 83. 58 Gibbon, p. 634. N. 24. 59 Id. p. 664. N. 102. 



A VINDICATION. 



39 



" is made by the other Authors ; but as Pliny, the first re- 
" ferred to by Mr. Gibbon, gives him no cause or reason to 
" use them'' (I cannot help Mr. Davis's bad English) " it 
" is certainly very reprehensible in our Author, thus to 
" confound their testimony, and to make a needless and 
" improper reference." 60 

A criticism of this sort can only tend to expose Mr. Davis's 
total ignorance of historical composition. The Writer who 
aspires to the name of Historian, is obliged to consult a 
variety of original testimonies, each of which, taken sepa- 
rately, is perhaps imperfect and partial. By a judicious 
re-union and arrangement of these dispersed materials, he 
endeavors to form a consistent and interesting narrative. 
Nothing ought to be inserted which is not proved by some 
of the witnesses ; but their evidence must be so intimately 
blended together, that as it is unreasonable to expect that 
each of them should vouch for the whole, so it would be im- 
possible to define the boundaries of their respective property. 
Neither Pliny, nor Dionysius, nor Cyprian, mention all the 
circumstances and distinctions of the conduct of the 
Christian Apostates ; but if any of them was withdrawn, 
the account which I have given would, in some instance, 
be defective. 

Thus much I thought necessary to say, as several of the 
subsequent misrepresentations of Orosius, of Bayle, of Fabri- 
cius, of Gregory of Tours, &c., 61 which provoked the fury 
of Mr. Davis, are derived only from the ignorance of this 
common historical principle. 

Another class of misrepresentations, which my Adversary 
urges with the same degree of vehemence (see in particular 
those of Justin, Diodorus, Siculus, and even Tacitus), 
requires the support of another principle, which has not 
yet been introduced into the art of criticism; that when 
a modern historian appeals to the authority of the ancients 
for the truth of any particular fact, he makes himself 
answerable, I know not to what extent, for all the cir- 
cumjacent errors or inconsistencies of the authors whom 
he has quoted. 

XIII. I am accused of throwing out a false Io . natius 
accusation against this Father, 62 because I had 
observed 63 that Ignatius, defending against the Gnostics the 
resurrection of Christ, employs a vague and doubtful tradi- 
tion, instead of quoting the certain testimony of the Evan- 

60 Davis, p. 87, 88. 61 Davis, p. 88, 90, 137. 

62 Id. p. ioo, 101. 63 Gibbon, p. 551. N. 35. 



40 A VINDICATION. 

gelists : and this observation was justified by a remarkable 
passage of Ignatius, in his Epistle to the Smyrnseans, which 
I cited according to the volume and the page of the best 
edition of the Apostolical Fathers, published at Amsterdam, 
1724, in two volumes in folio. The Criticism of Mr. Davis 
is announced bv one of those solemn declarations which 
leave not any refuge, if they are convicted of falsehood. 
" I cannot find any passage "that bears the least affinity to 
" what Mr. Gibbon observes, in the whole Epistle, which I 
" have read over more than once." 

I had already marked the situation ; nor is it in my 
power to prove the existence, of this passage, by any 
other means than by producing the words of the original. 

Eycj yap nai fisra rrjv avaaraoiv ev aapKi avrov 016a Kai Tnarevo evra, nai 
ore npo<; r«f irept Jlerpov rjAdev, etyrj avrocg, AafteTe, ipvAaQrjcaTe fie, nai idere 
on ovk' ei/ui daifxoviov aau/xaTov. kcu evdvq avru 'yjtyavro, nai ezsLCTevoav. 
" I have known, and I believe, that after his resurrection 
" likewise he existed in the flesh : And when he came to 
" Peter, and to the rest, he said unto them, Take, handle 
" me, and see that I am not an incoporeal daemon or spirit. 
" And they touched him, and believed." The faith of the 
Apostles confuted the impious error of the Gnostics, which 
attributed only the appearances of a human body to the Son 
of God : and it was the great object of Ignatius, in the last 
moments of his life, to secure the Christians of Asia from 
the snares of those dangerous Heretics. According to the 
tradition of the modern Greeks, Ignatius was the child whom 
Jesus received into his arms (see Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. 
torn. ii. part ii. p. 43.) ; yet as he could scarcely be old 
enough to remember the resurrection of the Son of God, he 
must have derived his knowledge either from our present 
Evangelists, or from some Apocryphal Gospel, or from some 
unwritten tradition. 

1. The Gospels of St. Luke and St. John would un- 
doubtedly have supplied Ignatius with the most invincible 
proofs of the reality of the body of Christ, when he appeared 
to the Apostles after his resurrection ; but neither of those 
Gospels contain the characteristic words of hk daijioviov 
aou/iarov, and the important circumstance that either Peter, 
or those who were with Peter, touched the body of Christ 
and believed. Had the saint designed to quote the Evan- 
gelist on a very nice subject of controversy, he would not 
surely have exposed himself, by an inaccurate, or rather by 
a false, reference, to the just reproaches of the Gnostics. 



A VINDICATION. 41 

On this occasion, therefore, Ignatius did not employ, as he 
might have done, against the Heretics, the certain testi- 
mony of the Evangelists. 

2. Jerom, who cites this remarkable passage from the 
Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans (see Catalog. Script. 
Eccles. in Ignatio, torn. i. p. 273. edit. Erasm. Basil, 1537), 
is of opinion that it was taken from the Gospel which he 
himself had lately translated : and this, from the comparison 
of two other passages in the same work (in Jacob, et in 
Matthcso, p. 264.), appears to have been the Hebrew Gospel, 
which was used by the Nazarenes of Beraea, as the genuine 
composition of St. Matthew. Yet Jerom mentions another 
Copy of this Hebrew Gospel (so different from the Greek 
text), which was extant in the library formed at Caesarea, 
by the care of Pamphilus : whilst the learned Eusebius, the 
friend of Pamphilus and the Bishop of Caesarea, very frankly 
declares {Hist. Eccles. L. iii. c. 36.), that he is ignorant from 
whence Ignatius borrowed those words, which are the 
subject of the present Inquiry. 

3. The doubt which remains, is only whether he took 
them from an Apocryphal Book, or from unwritten tra- 
dition : and I thought myself safe from every species of 
Critics, when I embraced the rational sentiment of Casaubon 
and Pearson. I shall produce the words of the Bishop : 
" Praeterea iterum observandum est, quod de hac re scripsil 
" Isaacus Casaubonus, Quinetiam fortasse veriiis, non ex 
" Evangelio Hebraico, Ignatium ilia verba descripsisse, 
" verum traditionem allegasse non scriptam, quce postea in 
" liter as fuerit re lata, et Hebraico Eva?igelio, quod Matthceo 
" tribuebant, mserta. Et hoc quidem mini multo verisimilius 
" videtur." (Pearson. Vi?idicics Ig7iatiance y part ii. c. ix. p. 
396 in torn. ii. Pair. Apostol.) 

I may now submit to the judgment of the Public, whether 
I have looked into the Epistle which I cite with such a 
parade of learning, and how profitably Mr. Davis has read 
it over more than once. 

XIV. The learning- and judgment of Mosheim _._ .. 
had been of frequent use in the course of my 
Historical Inquiry, and I had not been wanting in proper 
expressions of gratitude. My vexatious adversary is always 
ready to start from his ambuscade, and to harass my march 
by a mode of attack which cannot easily be reconciled with 
the laws of honorable war. The greatest part of the Mis- 
representations of Mosheim, which Mr. Davis has imputed 



42 A VINDICATION. 

to me, 6 ' are of such a nature, that I must indeed be humble, 
if I could persuade myself to bestow a moment of serious 
attention on them. Whether Mosheim could prove that an 
absolute community of goods was not established among 
the first Christians of Jerusalem ; whether he suspected the 
purity of the Epistles of Ignatius ; whether he censured Dr. 
Middleton with temper or indignation (in this cause I must 
challenge Mr. Davis as an incompetent judge) ; whether he 
corroborates the whole of my description of the prophetic 
office ; whether he speaks with approbation of the humanity 
of Pliny ; and whether he attributed the same sense to the 
malejica of Suetonius, and the exitiabilis of Tacitus ? These 
questions, even as Mr. Davis has stated them, lie open to 
the judgment of every reader, and the superfluous observa- 
tions which I could make, would be an abuse of their time 
and of my own. As little shall I think of consuming their 
patience, by examining whether Le Clerc and Mosheim 
labor in the interpretation of some texts of the Fathers, and 
particularly of a passage of Irenseus, which seem to favor 
the pretensions of the Roman Bishop. The material part 
of the passage of Irenseus consists of about fo?cr lines ; and 
in order to show that the interpretations of Le Clerc and 
Mosheim are not labored, Mr. Davis abridges them as much 
as possible in the space of twelve pages. I know not whether 
the perusal of my History will justify the suspicion of Mr. 
Davis, that I am secretly inclined to the interest of the Pope : 
but I cannot discover how the Protestant cause can be 
affected, if Irenaeus in the second, or Palavicini in the seven- 
teenth century, were tempted, by any private views, to 
countenance in their writings the system of ecclesiastical 
dominion, which has been pursued in every age by the 
aspiring Bishops of the Imperial city. Their conduct was 
adapted to the revolutions of the Christian Republic, but 
the same spirit animated the haughty breasts of Victor the 
First, and of Paul the Fifth. 

There still remains one or two of these imputed Misrepre- 
sentations, which appear, and indeed only appear, to merit a 
little more attention. In stating the opinion of Mosheim with 
regard to the progress of the Gospel, Mr. Davis boldly de- 
clares, " that I have altered the truth of Mosheim's history, 
" that I might have an opportunity of contradicting the 
" belief and wishes of the Fathers." 65 In other words, I 
have been guilty of uttering a malicious falsehood. 

64 Davis, p. 95-97. 104-107. 114-132. 65 Davis, p 12 



A VINDICATION. 43 

I had endeavored to mitigate the sanguine expression of 
the Fathers of the second century, who had too hastily dif- 
fused the light of Christianity over every part of the globe, 
by observing, as an undoubted fact, " that the barbarians 
" of Scythia and Germany, who subverted the Roman 
" Monarchy, were involved in the errors of Paganism ; and 
" that even the conquest of Iberia, of Armenia, or of yEthi- 
" opia, was not attempted with any degree of success, till 
" the sceptre was in the hands of an orthodox Emperor." 66 
I had referred the curious reader to the fourth century of 
Mosheim's General History of the Church ; now Mr. Davis 
has discovered, and can prove, from that excellent work, 
" that Christianity, not long after its first rise, had been in- 
" troduced into the less as well as greater Armenia; that 
" part of the Goths, who inhabited Thracia, Msesia, and 
" Dacia, had received the Christian religion long before this 
" century; and that Theophilus, their Bishop, was present 
" at the Council of Nice." 67 

On this occasion, the reference was made to a popular 
work of Mosheim, for the satisfaction of the reader, that he 
might obtain the general view of the progress of Christianity 
in the fourth century, which I had gradually acquired by 
studying with some care the Ecclesiastical Antiquities of 
the Nations beyond the limits of the Roman Empire. If I 
had reasonably supposed that the result of our common in- 
quiries must be the same, should I have deserved a very 
harsh censure for my unsuspecting confidence ? Or if I had 
declined the invidious task of separating a few immaterial 
errors, from a just and judicious representation, might not 
my respect for the name and merit of Mosheim have claimed 
some indulgence ? But I disdain those excuses, which only 
a candid adversary would allow. I can meet Mr. Davis on 
the hard ground of controversy, and retort on his own head 
the charge of concealing a part of the truth. He himself 
has dared to suppress the words of my text, which immedi- 
ately followed his quotation. " Before that time the various 
" accidents of war and commerce might indeed diffuse an 
14 imperfect knowledge of the Gospel among the tribes of 
" Caledonia, and among the borderers of the Rhine, the 
" Danube, and the Euphrates ; " and Mr. Davis has likewise 
suppressed one of the justificatory Notes on this passage, 
which expressly points out the time and circumstances of 
the first Gothic conversions. These exceptions, which I had 

6f Gibbon, p. 611, 612. 67 Davis, p. 126, 127. 



44 A VINDICATION. 

cautiously inserted, and Mr. Davis has cautiously con- 
cealed, are superfluous for the provinces of Thrace, Maesia, 
and the Lesser Armenia, which were contained within the 
precincts of the Roman Empire. They allow an ample 
scope for the more early conversion of some independent 
districts of Dacia and the Greater Armenia, which bordered 
on the Danube and Euphrates ; and the entire sense of this 
passage, which Mr. Davis first mutilates and then attacks, 
is perfectly consistent with the original text of the learned 
Mosheim. 

And yet I will fairly confess that, after a nicer inquiry 
into the epoch of the Armenian Church, I am not satisfied 
with the accuracy of my own expression. The assurance 
that the first Christian King, and the first Archbishop, 
Tiridates, and St. Gregory the Illuminator, were still alive 
several years after the death of Constantine, inclined me to 
believe, that the conversion of Armenia was posterior to the 
auspicious Revolution, which had given the sceptre of Rome 
to the hands of an orthodox Emperor. But I had not enough 
considered the two following circumstances, i. I might 
have recollected the dates assigned by Moses of Chorene, 
who, on this occasion, may be regarded as a competent wit- 
ness. Tiridates ascended the throne of Armenia in the 
third year of Diocletian {Hist. Armenia, L. ii. c. 79. p. 207.), 
and St. Gregory, who was invested with the Episcopal 
character in the seventeenth year of Tiridates, governed 
almost thirty years the Church of Armenia, and disappeared 
from the world in the forty-sixth year of the reign of the 
same Prince. {Hist. Armenia, L. ii. c. 88. p. 224, 225.) The 
consecration of St. Gregory must therefore be placed A. D. 
303, and the conversion of the King and kingdom was soon 
achieved by that successful missionary. 2. The unjust and 
inglorious war which Maximin undertook against the Ar- 
menians, the ancient faithful allies of the Republic, was evi- 
dently derived from a motive of superstitious zeal. The 
historian Eusebius {Hist. Eccles. L. ix. c. 8. p. 448. edit. 
Cantab.) considers the pious Armenians as a nation of Chris- 
tians, who bravely defended themselves from the hostile 
oppression of an idolatrous tyrant. Instead of maintaining 
" that the conversion of Armenia was not attempted with 
" any degree of success till the sceptre was in the hands of 
" an orthodox Emperor," I ought to have observed, that 
the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season 
of the last and greatest persecution, that many Roman ex- 



A VINDICATION. 45 

iles might assist the labors of Gregory, and that the re- 
nowned Tiridates, the hero of the East, may dispute with 
Constantine the honor of being the first Sovereign who 
embraced the Christian religion. 

In a future edition, I shall rectify an expression which, 
in strictness, can only be applied to the kingdoms of Iberia 
and ^Ethiopia. Had the error been exposed by Mr. Davis 
himself, I should not have been ashamed to correct it; but 
I am ashamed at being reduced to contend with an adversary 
who is unable to discover, or to improve, his own advantages. 

But, instead of prosecuting any inquiry from whence the 
Public might have gained instruction, and himself credit, 
Mr. Davis chooses to perplex his readers with some angry 
cavils about the progress of the Gospel in the second century. 
What does he mean to establish or to refute? Have I denied, 
that before the end of that period Christianity was very 
widely diffused both in the East and in the West ? Has not 
Justin Martyr affirmed, without exception or limitation, 
that it was already preached to every nation on the face of 
the earth ? Is that proposition true at present ? Could it be 
true in the time of Justin ? Does not Mosheim acknowledge 
the exaggeration ? " Demus, nee enim quae in oculos 
" incurrunt infitiari audemus, esse in his verbis exaggera- 
" tionis nonnihil. Certum enim est diu post Justini aetatem, 
" multas orbis terrarum gentes cognitione Christi caruisse." 
(Mosheim de Rebus Christianis, p. 203.) Does he not ex- 
pose (p. 205.), with becoming scorn and indignation, the 
falsehood and vanity of the hyperboles of Tertullian ? 
" bonum hominem sestu imaginationis elatum non satis 
" attendisse ad ea quae litteris consignabat." 

The high esteem which Mr. Davis expresses for the 
•writings of Mosheim, would alone convince me how little 
he has read them, since he must have been perpetually 
offended and disgusted by a train of thinking, the most re- 
pugnant to his own. His jealousy, however, for the honor 
of Mosheim, provokes him to arraign the boldness of Mr. 
Gibbon who presumes falsely to charge such an eminent 
man with unjustifiable assertions.™ I might observe, that 
my style, which on this occasion was more modest and 
moderate, has acquired, perhaps undesignedly, an illiberal 
cast from the rough hand of Mr. Davis. But as my veracity 
is impeached, I may be less solicitious about my politeness ; 
and though I have repeatedly declined the fairest oppor- 

68 Davis, 131. 



46 A VINDICATION. 

tunities of correcting the errors of my predecessors, yet, as 
long as I have truth on my side, I am not easily daunted 
by the names of the most eminent men. 

The assertion of Mosheim, which did not seem to be 
justified 69 by the authority of Lactantius, was, that the wife 
and daughter of Diocletian, Prisca and Valeria, had been 
privately baptized. Mr. Davis is sure that the words of 
Mosheim, " Christianis sacris clam initiata," need not be 
confined to the rite of baptism : and he is equally sure, that 
the reference to Mosheim does not lead us to discover even 
the name of Valeria. In both these assurances he is grossly 
mistaken ; but it is the misfortune of controversy, that an 
error may be committed in three or four words, which can- 
not be rectified in less than thirty or forty lines. 

1. The true and the sole meaning of the Christian initia- 
tion, one of the familiar and favorite allusions of the Fathers 
of the fourth century, is clearly explained by the exact and 
laborious Bingham. " The baptized were also styled 
" 61 jiefivriuevoi, which the Latins call iniliati, the initiated, that 
" is, admitted to the use of the sacred offices, and knowledge 
" of the sacred mysteries of the Christian Religion. Hence 
" came that form of speaking so frequently used by St. 
" Chrysostom, and other ancient writers, when they touched 
" upon any doctrines or mysteries which the Catechumens 
" understood not, toaoiv 61 fiefivrjixtvoi, the initiated know what 
" is spoken. St. Ambrose writes a book to these initiati ; 
" Isidore of Pelusium and Hesychius call them fivarai and 
" fivorayuyvToi. Whence the Catechumens have the contrary 
" names, Ajuvotoi, AfivrjToi, k/nvaTayuyijToi, the uninitiated or un- 
" baptized." {Antiquities of the Christian Church, L. i. c. 
No. 2. vol. i. p. 11. fol. edit.) Had I presumed to suppose 
that Mosheim was capable of employing a technical ex- 
pression in a loose and equivocal sense, I should indeed 
have violated the respect which I have always entertained 
for his learning and abilities. 

2. But Mr. Davis cannot discover in the text of Mosheim 
the name of Valeria. In that case Mosheim would have 
suffered another slight inaccuracy to drop from his pen, as 
the passage of Lactantius, " sacrificio pollui coegit," on 
which he founds his assertion, includes the names both of 
Prisca and Valeria. But I am not reduced to the necessity 
of accusing another in my own defence. Mosheim has prop- 
erly and expressly declared that Valeria imitated the pious 

69 Gibbon, p. 676. N. 132. 



A VINDICATION. 47 

example of her mother Prisca, " Gener Diocletiani uxorem 
" habebat Valeriam matris exemplum pietateerga Deum imi- 
" tantem et a cultu fictorum Numinum alienam." (Mosheim, 
p. 913.)- Mr. Davis has a bad habit of greedily snapping 
at the first words of a reference, without giving himself the 
trouble of going to the end of the page or paragraph. 

These trifling and peevish cavils would, perhaps, have 
been confounded with some criticisms of the same stamp, 
on which I had bestowed a slight, though sufficient notice, 
in the beginning of this article of Mosheim ; had not my 
attention been awakened by a peroration worthy of Tertul- 
lian himself, if Tertullian had been devoid of eloquence as 
well as of moderation — " Much less does the Christian 
" Mosheim give our infidel Historian any pretext for insert- 
" ing that illiberal malignant insinuation,^ ' That Christianity 
" ' has, in every age, acknowledged its important obliga- 
" ' tions to female devotion ; ' the remark is truly con- 
" temptible."™ 

It is not my design to fill whole pages with a tedious 
enumeration of the many illustrious examples of female 
Saints, who, in every age, and almost in every country, have 
promoted the interest of Christianity. Such instances will 
readily offer themselves to those who have the slightest 
knowledge of Ecclesiastical History ; nor is it necessary that 
I should remind them how much the charms, the influence, 
the devotion of Clotilda, and of her great-grand-daughter 
Bertha, contributed to the conversion of France and Eng- 
land. Religion may accept, without a blush, the services 
of the purest and most gentle portion of the human species : 
but there are some advocates who would disgrace Chris- 
tianity, if Christianity could be disgraced, by the manner in 
which they defend her cause. 

XV. As I could not readily procure the works Tillemont 
of Gregory of Nyssa, I borrowed 71 from the ac- 
curate and indefatigable Tillemont, a passage in the life of 
Gregory Thaumaturgus, or the Wonder-worker, which af- 
firmed, that when the Saint took possession of his episcopal 
see, he found only seventeen Christians in the city of 
Neo-Caesarea, and the adjacent country, " Les environs, la 
" campagne, le pays d'alentour." (Mem. Eccles. torn, iv, 
p. 677. 691. Edit. Brusselles, 1706.) These expressions of 
Tillemont, to whom I explicitly acknowledged my obliga- 
tion, appeared synonymous to the word diocese, the whole 

'0 Davis, p. 132. 11 Gibbon, p. 605. N. 156. 



48 A VINDICATION. 

territory entrusted to the pastoral care of the Wonder- 
worker, and I added the epithet of extensive, because I was 
apprized that Neo-Caesarea was the capital of the Polemo- 
niac Pontus, and that the whole kingdom of Pontus, which 
stretched above five hundred miles along the coast of the 
Euxine, was divided between sixteen or seventeen bishops. 
(See the Geographia Ecclesiasiica of Charles de St. Paul, 
and Lucas Holstenius, p. 249, 250, 251.) Thus far I may 
not be thought to have deserved any censure ; but the 
omission of the subsequent part of the same passage, which 
imports, that at his death the Wonder-worker left no more 
than seventeen Pagans, may seem to wear a partial and 
suspicious aspect. 

Let me therefore first observe, as some evidence of an 
impartial disposition, that I easily admitted, as the cool 
observation of the philosophic Lucian, the angry and inte- 
rested complaint of the false prophet Alexander, that Pontus 
was filled with Christians. This complaint was made under 
the reigns of Marcus or of Commodus, with whom the 
impostor so admirably exposed by Lucian was contem- 
porary : and I had contented myself with remarking, that 
the numbers of Christians must have been very unequally 
distributed in the several parts of Pontus, since the diocese 
of Neo-Caesarea contained, above sixty years afterwards, 
only seventeen Christians. Such was the inconsiderable 
flock which Gregory began to feed about the year two 
hundred and forty; and the real or fabulous conversions 
ascribed to that Wonder-working Bishop, during a reign of 
thirty years, are totally foreign to the state of Christianity 
in the preceding century. This obvious reflection may 
serve to answer the objection of Mr. Davis, 72 and of another 
adversary, 73 who on this occasion is more liberal than Mr. 
Davis of those harsh epithets so familiar to the tribe of 
polemics. 

pa . XVI. " Mr. Gibbon says," 74 " Pliny was sent into 

" Bithynia (according to Pagi ) in the year 1 10." 

" Now that accurate chronologer places it in the year 102. 
11 See the fact recorded in his jCritico- Historic o Chronologica 
" in Amiales C. Baronii, A. D. 102, p. 99 saec. 2. § 3." 

" I appeal to my reader, whether this anachronism does 
" not plainly prove that our historian never looked into 
" Pagi's Chronology, though he has not hesitated to make 
" a pompous reference to him in his note? 75 " 

72 Davis, p. 136, 137. 73 Dr. Randolph, in Chlesum's Remarks, p. 159, 160. 

** Gibbon, p. 605. N. 157. ^ Davis, p. 140. 



A VINDICATION. 49 

I cannot help observing- that either Mr. Davis's diction- 
ary is extremely confined, or that in his philosophy all sins 
are of equal magnitude. Every error of fact or language, 
every instance where he does not know how to reconcile 
the original and the reference, he expresses by the gentle 
word of misrepresentation. An inaccurate appeal to the 
sentiment of Pagi, on a subject where I must have been 
perfectly disinterested, might have been styled a lapse of 
memory, instead of being censured as the effect of vanity and 
ignorance. Pagi is neither a difficult nor an uncommon 
writer, nor could I hope to derive much additional fame from 
a pompous quotation of his writings, which I had never seen. 

The words employed by Mr. Davis, of fact, of record, 
of anachronism, are unskillfully chosen, and so unhappily 
applied, as to betray a shameful ignorance, either of the 
English language, or of the nature of this chronological 
question. The date of Pliny's government of Bithynia is 
not a fact recorded by any ancient v/riter, but an opinion 
which modern critics have variously formed, from the con- 
sideration of presumptive and collateral evidence. Cardinal 
Baronius placed the consulship of Pliny one year too late ; 
and, as he was persuaded that the old practice of the re- 
public still subsisted, he naturally supposed that Pliny 
obtained his province immediately after the expiration of his 
consulship. He therefore sends him into Bithynia in the year 
which, according to his erroneous computation, coincided 
with the year one hundred and four (Baron Annal. Eccles. 
A. D. 103. No. 104 No. 1.), or according to the true 
chronology, with the year one hundred and two, of the 
Christian aera. This mistake of Baronius, Pagi, with the 
assistance of his friend Cardinal Noris, undertakes to cor- 
rect. From an accurate parallel of the Annals of Trajan 
and the Epistles of Pliny, he deduces his proofs that Pliny 
remained at Rome several years after his consulship, by 
his own ingenious, though sometimes fanciful theory, of the 
imperial Quinquennalia, &c. Pagi at last discovers that 
Pliny made his entrance into Bithynia in the year one 
hundred and ten. " Plinius igitur anno Christi CENTESIMO 
" decimo Bithyniam intravit." Pagi, torn. i. p. 100. 

I will be more indulgent to my adversary than he has 
been to me : I will admit that he has looked into Pagi ; buV 
I must add, that he has only looked into that accurate chro- 
nologer. To rectify the errors, which, in the course of a 
laborious and original work, had escaped the diligence of 



5<D A VINDICATION. 

the Cardinal, was the arduous task which Pagi proposed to 
execute : and for the sake of perspicuity, he distributes his 
criticisms according to the particular dates, whether just or 
faulty, of the Chronology of Baronius himself. Under the 
year 102, Mr. Davis confusedly saw a long argument about 
Pliny and Bithynia, and without condescending to read the 
author whom he pompously quotes, this hasty critic imputes 
to him the opinion which he had so laboriously destroyed. 

My readers, if any readers have accompanied me thus far, 
must be satisfied, and indeed satiated, with the repeated 
proofs which I have made of the weight and temper of my 
adversary's weapons. They have, in every assault, fallen 
dead and lifeless to the ground : they have more than once 
recoiled, and dangerously wounded the unskillful hand that 
had presumed to use them. I have now examined all the 
misrepreseyitations and inaccuracies, which even for a mo- 
ment could perplex the ignorant or deceive the credulous : 
the few imputations which I have neglected are still more 
palpably false, or still more evidently trifling, and even the 
friends of Mr. Davis will scarcely continue to ascribe my 
contempt to my fear. 

. . The first part of his critical volume might ad- 

mit, though it did not deserve, a particular reply. 
But the easy, though tedious compilation, which fills the 
remainder, 76 and which Mr. Davis has produced as the evi- 
dence of my shameful plagiarisms may be set in its true 
light by three or four short and general reflections. 

1. Mr. Davis has disposed, in two columns, the passages 
which he thinks proper to select from my two last chapters, 
and the corresponding passages from Middleton, Barbeyrac, 
Beausobre, Dodwell, &c, to the most important of which 
he had been regularly guided by my own quotations. Ac- 
cording to the opinion which he has conceived of literary 
property, to agree is to follow, and to follow is to steal. He 
celebrates his own sagacity with loud and reiterated ap- 
plause, and declares, with infinite facetioueness, that if he 
restored to every author the passages which Mr. Gibbon has 
purloined, he would appear as naked as the proud and gaudy 
daw in the fable, when each bird had plucked away its own 
plumes. Instead of being angry with Mr. Davis for the 
parallel which he has extended to so great a length, I am 
under some obligation to his industry for the copious proofs 
which he has furnished the reader, that my representation 

™ Davis, p. 168-274. 



A VINDICATION. 51 

of some of the most important facts of ecclesiastical antiquity 
is supported by the authority or opinion of the most in- 
genious and learned of the modern writers. The public may 
not, perhaps, be very eager to assist Mr. Davis in his favorite 
amusement of depluming me. They may think, that if the 
materials which compose my two last chapters are curious 
and valuable, it is of little moment to whom they properly 
belong. If my readers are satisfied with the form, the colors, 
the new arrangement which I have given to the labors of 
my predecessors, they may perhaps consider me not as a 
contemptible thief, but as an honest and industrious manu- 
facturer, who has fairly procured the raw materials, and 
worked them up with a laudable degree of skill and success. 
II. About two hundred years ago, the court of Rome dis- 
covered that the system which had been erected by ignorance 
must be defended and countenanced by the aid, or at least 
by the abuse, of science. The grosser legends of the middle 
ages were abandoned to contempt, but the supremacy and 
infallibility of two hundred Popes, the virtues of many thou- 
sand Saints, and the miracles which they either per- 
formed or related, have been laboriously consecrated in the 
Ecclesiastical A?inals of Cardinal Baronius. A theological 
barometer might be formed, of which the Cardinal and our 
countryman Dr. Middleton should constitute the opposite 
and remote extremities, as the former sunk to the lowest 
degree of credulity, which was compatible with learning, and 
the latter rose to the highest pitch of skepticism, in anywise 
consistent with religion. The intermediate gradations would 
be filled by a line of ecclesiastical critics, whose rank has 
been fixed by the circumstances of their temper and studies, 
as well as by the spirit of the church or society to which 
they were attached. It would be amusing enough to cal- 
culate the weight of prejudice in the air of Rome, of Oxford, 
of Paris, and of Holland ; and sometimes to observe the 
irregular tendency of papists towards freedom, sometimes to 
remark the unnatural gravitation of protestants towards 
slavery. But it is useful to borrow the assistance of so many 
learned and ingenious men who have viewed the first ages 
of the church in every light, and from every situation. If 
we skillfully combine the passions and prejudices, the hos- 
tile motives and intentions, of the several theologians, we 
may frequently extract knowledge from credulity, modera- 
tion from zeal, and impartial truth from the most disingen- 
uous controversy. It is the right, it is the duty of a critical 



52 A VINDICATION. 

historian to collect, to weigh, to select the opinions of his 
predecessors ; and the more diligence he has exerted in the 
search, the more rationally he may hope to add some im- 
provement to the stock of knowledge, the use of which has 
been common to all. 

III. Besides the ideas which may be suggested by the 
study of the most learned and ingenious of the moderns, the 
historian may be indebted to them for the occasional com- 
munication of some passages of the ancients, which might 
otherwise have escaped his knowledge or his memory. In 
the consideration of any extensive subject, none will pre- 
tend to have read all that has been written, or to recollect 
all that they have read : nor is there any disgrace in recur- 
ring to the writers who have professedly treated any ques- 
tions, which, in the course of a long narrative, we are called 
upon to mention in a slight and incidental manner. If I touch 
upon the obscure and fanciful theology of the Gnostics, I 
can accept without a blush the assistance of the candid Beau- 
sobre ; and when, amidst the fury of contending parties, I 
trace the progress of ecclesiastical dominion, I am not 
ashamed to confess myself the grateful disciple of the im- 
partial Mosheim. In the next volume of my History, the 
reader and the critic must prepare themselves to see me make 
a still more liberal use of the labors of those indefatigable 
workmen who have dug deep into the mine of antiquity. 
The Fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries are far more 
voluminous than their predecessors ; the writings of Jerom, 
of Augustin, of Chrysostom, &c, cover the walls of our 
libraries. The smallest part is of the historical kind : yet 
the treatises which seem the least to invite the curiosity of 
the reader, frequently conceal very useful hints, or very 
valuable facts. The polemic, who involves himself and his 
antagonists in a cloud of argumentation, sometimes relates 
the origin and progress of the heresy which he confutes ; 
and the preacher who declaims against the luxury, describes 
the manners of the age; and seasonably introduces the 
mention of some public calamity, that he may ascribe it to 
the justice of offended Heaven. It would surely be unreason- 
able to expect that the historian should peruse enormous 
volumes, with the uncertain hope of extracting a few inter- 
esting lines, or that he should sacrifice whole days to the 
momentary amusement of his reader. Fortunately for us 
both, the diligence of ecclesiastical critics has facilitated our 
inquiries : the compilations of Tillemont might alone be con- 



A VINDICATION. 53 

sidered as an immense repertory of truth and fable, of almost 
all that the fathers have preserved or invented, or believed ; 
and if we equally avail ourselves of the labors of contend- 
ing sectaries, we shall often discover, that the same passages 
which the prudence of one of the disputants would have 
suppressed or disguised, are placed in the most conspicuous 
light by the active and interested zeal of his adversary. On 
these occasions, what is the duty of a faithful historian, who 
derives from some modern writer the knowledge of some 
ancient testimony, which he is desirous of introducing into 
his own narrative ? It is his duty, and it has been my inva- 
riable practice, to consult the original ; to study with atten- 
tion the words, the design, the spirit, the context, the 
situation of the passage to which I had been referred ; and 
before I appropriated it to my own use, to justify my own 
declaration, " that I had carefully examined all the original 
" materials that could illustrate the subject which I had 
" undertaken to treat." If this important obligation has 
sometimes been imperfectly fulfilled, I have only omitted 
what it would have been impracticable for me to perform. 
The greatest city in the world is destitute of that useful 
institution, a public library ; and the writer who has under- 
taken to treat any large historical subject, is reduced to the 
necessity of purchasing, for his private use, a numerous and 
valuable collection of the books which must form the basis 
of his work. The diligence of his booksellers will not always 
prove successful ; and the candor of his readers will not 
always expect, that, for the sake of verifying an accidental 
quotation of ten lines, he should load himself with an useless 
and expensive series often volumes. In a very few instances, 
where I had not the opportunity of consulting the originals; 
I have adopted their testimony on the faith of modern 
guides, of whose fidelity I was satisfied ; but on these occa- 
sions, 77 instead of decking myself with the borrowed plumes 
of Tillemont or Lardner, I have been most scrupulously 
exact in marking the extent of my reading, and the source 
of my information. This distinction, which a sense of truth 
and modesty had engaged me to express, is ungenerously 
abused by Mr. Davis, who seems happy to inform his readers, 
that " in one instance (Chap. xvi. 164. or in the first edition, 
" 163.) I have, by an unaccountable oversight, unfortunately 
" for myself, forgot to drop the modern, and that I modestly 
" disclaim all knowledge of Athanasius, but what I had 

ft Gibbon, p. 605, N. 156; p. 606, N. 161 ; p. 690, N. 164; p. 699, N. 17S. 



54 A VINDICATION. 

" picked up from Tillemont." 78 Without animadverting on 
the decency of the expressions, which are now grown familiar 
to me, I shall content myself with observing, that as I had 
frequently quoted Eusebius, or Cyprian, or Tertullian, be- 
cause I had read them ; so, in this instance, I only made my 
reference to Tillemont, because I had not read, and did not 
possess the works of Athanasius. The progress of my 
undertaking has since directed me to peruse the Historical 
Apologies of the Archbishop of Alexandria, whose life is a 
very interesting part of the age in which he lived ; and if 
Mr. Davis should have the curiosity to look into my Second 
Volume, he will find that I make a free and frequent appeal 
to the writings of Athanasius. Whatever may be the opinion 
or practice of my adversary, this I apprehend to be the 
dealing of a fair and honorable man. 

IV. The historical monuments of the three first centuries 
of ecclesiastical antiquity are neither very numerous nor 
very prolix. From the end of the Acts of the Apostles, to 
the time when the first Apology of Justin Martyr was pre- 
sented, there intervened a dark and doubtful period of four- 
score years ; and, even if the Epistles of Ignatius should be 
approved by the critic, they could not be very serviceable 
to the historian. From the middle of the second, to the 
beginning of the fourth century, we gain our knowledge of 
the state and progress of Christianity, from the successive 
Apologies which were occasionally composed by Justin, 
Athenagoras, Tertullian, Origen, &c; from the Epistles of 
Cyprian ; from a few si?icere acts of the Martyrs ; from some 
moral or controversial tracts, which indirectly explain the 
events and manners of the times ; from the rare and accidental 
notice which profane writers have taken of the Christian 
sect ; from the declamatory narrative which celebrates the 
deaths of the persecutors ; and from the Ecclesiastical His- 
tory of Eusebius, who has preserved some valuable frag- 
ments of more earlier writers. Since the revival of letters, 
these original materials have been the common fund of 
critics and historians : nor has it ever been imagined, that 
the absolute and exclusive property of a passage in Eusebius 
or Tertullian was acquired by the first who had an oppor- 
tunity of quoting it. The learned work of Mosheim, de 
Rebus Christianis ante Constantinum, was printed in the 
year 1753 ; and if I were possessed of the patience and dis- 
ingenuity of Mr. Davis, I would engage to find all the 

's Davis, p. 273. 



A VINDICATION. 55 

ancient testimonies that he has alleged, in the writings of 
Dodwell or Tillemont, which were published before the end 
of the last century. But if I were animated by any malevo- 
lent intentions against Dodwell or Tillemont, I could as 
easily, and as unfairly, fix on them the guilt of plagiarism, by 
producing the same passages transcribed or translated at full 
length in the A?inals of Cardinal Baronius. Let not criticism 
be any longer disgraced by the practice of such unworthy arts. 
Instead of admitting suspicions as false as they are ungen- 
erous, candor will acknowledge, that Mosheim or Dodwell, 
Tillemont or Baronius, enjoyed the same right, and often 
were under the same obligation, of quoting the passages 
which they had read, and which were indispensably requisite 
to confirm the truth and substance of their similar narratives. 
Mr. Davis is so far from allowing me the benefit of this 
common indulgence, or rather of this common right, that 
he stigmatizes with the name of plagia?'ism a close and 
literal agreement with Dodwell in the account of some parts 
of the persecution of Diocletian, where a few chapters of 
Eusebius and Lactantius, perhaps of Lactantius alone, are 
the sole materials from whence our knowledge could be 
derived, and where, if I had not transcribed, I must have 
invented. He is even bold enough [bold is not \he. proper 
word) to conceive some hopes of persuading his readers, 
that an historian who has employed several years of his life, 
and several hundred pages, on the Decfaie and Fall of the 
Roman Empire, had never read Orosius, or the Angustin 
History ; and that he was forced to borrow, at second-hand, 
his quotations from the Theodosian code. I cannot profess 
myself very desirous of Mr. Davis's acquaintance ; but if 
he will take the trouble of calling at my house any after- 
noon when I am not at home, my servant shall show him 
my library, which he will find tolerably well furnished with 
the useful authors, ancient as well as modern, ecclesiastical 
as well as profane, who have directly supplied me with the 
materials of my History. 

The peculiar reasons, and they are not of the most flat- 
tering kind, which urged me to repel the furious and feeble 
attack of Mr. Davis, have been already mentioned. But 
since I am drawn thus reluctantly into the lists of contro- 
versy, I shall not retire till I have saluted, either with stern 
defiance or gentle courtesy, the theological champions who 
have signalized their ardor to break a lance against the 
shield of a Pagan adversary. The Fifteenth and Sixteenth 



56 A VINDICATION. 

Chapters have been honored with the notice of several 
writers, whose names and characters seemed to promise more 
maturity of judgment and learning than could reasonably 
be expected from the unfinished studies of a Bachelor of 
Arts. The Reverend Mr. Apthorpe, Dr. Watson, the Re- 
gius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, 
Dr. Chelsum of Christ Church, and his associate Dr. Ran- 
dolph, President of Corpus Christi College, and the Lady 
Margaret's Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, 
have given me a fair right, which, however, I shall not abuse, 
of freely declaring my opinion on the subject of their re- 
spective criticisms. 

If I am not mistaken, Mr. Apthorpe was the 
p orpe. ^ st w ^ ann ounced to the Public his intention 
of examining the interesting subject which I had treated in 
the Two last Chapters of my History. The multitude of 
collateral and accessory ideas which presented themselves 
to the Author, insensibly swelled the bulk of his papers to 
the size of a large volume in octavo ; the publication was 
delayed many months beyond the time of the first adver- 
tisement ; and when Mr. Apthorpe's Letters appeared, I was 
surprised to find, that I had scarcely any interest or concern 
in their contents. They are filled with general observations 
on the Study of History, with a large and useful catalogue 
of Historians, and with a variety of reflections, moral and 
religious, all preparatory to the direct and formal considera- 
tion of my Two last Chapters, which Mr. Apthorpe seems 
to reserve for the subject of a Second Volume. I sincerely 
respect the learning, the piety, and the candor of this 
Gentleman, and must consider it as a mark of his esteem, 
that he has thought proper to begin his approaches at so 
great a distance from the fortifications which he designed 
to attack. 

Dr Wat n When Dr. Watson gave to the Public his 
Apology for Christianity, in a Series of Letters, 
he addressed them to the Author of the Decline and Fall 
of the Roman Empire, with a just confidence that he 
had considered this important object in a manner not un- 
worthy of his antagonist or of himself Dr. Watson's mode 
of thinking bears a liberal and a philosophic cast; his 
thoughts are expressed with spirit, and that spirit is always 
tempered by politeness and moderation. Such is the man 
whom I should be happy to call my friend, and whom I 
should not blush to call my antagonist. But the same motives 



A VINDICATION. 57 

which might tempt me to accept, or even to solicit, a private 
and amicable conference, dissuaded me from entering into 
a public controversy with a Writer of so respectable a 
character ; and I embraced the earliest opportunity of ex- 
pressing to Dr. Watson himself, how sincerely I agreed 
with him in thinking, " That as the world is now possessed 
" of the opinion of us both upon the subject in question, it 
" may be perhaps as proper for us both to leave it in this 
" state." 79 The nature of the ingenious Professor's Apology 
contributed to strengthen the insuperable reluctance to en- 
gage in hostile altercation which was common to us both, 
by convincing me, that such an altercation was unnecessary 
as well as unpleasant. He very justly and politely declares, 
that a considerable part, near seventy pages, of his small 
volume are not directed to me, 80 but to a set of men whom 
he places in an odious and contemptible light. He leaves to 
other hands the defence of the leading Ecclesiastics, even 
of the primitive church ; and without being very anxious, 
either to soften their vices and indiscretion, or to aggravate 
the cruelty of the Heathen Persecutors, he passes over in 
silence the greatest part of my Sixteenth Chapter. It is not 
so much the purpose of the Apologist to examine the facts 
which have been advanced by the Historian, as to remove 
the impressions which may have been formed by many of 
his Readers ; and the Remarks of Dr. Watson consist more 
properly of general argumentation than of particular 
criticism. He fairly owns, that I have expressly allowed the 
full and irresistible weight of the first great cause of the 
success of Christianity ; 81 and he is too candid to deny that 
the five secondary causes, which I had attempted to explain, 
operated with some degree of active energy towards the ac- 
complishment of that great event. The only question which 
remains between us, relates to the degree of the weight and 
effect of those secondary causes ; and as I am persuaded 
that our philosophy is not of the dogmatic kind, we should 
soon acknowledge that this precise degree cannot be ascer- 
tained by reasoning, nor perhaps be expressed by words. 
In the course of this inquiry, some incidental difficulties have 
arisen, which I had stated with impartiality, and which Dr. 
Watson resolves with ingenuity and temper. If in some 
instances he seems to have misapprehended my sentiments, 
I may hesitate whether I should impute the fault to my own 
want of clearness or to his want of attention, but I can never 

"9 Watson's Apology for Christianity \ p. 200. 80 Id. p. 202-26S. 81 Id. p. 5. 



58 A VINDICATION. 

entertain a suspicion that Dr. Watson would descend to 
employ the disingenuous arts of vulgar controversy. 

There is, however, one passage, and one passage only, 
which must not pass without some explanation ; and I shall 
the more eagerly embrace this occasion to illustrate what I 
had said, as the misconstruction of my true meaning seems 
to have made an involuntary, but unfavorable impression 
on the liberal mind of Dr. Watson. As I endeavor not to 
palliate the severity, but to discover the motives of the 
Roman Magistrates, I had remarked, " it was in vain that 
" the oppressed Believer asserted the unalienable rights of 
" conscience and private judgment. Though his situation 
" might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach 
" the understanding, either of the philosophic or of the be- 
" lieving part of the Pagan world." 62 The humanity of Dr. 
Watson takes fire on the supposed provocation, and he asks 
me with unusual quickness, " How, Sir, are the arguments 
" for liberty of conscience so exceedingly inconclusive, that 
" you think them incapable of reaching the understanding 
" even of philosophers ?" S3 He continues to observe, that a 
captious adversary would embrace with avidity the oppor- 
tunity this passage affords, of blotting my character with 
the odious stain of being a Persecutor ; a stain which no 
learning can wipe out, which no genius or ability can render 
amiable ; and though he himself does not entertain such an 
opinion of my principles, his ingenuity tries in vain to pro- 
vide me with the means of escape. 

I must lament that I have not been successful in the 
explanation of a very simple notion of the spirit both of Phi- 
losophy and of Polytheism, which I have repeatedly incul- 
cated. The arguments which assert the rights of conscience 
are not inconclusive in themselves, but the understanding of 
the Greeks and Romans was fortified against their evidence 
by an invincible prejudice. When we listen to the voice of 
Bayle, of Locke, and of genuine reason, in favor of religious 
toleration, we shall easily perceive that our most forcible 
appeal is made to our mutual feelings. If the Jew were al- 
lowed to argue with the Inquisitor, he would request that 
for a moment they might exchange their different situations, 
and might safely ask his Catholic Tyrant, whether the fear 
of death would compel him to enter the synagogue, to re- 
ceive the mark of circumcision, and to partake of the paschal 
lamb. As soon as the case of persecution was brought home 

82 Gibbon, p. 625. 83 Watson, p. 185. 



A VINDICATION. 59 

to the breast of the Inquisitor, he must have found some 
difficulty in suppressing the dictates of natural equity, which 
would insinuate to his conscience, that he could have no 
right to inflict those punishments which, under similar cir- 
cumstances, he would esteem it as his duty to encounter. 
But this argument could not reach the understanding of a 
Polytheist, or of an ancient Philosopher. The former was 
ready, whenever he was summoned, or indeed without be- 
ing summoned, to fall prostrate before the altars of any gods 
who were adored in any part of the world, and to admit a 
vague persuasion of the truth and divinity of the most dif- 
ferent modes of religion. The Philosopher, who considered 
them, at least in their literal sense, as equally false and ab- 
surd, was not ashamed to disguise his sentiments, and to 
frame his actions according to the laws of his country, which 
imposed the same obligation on the Philosophers and the 
people. When Pliny declared, that whatever was the opinion 
of the Christians, their obstinacy deserved punishment, the 
absurd cruelty of Pliny was excused in his own eye, by the 
consciousness that, in the situation of the Christians, he 
would not have refused the religious compliance which he 
exacted. I shall not repeat, that the Pagan worship was a 
matter, not of opinion, but of ctcstom ; that the toleration of 
the Romans was confined to nations or families who followed 
the practice of their ancestors ; and that in the first ages of 
Christianity their persecution of the individuals who de- 
parted from the established religion was neither moderated 
by pure reason, nor inflamed by exclusive zeal. But I only 
desire to appeal, from the hasty apprehension, to the more 
deliberate judgment, of Dr. Watson himself. Should there 
still remain any difference of opinion between us, I shall be 
satisfied, if he will consider me as a sincere though perhaps 
unsuccessful lover of truth, and as a firm friend to civil and 
ecclesiastical freedom. 

Far be it from me, or from any faithful His- Dr . C heisum 
torian, to impute to the respectable societies the and Dr. 
faults of some individual members. Our two Ran op 
Universities most undoubtedly contain the same mixture, 
and most probably the same proportions, of zeal and mod- 
eration, of reason and superstition. Yet there is much less 
difference between the smoothness of the Ionic, and the 
roughness of the Doric dialects, than may be found between 
the polished style of Dr. Watson, and the coarse language 
of Mr. Davis, Dr. Chelsum, or Dr. Randolph. The second 



60 A VINDICATION. 

of these Critics, Dr. Chelsum of Christ Church, is unwilling 
that the world should forget that he was the first who 
sounded to arms, that he was the first who furnished the 
antidote to the poison, and who, as early as the month 
of October of the year 1776, published his Strictures 
on the Two last Chapters of Mr. Gibbon's History. The 
success of a pamphlet, which he modestly styles imperfect 
and ill-digested, encouraged him to resume the controversy. 
In the beginning of the present year, his Remarks made 
their second appearance, with some alteration of form, and 
a large increase of bulk ; and the author who seems to fight 
under the protection of two episcopal banners, has prefixed, 
in the front of his volume, his name and titles, which in the 
former edition he had less honorably suppressed. His con- 
fidence is fortified by the alliance and communications of 
a distinguished Writer, Dr. Randolph, &c.,who, on a proper 
occasion, would, no doubt, be ready to bear as honorable 
testimony to the merit and reputation of Dr. Chelsum. The 
two friends are indeed so happily united by art and nature, 
that, if the author of the Remarks had not pointed out the 
valuable communications of the Margaret Professor, it would 
have been impossible to separate their respective property. 
Writers who possess any freedom of mind, may be known 
from each other by the peculiar character of their style and 
sentiments ; but the champions who are enlisted in the ser- 
vice of Authority, commonly wear the uniforn of the regi- 
ment. Oppressed with the same yoke, covered with the 
same trappings, they heavily move along, perhaps not with 
an equal pace, in the same beaten track of prejudice and 
preferment. Yet I should expose my own injustice, were I 
absolutely to confound with Mr. Davis the two Doctors in 
Divinity, who are joined in one volume. The three Critics 
appear to be animated by the same implacable resentment 
against the Historian of the Roman Empire ; they are alike 
disposed to support the same opinions by the same arts ; 
and if in the language of the two latter, the disregard of 
politeness is somewhat less gross and indecent, the difference 
is not of such a magnitude as to excite in my breast any 
lively sensations of gratitude. It was the misfortune of Mr. 
Davis that he undertook to write before he had read. He 
set out with the stock of authorities which he found in 
my quotations, and boldly ventured to play his reputation 
against mine. Perhaps he may now repent of a loss which 
is not easily recovered ; but if I had not surmounted my al- 



A VINDICATION. 6 1 

most insuperable reluctance to a public dispute, many a 
reader might still be dazzled by the vehemence of his as- 
sertions, and might still believe that Mr. Davis had detected 
several willful and important misrepresentations in my Two 
last Chapters. But the confederate Doctors appear to be 
scholars of a higher form and longer experience ; they en- 
joy a certain rank in their academical world ; and as their 
zeal is enlightened by some rays of knowledge, so their de- 
sire to ruin the credit of their adversary is occasionally 
checked by the apprehension of injuring their own. These 
restraints, to which Mr. Davis was a stranger, have confined 
them to a very narrow and humble path of historical criti- 
cism ; and if I were to correct, according to their wishes, all 
the particular facts against which they have advanced any 
objections, these corrections, admitted in the fullest extent, 
would hardly furnish materials for a decent list of errata. 

The dogmatical part of their work, which in every sense 
of the word deserves that appellation, is ill adapted to en- 
gage my attention. I had declined the consideration of 
theological arguments, when they were managed by a can- 
did and liberal adversary ; and it would be inconsistent 
enough, if I should have refused to draw my sword in 
honorable combat against the keen and well-tempered 
weapon of Dr. Watson, for the sole purpose of encounter- 
ing the rustic cudgel of two staunch and sturdy Polemics. 

I shall not enter any farther into the character and con- 
duct of Cyprian, as I am sensible that, if the opinion of Le 
Clerc, Mosheim, and myself, is reprobated by Dr. Chelsum 
and his ally, the difference must subsist, till we shall enter- 
tain the same notions of moral virtue and ecclesiastical 
power. 84 If Dr. Randolph will allow that the primitive 
Clergy received, managed, and distributed the tithes, and 
other charitable donations of the faithful, the dispute between 
us will be a dispute of words, 85 I shall not amuse myself 
with proving that the learned Origen must have derived 
from the inspired authority of the Church his knowledge, 
not indeed of the authenticity, but of the inspiration of the 
four Evangelists, two of whom are not in the rank of the 
Apostles. 86 I shall submit to the judgment of the Public, 
whether the Athanasian Creed is not read and received in 
the Church of England, and whether the wisest and most 
virtuous of the Pagans 87 believed the Catholic faith, which 

s-t Gibbon, p. 558, 559. Chelsum, p. 132-139. 

85 Gibbon, p. 592. Randolph in Chelsum, p. 122. 

86 Gibbon, p. 551. N. 33. Chelsum, p. 39. 

87 Gibbon, p. 565. N. 70. Chelsum, p. 66. 



62 A VINDICATION. 

is declared in the Athanasian Creed to be absolutely neces- 
sary for salvation. As little shall I think myself interested 
in the elaborate disquisitions with which the Author of the 
Remarks has filled a great number of pages, concerning the 
famous testimony of Josephus, the passages of Irenaeus and 
Theophilus, which relate to the gift of miracles, and the 
origin of circumcision in Palestine or in Egypt. 88 If I have 
rejected, and rejected with some contempt, the interpolation 
which pious fraud has very awkwardly inserted in the text 
of Josephus, I may deem myself secure behind the shield 
of learned and pious critics (see in particular Le Clerc, in 
his Ars Critica, part iii. sect. i. c. 15. and Lardner's Testi- 
monies, Vol. i. p. 150, &c), who have condemned this 
passage : and I think it very natural that Dr. Chelsum should 
embrace the contrary opinion, which is not destitute of able 
advocates. The passages of Irenaeus and Theophilus were 
thoroughly sifted in the controversy about the duration of 
Miracles ; and as the works of Dr. Middleton maybe found 
in every library, so it is not impossible that a diligent search 
may still discover some remains of the writings of his adver- 
saries. In mentioning the confession of the Syrians of 
Palestine, that they had received from Egypt the rite of 
circumcision, I had simply alleged the testimony of Hero- 
dotus, without expressly adopting the sentiment of Marsham. 
But I had always imagined, that in these doubtful and 
indifferent questions, which have been solemnly argued 
before the tribunal of the Public, every scholar was at liberty 
to choose his side, without assigning his reasons ; nor can 
I yet persuade myself, that either Dr. Chelsum, or myself, 
are likely to enforce, by any new arguments, the opinions 
which we have respectively followed. The only novelty for 
which I can perceive myself indebted to Dr. Chelsum, is 
the very extraordinary Skepticism which he insinuates con- 
cerning the time of Herodotus, who, according to the 
chronology of some, flourished during the time of the Jewish 
captivity. 89 Can it be necessary to inform a Divine, that the 
captivity which lasted seventy years, according to the 
prophecy of Jeremiah, was terminated in the year 536 before 
Christ, by the edict which- Cyrus published in the first year 
of his reign? {Jeremiah, xxv. 11, 12. xxix. 10. Ezra i. 1. 
&c. Usher and Prideaux, under the years 606. and 536.) 
Can it be necessary to inform a man of letters, that Hero- 
dotus was fifty-three years old at the commencement of the 

83 Chelsum's Remarks, p. 13-19. 67-91. 180-185. 89 Chelsum, p. 15- 



A VINDICATION. 63 

Peloponnesian war (Auhis Gellius, Nbct. Attic, xv. 23. from 
the commentaries of Pamphila), and consequently that he 
was born in the year before Christ 484, fifty-two years after 
the end of the Jewish captivity ? As this well attested fact 
is not exposed to the slightest doubt or difficulty, I am 
somewhat curious to learn the names of those unknown 
authors, whose chronology Dr, Chelsum has allowed as 
the specious foundation of a probable hypothesis. The 
Author of the Remarks does not seem indeed to have culti- 
vated, with much care or success, the province of literary 
history ; as a very moderate acquaintance with that useful 
branch of knowledge would have saved him from a positive 
mistake, much less excusable than the doubt which he enter- 
tains about the time of Herodotus. He styles Suidas " a 
" Heathen writer, who lived about the end of the tenth cen- 
" tury." 90 I admit the period which he assigns to Suidas ; 
and which is well ascertained by Dr. Bentley. (See his 
Reply to Boyle, p. 22, 23.) We are led to fix this epoch, 
by the chronology which this Heatheii writer has deduced 
from Adam, to the death of the emperor John Zimisces, A. 
D. 975 : and a crowd of passages might be produced, as the 
unanswerable evidence of his Christianity. But the most 
unanswerable of all is the very date, which is not disputed 
between us. The philosophers who flourished under Jus- 
tinian (see Agathias, L. ii. p. 65, 66.) appear to have been 
the last of the Heathen writers : and the ancient religion of 
the Greeks was annihilated almost four hundred years be- 
fore the birth of Suidas. 

After this animadversion, which is not intended either to 
insult the failings of my Adversary, or to provide a con- 
venient excuse for my own errors, I shall proceed to select 
two important parts of Dr. Chelsum's Remarks, from which 
the candid reader may form some opinion of the whole. 
They relate to the military service of the first Christians, and 
to the historical character of Eusebius ; and I shall review 
them with the less reluctance, as it may not be impossible 
to pick up something curious and useful even in the barren 
waste of controversy. 

I. In representing the errors of the primitive 
Christians, -which flowed from an excess of virtue, vic'e^f the" 
I had observed, that they exposed themselves to nu ?**' 

. , ' . » "• V r . .... Christians. 

the reproaches 01 the ragans, by their obstinate 

refusal to take an active part in the civil administration, or 

90 Chelsum, p. 73. 



64 A VINDICATION. 

military defence of the empire; that the objections of Celsus 
appear to have been mutilated by his adversary Origen ; 
and that the Apologists, to whom the public dangers were 
urged, returned obscure and ambiguous answers, as they 
were unwilling to disclose the true ground of their security, 
their opinion of the approaching end of the world. 91 In an- 
other place I had related, from the Acts of Ruinart, the action 
and punishment of the Centurion Marcellus, who was put 
to death for renouncing the service in a public and seditious 
manner. 92 

On this occasion Dr. Chelsum is extremely alert. He 
denies my facts, controverts my opinions, and, with a polite- 
ness worthy of Mr. Davis himself, insinuates that I borrowed 
the story of Marcellus, not from Ruinart, but from Voltaire. 
My learned adversary thinks it highly improbable that 
Origen should dare to mutilate the objections of Celsus, 
" whose work was, in all probability, extant at the time he 
" made this reply. In such case, had he even been inclined 
" to treat his adversary unfairly, he must yet surely have 
" been withheld from the attempt, through the fear of detec- 
" tion." 93 The experience both of ancient and modern con- 
troversy has indeed convinced me that this reasoning, just 
and natural as it may seem, is totally inconclusive, and that 
the generality of disputants, especially in religious contests, 
are of a much more daring and intrepid spirit. For the 
truth of this remark, I shall content myself with producing 
a recent and very singular example, in which Dr. Chelsum 
himself is personally interested. He charges 94 me with 
passing over in " silence the important and unsuspected 
" testimony of a Heathen historian (Dion Cassius) to the 
" persecution of Domitian ; and he affirms, that I have pro- 
" duced that testimony so far only as it relates to Clemens 
" and Domitilla ; yet in the very same passage follows im- 
" mediately, that on a like accusation many others were 
" also condemned. Some of them were put to death, others 
" suffered the confiscation of their goods." 95 Although I 
should not be ashamed to undertake the apology of Nero or 
Domitian, if I thought them innocent of any particular 
crime with which zeal or malice had unjustly branded their 
memory ; yet I should indeed blush, if, in favor of tyranny, 
or even in favor of virtue, I had suppressed the truth and 
evidence of historical facts. But the Reader will feel some 
surprise, when he has convinced himself that, in the three 

9L Gibbon, p. 580, 581. 92 id. p. 680. 93 Chelsum, p. 118, 119. 

9i Chelsum, p. 188. 95 Gibbon, p. 645. 



A VINDICATION, 65 

editions of my First Volume, after relating the death of 
Clemens, and the exile of Domitilla, I continue to allege the 
entire testimony of Dion, in the following words : " and 
" sentences either of death, or of confiscation, were pro- 
" nounced against a great number of persons who were 
" involved in the same accusation. The guilt imputed to 
" their charge, was that of Atheism and Jewish manners; 
4 ' a singular association of ideas which cannot with any 
" propriety be applied except to the Christians, as they were 
" obscurely and imperfectly viewed by the magistrates and 
" writers of that period." Dr. Chelsum has not been de- 
terred by the fear of detection, from this scandalous mutila- 
tion of the popular work of a living adversary. But Celsus 
had been dead above fifty years before Origen published his 
Apology ; and the copies of an ancient work, instead of be- 
ing instantaneously multiplied by the operation of the press, 
were separately and slowly transcribed by the labor of the 
hand. 

If any modern divine should still maintain that the fidelity 
of Origen was secured by motives more honorable than the 
fear of detection, he may learn from Jerom the difference of 
the gymnastic and dog?natic styles. Truth is the object of 
the one, victory of the other ; and the same arts which would 
disgrace the sincerity of the teacher, serve only to display 
the skill of the disputant. After justifying his own practice 
by that of the orators and philosophers, Jerom defends him- 
self by the more respectable authority of Christian apologists. 
" How many thousand lines, says he, have been composed 
" against Celsus and Porphyry, by Orige?i, Methodius, 
" Eusebius, Apollinaris? Consider with what arguments, 
" with what slippery problems, they elude the inventions of 
" the Devil ; and how, in their controversy with the Gen- 
" tiles, they are sometimes obliged to speak, not what they 
" really think, but what is most advantageous for the cause 
" they defend." " Origenes, &c, multis versuum millibus 
" scribunt adversus Celsum et Porphyrium. Considerate 
" quibus argumentis et quam lubricis problematibus diaboli 
" spiritu contexta subvertunt : et quia interdum coguntur 
" loqui, non quod sentiunt, sed quod necesse est dicunt ad- 
" versus ea quae dicunt Gentiles." {Pro Libris advers. 
Jovinian. Apolog. torn. ii. p. 135.) 

Yet Dr. Chelsum may still ask, and he has a right to ask, 
why in this particular instance I suspect the pious Origen of 
mutilating the objections of his adversary. From a very 



66 A VINDICATION. 

obvious, and, in my opinion, a very decisive circumstance, 
Celsus was a Greek philosopher, the friend of Lucian ; and 
I thought that, although he might support error by sophistry, 
he would not write nonsense in his own language. I renounce 
my suspicion, If the most attentive reader is able to under- 
stand the design and purport of a passage which is given as a 
formal quotation from Celsus, and which begins with the 
following words : Ov firjv h6e ekelvo clvektov oh Xejovtoc, wf, &C. 

(Orige?i contr. Celsum, L. viii. p. 425. edit. Spencer, Can- 
tab. 1677.) I have carefully inspected the original, I have 
availed myself of the learning of Spencer, and even Bou- 
hereau, (for I shall always disclaim the absurd and affected 
pedantry of using without scruple a Latin version, but of 
despising the aid of a French translation,) and the ill success 
of my efforts has countenanced the suspicion to which I still 
adhere, with a just mixture of doubt and hesitation. Origen 
very boldly denies, that any of the Christians have affirmed 
what is imputed to them by Celsus, in this unintelligible 
quotation ; and it may easily be credited, that none had 
maintained what none can comprehend. Dr. Chelsum has 
produced the words of Origen ; but on this occasion there 
is a strange ambiguity in the language of the modern divine, 96 
as if he wished to insinuate what he dared not affirm ; and 
every reader must conclude, from his state of the question, 
that Origen expressly denied the truth of the accusation of 
Celsus, who had accused the Christians of declining to assist 
their fellow-subjects in the military defence of the empire, 
assailed on every side by the arms of the Barbarians. 

Will Dr. Chelsum justify to the world, can he justify to 
his own feelings, the abuse which he has made even of the 
privileges of the Gymnastic style ? Careless and hasty in- 
deed must have been his perusal of Origen, if he did not 
perceive that the ancient apologist, who makes a stand on 
some incidental question, admits the accusation of his ad- 
versary, that the Christians refused to bear arms even at 
the command of their sovereign. " Kai a cvarpaTEvofiEda \itjv 
"ov™, Kav ETrvEtyrj." (Origen, L. viii. p. 427.) He endeavors 
to palliate this undutiful refusal, by representing that the 
Christians had their peculiar camps, in which they inces- 
santly combated for the safety of the emperor and the 
empire, by lifting up their right hands — in prayer. The 
apologist seems to hope that his country will be satisfied 
with this spiritual aid, and dexterously confounding the 

96 Chelsum, p. 118. 



A VINDICATION. 67 

colleges of Roman priests with the multitudes which swelled 
the Catholic church, he claims for his brethren, in all the 
provinces, the exemption from military service, which was 
enjoyed by the sacerdotal order. But as this excuse might 
not readily be allowed, Origen looks forward with a lively 
faith to that auspicious revolution, which Celsus had rejected 
as impossible, when all the nations of the habitable earth, re- 
nouncing their passions and their arms, should embrace the 
pure doctrines of the Gospel, and lead a life of peace and 
innocence under the immediate protection of Heaven. 
The faith of Origen seems to be principally founded on the 
predictions of the Prophet Zephaniah (See hi. 9, 10.) ; and 
he prudently observes, that the prophets often speak secret 
things (ev aTToppT/Tco ?ueyaat, p. 426.), which may be understood 
by those who can understand them ; and that if this stu- 
pendous change cannot be effected while we retain our 
bodies, it may be accomplished as soon as we shall be re- 
leased from them. Such is the reasoning of Origen : though 
I have not followed the order, I have faithfully preserved 
the substance of it ; which fully justifies the truth and pro- 
priety of my observations. 

The execution of Marcellus, the Centurion, is naturally 
connected with the Apology of Origen, as the former de- 
clared by his actions, what the latter had affirmed in his 
writings, that the conscience of a devout Christian would 
not allow him to bear arms, even at the command of his 
sovereign. I had represented this religious scruple as one 
of the motives which provoked Marcellus, on the day of a 
public festival, to throw away the ensigns of his office : and 
I presumed to observe, that such an act of desertion would 
have been punished in any government according to martial 
or even civil law. Dr. Chelsum 97 very bluntly accuses me of 
misrepresenting the story, and of suppressing those circum- 
stances which would have defended the Centurion from the 
unjust imputation thrown by me upon his conduct. The 
dispute between the advocate for Marcellus and myself lies 
in a very narrow compass ; as the whole evidence is com- 
prised in a short, simple, and, I believe, authentic narrative. 

1. In another place I observed, and even pressed the ob- 
servation, " that the innumerable deities and rites of Poly- 
" theism were closely interwoven with every circumstance 
" of business or pleasure, of public or of private life;" and 
I had particularly specified how much the Roman discipline 

9T Chelsum, p. 114— 117. 



68 A VINDICATION. 

was connected with the national superstition. A solemn 
oath of fidelity was repeated every year in the name of the 
gods and of the genius of the Emperor, public and daily 
sacrifices were performed at the head of the camp, the legion- 
ary was continually tempted, or rather compelled, to join 
in the idolatrous worship of his fellow-soldiers ; and had not 
any scruples been entertained of the lawfulness of war, it is 
not easy to understand how any serious Christian could enlist 
under a banner which has been justly termed the rival of the 
Cross. " Vexilla semula Christi." ( Tertullian de Corona 
Militis, c. xi.) With regard to the soldiers, who before their 
conversion were already engaged in the military life, fear, 
habit, ignorance, necessity, might bend them to some acts 
of occasional conformity ; and as long as they abstained 
from absolute and intentional idolatry, their behavior was 
excused by the indulgent, and censured by the more rigid 
casuists. (See the whole Treatise de Corona Militis?) We 
are ignorant of the adventures and character of the Centu- 
rion Marcellus, how long he had conciliated the profession 
of arms and of the Gospel, whether he was only a Cate- 
chumen, or whether he was initiated by the sacrament of 
baptism. We are likewise at a loss to ascertain the particular 
act of idolatry which so suddenly and so forcibly provoked 
his pious indignation. As he declared his faith in the 
midst of a public entertainment given on the birth-day of 
Galerius, he must have been startled by some of the sacred 
and convivial rites (Convivia ista profana reputans) of 
prayers, or vows, or libations, or, perhaps, by the offensive 
circumstance of eating the meats which had been offered to 
the idols. But the scruples of Marcellus were not confined 
to these accidental impurities ; they evidently reached the 
essential duties of his profession ; and when, before the tri- 
bunal of the magistrates, he avowed his faith at the hazard 
of his life, the Centurion declared, as his cool and deter- 
mined persuasion, that it does not become a Christian man, 
who is the soldier of the Lord Christ, to bear arms for any 
object of earthly concern. " Non enim decebat Christia- 
" num hominem molestiis secularibus militare, qui Christo 
" Domino militat." A formal declaration, which clearly 
disengages from each other the different questions of war and 
idolatry. With regard to both these questions, as they were 
understood by the primitive Christians, I wish to refer the 
reader to the sentiments and authorities of Mr. Moyle, a 
bold and ingenious critic, who read the Fathers as their 



A VINDICATION. 69 

judge, and not as their slave, and who has refuted, with the 
most patient candor, all that learned prejudice could suggest 
in favor of the silly story of the Thundering Legion. (See 
Moyle's Works, Vol. ii. p. 84 — 88. 11 1 — 116. 163 — 212. 
298 — 302. 327 — 341.) And here let me add, that the passage 
of Origen, who in the name of his brethren disclaims the 
duty of military service, is understood by Mr. Moyle in its 
true and obvious signification. 

2. I know not where Dr. Chelsum has imbibed the prin- 
ciples of logic or morality which teach him to approve the 
conduct of Marcellus, who threw down his rod, his belt, and 
his arms, at the head of the legion, and publicly renounced 
the military service, at the very time when he found himself 
obliged to offer sacrifice. Yet surely this is a very false 
notion of the condition and duties of a Roman Centurion. 
Marcellus was bound, by a solemn oath, to serve with fidelity 
till he should be regularly discharged ; and according to the. 
sentiments which Dr. Chelsum ascribes to him, he was not 
released from his oath by any mistaken opinion of the un- 
lawfulness of war. I would propose it as a case of conscience 
to any philosopher, or even to any casuist in Europe, 
Whether a particular order, which cannot be reconciled with 
virtue or piety, dissolves the ties of a general and lawful 
obligation ? And whether, if they had been consulted by 
the Christian Centurion, they would not have directed him 
to increase his diligence in the execution of his military 
functions, to refuse to yield to any act of idolatry, and 
patiently to expect the consequences of such a refusal ? But, 
instead of obeying the mild and moderate dictates of religion, 
instead of distinguishing between the duties of the soldier 
and of the Christian, Marcellus, with imprudent zeal, rushed 
forwards to seize the crown of martyrdom. He might have 
privately confessed himself guilty to the tribune or praefect 
under whom he served ; he chose on the day of a public 
festival to disturb the order of the camp. He insulted, with- 
out necessity, the religion of his sovereign and of his country, 
by the epithets of contempt which he bestowed on the Ro- 
man gods. " Deos vestros ligneos et lapideos adorare con- 
" temno, quae sunt idola surda et muta." Nay more ; at the 
head of the legion, and in the face of the standards, the 
Centurion Marcellus openly renounced his allegiance to 
the Emperors. " Ex hoc militare imperatoribus vestris 
" desisto." From this moment I no longer serve your Em- 
perors, are the important words of Marcellus, which his 



70 A VINDICATION. 

advocate has not thought proper to translate. I again make 
my appeal to any lawyer, to any military man, Whether, 
under such circumstances, the pronoun your has not a sedi- 
tious, and even treasonable import ? And whether the officer 
who should make this declaration, and at the same time 
throw away his sword at the head of the regiment, would 
not be condemned for mutiny and desertion by any court- 
martial in Europe ? I am the rather disposed to judge favor- 
ably of the conduct of the Roman government, as I cannot 
discover any desire to take advantage of the indiscretion of 
Marcellus. The commander of the legion seemed to lament 
that it was not in his power to dissemble this rash action. 
After a delay of more than three months, the Centurion was 
examined before the Vice-praefect, his superior judge, who 
offered him the fairest opportunities of explaining or quali- 
fying his seditious expressions, and at last condemned him 
to lose his head ; not simply because he was a Christian, but 
because he had violated his military oath, thrown away his 
belt, and publicly blasphemed the Gods and the Emperors. . 
Perhaps the impartial reader will confirm the sentence of 
the Vice-praefect Agricolanus, " Ita se habent facta Marcelli, 
" ut haec discipli?ia debeant vindicari." 

Notwithstanding the plainest evidence, Dr. Chelsum will 
not believe that either Origen in theory, or Marcellus in 
practice, could seriously object to the use of arms ; " because 
" it is well known, that, far from declining the business of 
" war altogether, whole legions of Christians served in the 
" Imperial armies." 93 I have not yet discovered, in the 
author or authors of the Remarks, many traces of a clear 
and enlightened understanding, yet I cannot suppose them 
so destitute of every reasoning principle, as to imagine that 
they here allude to the conduct of the Christians who em- 
braced the profession of arms after their religion had ob- 
tained a public establishment. Whole legions of Christians 
served under the banners of Constantine and Justinian, as 
whole regiments of Christians are now enlisted in the service 
of France or England. The representation which I had 
given, was confined to the principles and practice of the 
church of which Origen and Marcellus were members, be- 
fore the sense of public and private interest had reduced the 
lofty standard of evangelical perfection to the ordinary level 
of human nature. In those primitive times, where are the 
Christian legions that served in the Imperial armies ? Our 

as Chelsum, p. 113. * * 



A VINDICATION. 7 1 

ecclesiastical Pompeys may stamp with their foot, but no 
armed men will arise out of the earth, except the ghosts of 
the Thundering and the Thebaean legions ; the former re- 
nowned for a miracle, and the latter for a martyrdom. 
Either the two Protestant Doctors must acquiesce under 
some imputations which are better understood than ex- 
pressed, or they must prepare, in the full light and freedom 
of the eighteenth century, to undertake the defence of two 
obsolete legions, the least absurd of which staggered the 
well-disciplined credulity of a Franciscan Friar. (See Pagi 
Critic, ad Annal. Baronii, A. D. 174. torn. i. p. 168.) Very 
different was the spirit and taste of the learned and ingenu- 
ous Dr. Jortin, who, after treating the silly story of the 
Thundering Legion with the contempt it deserved, continues 
in the following words : " Moyle wishes no greater penance 
" to the believers of the Thundering Legion, than that they 
" may also believe the Martyrdom of the Thebaean Legion, 
" (Moyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 103.) : to which good wish, I say 
" with Le Clerc {Bibl. A. et M. torn, xxvii. p. 193.) Amen. 

" Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mcevi." 

(Jortin's Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 367. 
2d Edition, London, 1767.) 

Yet I shall not attempt to conceal a formidable army of 
Christians and even of Martyrs, which is ready to enlist 
under the banners of the confederate Doctors, if they will 
accept their service. As a specimen of the extravagant 
legends of the middle age, I had produced the instance of 
ten thousand Christian soldiers supposed to have been cruci- 
fied on Mount Ararat, by the order either of Trajan or 
Hadrian." For the mention and for the confutation of this 
story, I had appealed to a papist and a protestant, to the 
learned Tillemont {Mem. Ecclesiast. torn. ii. part ii. p. 438.), 
and to the diligent Geddes {Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203.), 
and when Tillemont was not afraid to say that there are few 
histories which appear more fabulous, I was not ashamed 
of dismissing the fable with silent contempt. We may trace 
the degrees of fiction as well as those of credibility, and the 
impartial critic will not place on the same level the baptism 
of Philip and the donation of Constantine. But in consider- 
ing the crucifixion of the ten thousand Christian soldiers, 
we are not reduced to the necessity of weighing any internal 
probabilities, or of disproving any external testimonies. 

99 Gibbon, p. 654. N. 74. 



72 A VINDICATION. 

This legend, the absurdity of which must strike every 
rational mind, stands naked and unsupported by the 
authority of any writer who lived within a thousand years 
of the age of Trajan, and has not been able to obtain the 
poor sanction of the uncorrupted martyrologies which were 
framed in the most credulous period of ecclesiastical history. 
The two Protestant Doctors will probably reject the unsub- 
stantial present which has been offered them ; yet there is 
one of my adversaries, the anonymous Gentleman, who 
boldly declares himself the votary of the ten thousand 
martyrs, and challenges me " to discredit a fact which 
" hitherto by many has been looked upon as well estab- 
" lished." 100 It is pity that a prudent confessor did not 
whisper in his ear, that, although the martyrdom of these 
military Saints, like that of the eleven thousand virgins, may 
contribute to the edification of the faithful, these wonderful 
tales should not be rashly exposed to the jealous and inquisi- 
tive eye of those profane critics, whose examination always 
precedes, and sometimes checks, their religious assent. 

II. A grave and pathetic complaint is intro- 
an a d et duced by Dr. Chelsum, into his preface, 101 that 
Eusebi?! ^ r ' Gibbon, who has often referred to the Fathers 
of the church, seems to have entertained a gen- 
eral distrust of those respectable witnesses. The critic is 
scandalized at the epithets of scanty and suspicious, which 
applied to the materials of ecclesiastical history ; and if he 
cannot impeach the truth of the former, he censures in the 
most angry terms the injustice of the latter. He assumes, 
with peculiar zeal, the defence of Eusebius, the venerable 
parent of Ecclesiastical History and labors to rescue his 
character from the gross misrepresentation on which Mr. 
Gibbon has openly insisted. 102 He observes, as if he sagaci- 
ously foresaw the objection, " That it will not be sufficient 
" here to allege a few instances of apparent credulity in some 
" of the Fathers, in order to fix a general charge of suspicion 
" on all." But it may be sufficient to allege a clear and 
fundamental principle of historical as well as legal Criti- 
cism, that whenever we are destitute of the means of 
comparing the testimonies of the opposite parties, the 
evidence of any witness, however illustrious by his rank 
and titles, is justly to be suspected in his own cause. It is 
unfortunate enough, that I should be engaged with adver- 
saries, whom their habits of study and conversation appear 

loo Remarks, p 65, 66, 67. 101 p. ii. Hi. 102 Chelsum and Randolph, p. 220-238. 



A VINDICATION. 73 

to have left in total ignorance of the principles which uni- 
versally regulate the opinions and practice of mankind. 

As the ancient world was not distracted by the fierce con- 
flicts of hostile sects, the free and eloquent writers of Greece 
and Rome had few opportunites of indulging their passions, 
or of exercising their impartiality in the relation of religious 
events. Since the origin of Theological Factions, some 
Historians, Ammianus Marcellinus, Fra-Paolo, Thuanus, 
Hume, and perhaps a few others, have deserved the singu- 
lar praise of holding the balance with a steady and equal 
hand. Independent and unconnected, they contemplated 
with the same indifference, the opinions and interests of the 
contending parties ; or, if they were seriously attached to a 
particular system, they were armed with a firm and moderate 
temper, which enabled them to suppress their affections, and 
to sacrifice their resentments. In this small, but venerable 
Synod of Historians, Eusebius cannot claim a seat. I had 
acknowledged, and I still think, that his character was less 
tinctured with credulity than that of most of his contem- 
poraries ; but as his enemies must admit, that he was sincere 
and earnest in the profession of Christianity, so the warmest 
of his admirers, or at least of his readers, must discern, and 
will probably applaud, the religious zeal which disgraces or 
adorns every page of his Ecclesiastical History. This la- 
borious and useful work was published at a time, between 
the defeat of Licinius and the Council of Nice, when the re- 
sentment of the Christians was still warm, and when the 
Pagans were astonished and dismayed by the recent victory 
and conversion of the great Constantine. The materials, I 
shall dare to repeat the invidious epithets of scanty and sus- 
picious, were extracted from the accounts which the Chris- 
tians themselves had given of their own sufferings, and of 
the cruelty of their enemies. The Pagans had so long and 
so contemptuously neglected the rising greatness of the 
Church, that the Bishop of Csesarea had little either to hope 
or to fear from the writers of the opposite party ; almost all 
of that little which did exist, has been accidentally lost, or 
purposely destroyed ; and the candid inquirer may vainly 
wish to compare with the History of Eusebius, some Heathen 
narrative of the persecutions of Decius and Diocletian. 
Under these circumstances, it is the duty of an impartial 
judge to be counsel for the prisoner, who is incapable of 
making any defence for himself; and it is the first office of a 
counsel to examine with distrust and suspicion the interested 



74 A VINDICATION. 

evidence of the accuser. Reason justifies the suspicion, and 
it is confirmed by the constant experience of modern His- 
tory, in almost every instance where we have an opportunity 
of comparing the mutual complaints and apologies of the 
religious factions, who have disturbed each other's happi- 
ness in this world for the sake of securing it in the next. 

As we are deprived of the means of contrasting the ad- 
verse relations of the Christians and Pagans ; it is the more 
incumbent on us to improve the opportunities of trying the 
narratives of Eusebius, by the original, and sometimes oc- 
casional, testimonies of the more ancient writers of his own 
party. Dr. Chelsum 103 has observed, that the celebrated 
passage of Origen, which has so much thinned the ranks of 
the army of Martyrs, must be confined to the persecutions 
that had already happened. I cannot dispute this sagacious 
remark, but I shall venture to add, that this passage more 
immediately relates to the religious tempests which had 
been excited in the time and country of Origen ; and still 
more particularly to the city of Alexandria, and to the per- 
secution of Severus, in which young Origen succesfully ex- 
horted his father, to sacrifice his life and fortune for the 
cause of Christ. From such unquestionable evidence, I am 
authorized to conclude, that the number of holy victims who 
sealed their faith with their blood, was not, on this occasion, 
very considerable : but I cannot reconcile this fair conclu- 
sion with the positive declaration of Eusebius (L. vi. c. 2. p. 
258.), that at Alexandria, in the persecution of Severus, an 
innumerable, at least an indefinite multitude (fivpioi) of Chris- 
tians were honored with the crown of Martyrdom. The ad- 
vocates for Eusebius may exert their critical skill in proving 
that fivpuu and o/uyoi many and few, are synonymous and 
convertible terms, but they will hardly succeed in diminish- 
ing so palpable a contradiction, or in removing the suspicion 
which deeply fixes itself on the historical character of the 
Bishop of Catsarea. This unfortunate experiment taught me 
to read, with becoming caution, the loose and declamatory 
style which seems to magnify the multitude of Martyrs and 
Confessors, and to aggravate the nature of their sufferings. 
From the same motives I selected, with careful observation, 
the more certain account of the number of persons who ac- 
tually suffered death in the province of Palestine, during the 
whole eight years of the last and most rigorous persecution. 

Besides the reasonable grounds of suspicion, which suggest 

ios Gibbon, p. 653. Chelsum, p. 204-207. 



A VINDICATION. 75 

themselves to every liberal mind, against the credibility of 
the Ecclesiastical Historians, and of Eusebius, their ven- 
erable leader, I had taken notice of two very remarkable 
passages of the Bishop of Caesarea. He frankly, or at least 
indirectly, declares, that in treating of the last persecution, 
" he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and 
" suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of Re- 
" ligion." 104 Dr. Chelsum, who, on this occasion, most 
lamentably exclaims that we should hear Eusebius, before 
we utterly condemn him, has provided, with the assistance 
of his worthy colleague, an elaborate defence for their com- 
mon patron ; and as if he were secretly conscious of the 
weakness of the cause, he has contrived the~resource of in- 
trenching himself in a very muddy soil, behind three several 
fortifications, which do not exactly support each other. The 
advocate for the sincerity of Eusebius maintains : ist, That 
he never made such a declaration : 2dly, That he had a 
right to make it: and, 3dly, That he did not observe it. 
These separate and almost inconsistent apologies, I shall 
separately consider. 

i. Dr. Chelsum is at a loss how to reconcile, 1 beg 

pardon for weakening the force of his dogmatic style ; he 
declares, that, " It is plainly impossible to reconcile the 
" express words of the charge exhibited, with any part of 
" either of the passages appealed to in support of it." 105 If 
he means, as I think he must, that the express words of my 
text cannot be found in that of Eusebius, I congratulate the 
importance of the discovery. But was it possible ? Could it 
be my design to quote the words of Eusebius, when I re- 
duced into one sentence the spirit and substance of two 
diffuse and distinct passages ? If I have given the true sense 
and meaning of the Ecclesiastical Historian, I have dis- 
charged the duties of a fair Interpreter ; nor shall I refuse to 
rest the proof of my fidelity on the translation of those two 
passages of Eusebius, which Dr. Chelsum produces in his 
favor. 106 " But it is not our part to describe the sad calamities 
" which at last befel them (the Christia?is~), since it does not 
" agree with our plan to relate their dissensions and 
" wickedness before the persecution ; on which account we 
" have determined to relate nothing more concerning them 
" than may serve to justify the Divine Judgment. We there- 
" fore have not been induced to make mention either of 
" those who were tempted in the persecution, or of those 

104 Gibbon, p. 699. 105 Chelsum. p. 232. 106 Chelsum, p. 228, 231. 



76 A VINDICATION. 

" who made utter shipwreck of their salvation, and who 
" were sunk of their own accord in the depths of the storm ; 
" but shall only add those things to our General History, 
" which may in the first place be profitable to ourselves, and 
" afterwards to posterity." In the other passage, Eusebius, 
after mentioning the dissensions of the Confessors among 
themselves, again declares that it is his intention to pass 
over all these things. " Whatsoever things, (continues the 
" Historian, in the words of the Apostle, who was recom- 
" mending the practice of virtue,) whatsoever things are 
" honest, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be 
" any virtue, and if there be any praise ; these things Euse- 
" bius thinks most suitable to a History of Martyrs;" of 
wonderful Martyrs, is the splendid epithet which Dr. Chel- 
sum had not thought proper to translate. I should betray a 
very mean opinion of the judgment and candor of my 
readers, if I added a single reflection on the clear and ob- 
vious tendency of the two passages of the Ecclesiastical His- 
torian. I shall only observe, that the Bishop of Caesarea 
seems to have claimed a privilege of a still more dangerous 
and extensive nature. In one of the most learned and elab- 
orate works that antiquity has left us, the Thirty-second 
Chapter of the Twelfth Book of his Evangelical Prepara- 
tion bears for its title this scandalous Proposition, " How it 
" may be lawful and fitting to use falsehood as a medicine, 
" and for the benefit of those who want to be deceived." 

On 6eTjOEL Z30TE TU XpEvdEl ClVTl <j>ap/iaK8 XP T l a ^ aL ^l 0)(f>£?i.Eia TO)V dEOflEVUV 

th tolhth -poT«, (P. 356, Edit. Graec. Rob. Stephani, Paris 
1544.) In this passage he alleges a passage of Plato, which 
approves the occasional practice of pious and salutary frauds ; 
nor is Eusebius ashamed to justify the sentiments of the 
Athenian philosopher by the example of the sacred writers 
of the Old Testament. 

2. I had contented myself with observing, that Eusebius 
had violated one of the fundamental laws of history. Ne 
quid veri die ere non audeat ; nor could I imagine, if the fact 
was allowed, that any question could possibly arise upon 
the matter of right. I was indeed mistaken ; and I now 
begin to understand why I have given so little satisfaction 
to Dr. Chelsum, and to other critics of the same complexion, 
as our ideas of the duties and the privileges of an historian 
appear to be so widely different. It is alleged, that " every 
" writer has a right to choose his subject, for the particular 
" benefit of his reader ; that he has explained his own plan 



A VINDICATION. 77 

" consistently ; that he considers himself, according to it, not 
" as a complete historian of the times, but rather as a 
" didactic writer, whose main object is to make his work, 
" like the Scriptures themselves, profitable for Doc- 
" trine: that, as he treats only of the affairs of the Church, 
" the plan is at least excusable, perhaps peculiarly proper; 
" and that he has conformed himself to the principal duty 
" of an historian, while, according to his immediate design, 
" he has not particularly related any of the transactions 
" which could tend to the disgrace of religion." 10T The his- 
torian must indeed be generous, who will conceal, by his 
own disgrace, that of his country, or of his religion. What- 
ever subject he has chosen, whatever persons he introduces, 
he owes to himself, to the present age, and to posterity, a 
just and perfect delineation of all that may be praised, of 
all that may be excused, and of all that must be censured. If 
he fails in the discharge of his important office, he partially 
violates the sacred obligations of truth, and disappoints his 
readers of the instruction which they might have derived 
from a fair parallel of the vices and virtues of the most illus- 
trious characters. Herodotus might range without control 
in the spacious walks of the Greek and Barbaric domain, and 
Thucydides might confine his steps to the narrow path of the 
Peloponnesian war ; but those historians would never have 
deserved the esteem of posterity, if they had designedly 
suppressed or transiently mentioned those facts which could 
tend to the disgrace of Greece or of Athens. These un- 
alterable dictates of conscience and reason have been seldom 
questioned, though they have been seldom observed ; and 
we must sincerly join in the honest complaint of Melchior 
Canus, " that the lives of the philosophers have been com- 
" posed by Laertius,and those of the Caesars by Suetonius, 
" with a much stricter and more severe regard for historic 
" truth, than can be found in the lives of saints and martyrs, 
" as they are described by Catholic writers." (See Loci 
Communes, L. xL p. 650, apud Clericum, Epistol. Critic. 
v. p. 136.) And yet the partial representation of truth is of 
far more pernicious consequence in ecclesiastical, than in 
civil history. If Laertius had concealed the defects of Plato, 
or if Suetonius had disguised the vices of Augustus, we 
should have been deprived of the knowledge of some curi- 
ous, and perhaps instructive, facts, and our idea of those 
celebrated men might have been more favorable than they 

107 Chelsum, p. 229, 230, 231. 



78 A VINDICATION 

deserved ; but I cannot discover any practical inconveniences 
which could have been the result of our ignorance. But 
if Eusebius had fairly and circumstantially related the 
scandalous dissensions of the Confessors ; if he had shown 
that their virtues were tinctured with pride and obstinacy, 
and that their lively faith was not exempt from some mix- 
ture of enthusiasm ; he would have armed his readers against 
the excessive veneration for those holy men, which imper- 
ceptibly degenerated into religious worship. The success 
of these didactic histories, by concealing or palliating every 
circumstance of human infirmity, was one of the most effica- 
cious means of consecrating the memory, the bones, and the 
writings of the saints of the prevailing party ; and a great 
part of the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome 
may fairly be ascribed to this criminal dissimulation of 
the ecclesiastical historians. As a Protestant Divine, Dr. 
Chelsum must abhor these corruptions ; but as a Christian, 
he should be careful lest his apology for the prudent choice 
of Eusebius should fix an indirect censure on the unreserved 
sincerity of the four Evangelists. Instead of confining their 
narrative to those things which are virtuous and of good 
report, instead of following the plan which is here recom- 
mended as peculiarly proper for the affairs of the Church, 
the inspired writers have thought it their duty to relate the 
most minute circumstances of the fall of St. Peter, without 
considering whether the behavior of an Apostle, who thrice 
denied his Divine Master, might redound to the honor, or 
to the disgrace of Christianity. If Dr. Chelsum should be 
frightened by this unexpected consequence, if he should be 
desirous of saving his faith from utter shipwreck, by throw- 
ing overboard the useless lumber of memory and reflection, 
I am not enough his enemy to impede the success of his 
honest endeavors. 

The didactic method of writing history was still more 
profitably exercised by Eusebius in another work, which he 
has entitled, The Life of Consta?itine, his gracious patron 
and benefactor. Priests and poets have enjoyed in every age 
a privilege of flattery ; but if the actions of Constantine are 
compared with the perfect idea of a royal saint, which, 
under his name, has been delineated by the zeal and grati- 
tude of Eusebius, the most indulgent reader will confess, 
that when I styled him a courtly Bishop™ I could only be 
restrained by my respect for the episcopal character from the 

io« Gibbon, p. 704. 



A VINDICATION. 79 

use of a much harsher epithet. The other appellation of a 
passionate declaimer, which seems to have sounded still more 
offensive in the tender ears of Dr. Chelsum, 109 was not ap- 
plied by me to Eusebius, but to Lactantius, or rather to the 
author of the historical declamation, De mortibus persecu- 
torum ; and indeed it is much more properly adapted to the 
Rhetorician, than to the Bishop. Each of those authors 
was alike studious of the glory of Constantine ; but each of 
them directed the torrent of his invectives against the tyrant, 
whether Maxentius or Licinus, whose recent defeat was the 
actual theme of popular and Christian applause. This simple 
observation may serve to extinguish a very trifling objec- 
tion of my critic, That Eusebius has not represented the 
tyrant Maxentius under the character of a Persecutor. 

Without scrutinizing the considerations of interest which 
might support the integrity of Baronius and Tillemont, I 
may fairly observe, that both those learned Catholics have 
acknowledged and condemned the dissimulation of Eusebius, 
which is partly denied, and partly justified, by my adversary. 
The honorable reflection of Baronius well deserves to be 
transcribed. " Haec (the passages already quoted) de suo in 
" conscribenda persecutions historia Eusebius ; parum ex- 
" plens numeros sui muneris ; dum perinde ac si panegyrim 
" scriberet non historiam, triumphos dumtaxat martyrum 
" atque victorias, non autem lapsus jacturamque ndelium 
" posteris scripturse monumentis curaret." (Baron. Annal. 
Ecclesiast. A. D. 302, No. 11. See likewise Tillemont, 
Mem. Eccles. torn. v. p. 62, 156; torn. vii. p. 130.) In a 
former instance, Dr. Chelsum appeared to be more credu- 
lous than a Monk : on the present occasion, he has shown 
himself less sincere than a Cardinal, and more obstinate 
than a Jansenist. 

3. Yet the advocate for Eusebius has still another expe- 
dient in reserve. Perhaps he made the unfortunate decla- 
ration of his partial design, perhaps he had a right to make 
it ; but at least his accuser must admit, that he has saved his 
honor by not keeping his word ; since I myself have taken 
notice of the corruption of manners and principles 
among the Christians so forcibly lamented by Euse- 
bius. 110 He has indeed indulged himself in a strain of loose 
and indefinite censure, which may generally be just, and 
which cannot be personally offensive, which is alike inca- 
pable of wounding or of correcting, as it seems to have no 

10? Chelsum, p. 234. uo Chelsum, p. 226, 227. 



80 A VINDICATION. 

fixed object or certain aim. Juvenal might have read his satire 
against women in a circle of Roman ladies, and each of them 
might have listened with pleasure to the amusing description 
of the various vices and follies, from which she herself was so 
perfectly free. The moralist, the preacher, the ecclesiastical 
historian, enjoy a still more ample latitude of invective ; and as 
long as they abstain from any particular censure, they may se- 
curely expose, and even exaggerate, the sins of the multitude. 
The precepts of Christianity seem to inculcate a style of morti- 
fication, of abasement, of self-contempt; and the hypocrite 
who aspires to the reputation of a saint, often finds it con- 
venient to affect the language of a penitent. I should doubt 
whether Dr. Chelsum is much acquainted with the comedies 
of Moliere. If he has ever read that inimitable master of 
human life, he may recollect whether Tartuffe was very much 
inclined to confess his real guilt, when he exclaimed, 

Out, mon frere, je suis un mechant, un coupable ; 
Un malheureiix pecheur, tout plein d'iniquitie ; 
Le plus grand scelerat qui ait jamais ete. 
Chaque instant de ma vie est charge de souillures, 
Elle n' est qu'un amas de crimes et d' ordures. 
******** 

Out, man cher fils, parlez, traitez moi de perfide, 
D'in/ame, de perdu, de voleur, d 'homicide ; 
Accablez moi de noms encore plus detestes : 
Je n'y contredis point, je les ai merites, 
Et j'en veux a genoux souffrir Vignominie, 
Comme une honte due aux crimes de ma vie. 

It is not my intention to compare the character of Tartuffe 
with that of Eusebius ; the former pointed his invectives 
against himself, the latter directed them against the times 
in which he had lived : but as the prudent Bishop of Csesarea 
did not specify any place or person for the object of his 
censure, he cannot justly be accused, even by his friends, 
of violating the profitable plan of his didactic history. 

The extreme caution of Eusebius, who declines any men- 
tion of those who were tempted and who fell during the 
persecution, has countenanced a suspicion that he himself 
was one of those unhappy victims, and that his tenderness 
for the wounded fame of his brethren arose from a just appre- 
hension of his own disgrace. In one of my notes, 511 I had 
observed, that he was charged with the guilt of some crim- 
inal compliances, in his own presence, and in the Council of 
Tyre. I am therefore accountable for the reality only, and not 
for the truth of the accusation : but as the two Doctors, who 
on this occasion unite their forces, are angry and clamorous 

in Gibbon, p. 699. N. 178. 



A VINDICATION. 8 1 

in asserting- the innocence of the Ecclesiastical Historian, 112 
I shall advance one step further, and shall maintain, that the 
charge against Eusebius, though not legally proved, is sup- 
ported by a reasonable share of presumptive evidence. 

I have often wondered why our orthodox Divines should 
be so earnest and zealous in the defence of Eusebius ; whose 
moral character cannot be preserved, unless by the sacrifice 
of a more illustrious, and, as I really believe, of a more inno- 
cent victim. Either the Bishop of Caesarea, on a very im- 
portant occasion, violated the laws of Christian charity and 
civil justice, or we must fix a charge of calumny, almost of 
forgery, on the head of the great Athanasius, the standard- 
bearer of the Homoousian cause, and the firmest pillar of 
the Catholic faith. In the Council of Tyre, he was accused 
of murdering, or at least of mutilating a Bishop, whom he 
produced at Tyre alive and unhurt (Athanas. torn. i. p. 783, 
786.) ; and of sacrilegiously breaking a consecrated chalice, 
in a village where neither church, nor altar, nor chalice, 
could possibly have existed. {Athanas. torn. i. p. 731,732, 
802.) Notwithstanding the clearest proofs of his innocence, 
Athanasius was oppressed by the Arian faction ; and Euse- 
bius of Caesarea, the venerable father of Ecclesiastical his- 
tory, conducted this iniquitous prosecution from a motive 
of personal enmity. (Athanas. torn. i. p, 728, 795, 797.) Four 
years afterwards, a national council of the Bishops of Egypt, 
forty-nine of whom had been present at the synod of Tyre, 
addressed an epistle or manifesto in favor of Athanasius to 
all the Bishops of the Christian world. In this epistle they 
assert, that some of the Confessors, who accompanied them 
to Tyre, had accused Eusebius of Caesarea of an act relative 

to idolatrous Sacrifice. «k TZvge&oc 6 ev KaiGepeta rrjr HalaLGTLVTiQ 
ettl Svoia KaniyopeiTO irro tuv aw rjfitv dfioXoyrjruv. (Athanas. tom. i. 
p. 728.) Besides this short and authentic memorial, which 
escaped the knowledge or the candor of our confed- 
erate Doctors, a consonant but more circumstantial narra- 
tive of the accusation of Eusebius may be found in the 
writings of Epiphanius (Hcsres. lxviii/p. 723, 724.), the 
learned Bishop of Salamis, who was born about the time of 
the Synod of Tyre. He relates, that, in one of the sessions 
of the Council, Potamon, Bishop of Heraclea in Egypt ad- 
dresssed Eusebius in the following words ; " How now, 
" Eusebius, can this be borne, that you should be seated as 
* a judge, while the innocent Athanasius is left standing as 
" a criminal ? Tell me, continued Potamon, were we not in 
" prison together during the persecution ? For my own part, 

112 Chelsum and Randolph, p'. 236, 237, 23S. 



82 A VINDICATION. 

" I lost an eye for the sake of the truth ; but I cannot dis- 
11 cern that you have lost any one of your members. You 
" bear not any marks of your sufferings for Jesus Christ ; 
" but here you are, full of life, and with all the parts of your 
" body sound and entire. How could you contrive to es- 
" cape from prison, unless you stained your conscience, 
" either by actual guilt or by a criminal promise to our 
" persecutors ? " Eusebius immediately broke up the meet- 
ing, and discovered, by his anger, that he was confounded 
or provoked by the reproaches of the Confessor Potamon. 
I should despise myself, if I were capable of magnifying, 
for a present occasion, the authority of the witness whom 
I have produced. Potamon was most assuredly actuated by 
a strong prejudice against the personal enemy of his Primate; 
and if the transaction to which he alluded had been of a 
private and doubtful kind, I would not take any ungenerous 
advantage of the respect which my reverend adversaries must 
entertain for the character of a confessor. But I cannot distrust 
the veracity of Potamon, when he confined himself to the as- 
sertion of a fact, which lay within the compass of his personal 
knowledge : and collateral testimony (see Photius, p. 296, 
297) attests, that Eusebius was long enough in prison to assist 
his friend, the Martyr Pamphilus, in composing the first five 
books of his Apology for Origen. If we admit that Eusebius 
was imprisoned, he must have been discharged, and his dis- 
charge must have been either honorable, or criminal, or inno- 
cent. If his patience vanquished the cruelty of the Tyrant's 
ministers, a short relation of his own confession and sufferings 
would have formed an useful and edifying chapter in his Di- 
dactic History of the persecution of Palestine ; and the reader 
would have been satisfied of the veracity of an historian who 
valued truth above his life. If it had been in his power to justify, 
or even to excuse, the manner of his discharge from prison, 
it was his interest, it was his duty, to prevent the doubts and 
suspicions which must arise from his silence under these deli- 
cate circumstances. Notwithstanding these urgent reasons, 
Eusebius has observed a profound, and perhaps a prudent 
silence : though he frequently celebrates the merit and mar- 
tyrdom of his friend Pamphilus (p. 371. 394. 419. 427. Edit. 
Cantab.), he never insinuates that he was his companion in 
prison ; and while he copiously describes the eight years 
persecution in Palestine, he never represents himself in any 
other light than that of a spectator. Such a conduct in a 
writer, who relates with a visible satisfaction the honorable 
events of his own life, if it be not absolutely considered as 



A VINDICATION. 83 

an evidence of conscious guilt, must excite, and may justify, 
the suspicions of the most candid critic. 

Yet the firmness of Dr. Randolph is not shaken by these 
rational suspicions ; and he condescends, in a magisterial 
tone, to inform me, " That it is highly improbable, from 
" the general well-known decision of the Church in such 
" cases, that had his apostasy been known, he would have 
" risen to those high honors which he attained, or been 
" admitted at all indeed to any other than lay-communion." 
This weighty objection did not surprise me, as I had already 
seen the substance of it in the Prolegomena of Valesius ; 
but I safely disregarded a difficulty which had not appeared 
of any moment to the national council of Egypt ; and I still 
think that an hundred Bishops, with Athanasius at their 
head, were as competent judges of the discipline of the fourth 
century, as even the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity 
in the University of Oxford. As a work of supererogation, 
I have consulted, however, the Antiquities of Bingham (See 
L. iv. c. iii. s. 6, 7. vol. i. p. 144, &c. fol. edit.), and found, as I 
expected, that much real learning had made him cautious 
and modest. After a careful examination of the facts and 
authorities already known to me, and of those with which I 
was supplied by the diligent antiquarian, I am persuaded that 
the theory and the practice of discipline were not invariably 
the same, that particular examples cannot always be recon- 
ciled with general rules, and that the stern laws of justice often 
yielded to motives of policy and convenience. The temper 
of Jerom towards those whom he considered as heretics, was 
fierce and unforgiving; yet the Dialogue of Jerom against the 
Luciferians, which I have read with infinite pleasure (torn. ii. 
p. 135-147. Edit. Basil. 1536.), is the seasonable and dextrous 
performance of a statesman, who felt the expediency of sooth- 
ing and reconciling a numerous party of offenders. The most 
rigid discipline, with regard to the ecclesiastics who had fallen 
in time of persecution, is expressed in the 10th Canon of the 
Council of Nice; the most remarkable indulgence was shown 
by the Fathers of the same Council to the lapsed, the degraded, 
the schismatic Bishop of Ly copolis. Of the penitent sinners, 
some might escape the shame of a public conviction or confes - 
sion, and others might be exempted from the rigor of clerical 
punishment. If Eusebius incurred the guilt of a sacrilegious 
promise, (for we are free to accept the milder alternative of 
Potamon,) the proofs of this criminal transaction might be 
suppressed by the influence of money or favor; a seasonable 
journey into Egypt might allow time for the popular rumors 



84 A VINDICATION. 

to subside. The crime of Eusebius might be protected by 
the impunity of many Episcopal Apostates (See Philostorg. 
L. ii. c. 15. p. 21. Edit. Gothofred.); and the governors of 
the church very reasonably desired to retain in their service 
the most learned Christian of the age. 

Before I return these sheets to the press, I must not forget 
an anonymous pamphlet, which, under the title oiAfew Re- 
marks, &c, was published against my History in the course of 
the last summer. The unknown writer has thought proper to 
distinguish himself by the emphatic, yet vague, appellation of 
A Gentleman : but I must lament that he has not consid- 
ered, with becoming attention, the duties of that respectable 
character. I am ignorant of the motives which can urge a man 
of a liberal mind, and liberal manners, to attack without prov- 
ocation, and without tenderness, any work which may have 
contributed to the information, or even to the amusement, of 
the Public. But I am well convinced that the author of such 
a work, who boldly gives his name and his labors to the world, 
imposes on his adversaries the fair and honorable obligation 
of encountering him in open daylight, and of supporting the 
weight of their assertions by the credit of their names. The 
effusions of wit, or the productions of reason, may be accepted 
from a secret and unknown hand. The critic who attempts 
to injure the reputation of another, by strong imputations 
which may possibly be false, should renounce the ungen- 
erous hope of concealing behind a mask the vexation of 
disappointment, and the guilty blush of detection. 

After this remark, which I cannot make without some de- 
gree of concern, I shall frankly declare, that it is not my wish 
or my intention to prosecute with this Ge?itleman a literary 
altercation. There lies between us a broad and unfathomable 
gulf; and the heavy mist of prejudice and superstition, which 
has in a great measure been dispelled by the free inquiries of 
the present age, still continues to involve the mind of my ad- 
versary. He fondly embraces those phantoms, (for instance, 
an imaginary Pilate, 113 ) which can scarcely find a shelter in 
the gloom of an Italian convent; and the resentment which 
he points against me, might frequently be extended to the 
most enlightened of the Protestant, or, in his opinion, of 
the Heretical critics. His observations are divided into 
a number of unconnected paragraphs, each of which contains 
some quotation from my History, and the angry, yet com- 
monly trifling, expression of his disapprobation and dis- 
pleasure. Those sentiments I cannot hope to remove ; and 
as the religious opinions of this Gentleman are principally 

113 Rennrks, n. mo. 



A VINDICATION. 85 

founded on the infallibility of the Church, 114 they are not cal- 
culated to make a very deep impression on the mind of an 
English reader. The view of facts will be materially affected 
by the contagious influence of doctrines. The man who re- 
fuses to judge of the conduct of Lewis XIV. and Charles V. 
towards their Protestant subjects, 115 declares himself incapa- 
ble of distinguishing the limits of persecution and toleration. 
The devout Papist, who has implored on his knees the inter- 
cession of St. Cyprian, will seldom presume to examine the 
actions of the Saint by the rules of historical evidence and 
of moral propriety. Instead of the homely likeness which I 
had exhibited of the Bishop of Carthage, my adversary has 
substituted a life of Cyprian, 116 full of what the French call 
auction, and the English, canting, (See Jortin's Remarks, 
Vol. ii. p. 239.) ; to which I can only reply, that those who 
are dissatisfied with the principles of Mosheim and Le 
Clerc, must view with eyes very different from mine, the 
Ecclesiastical History of the third century. 

'It would be an e?idless discussion (endless in every sense of 
the word) were I to examine the cavils which start up and 
expire in every page of this criticism, on the inexhaustible 
topic of opinions, characters, and intentions. Most of the 
instances which are here produced are of so brittle a sub- 
stance, that they fall in pieces as soon as they are touched : 
and I searched for some time before I was able to discover 
an example of some moment where the Ge?itleman had 
fairly staked his veracity against some positive fact asserted 
in the Two last Chapters of my History. At last I perceived 
that he has absolutely denied 117 that any thing can be 
gathered from the Epistles of St. Cyprian, or from his 
treatise De Unitate Ecclesice, to which I had referred, to 
justify my account of the spiritual pride and licentious 
manners of some of the confessors. 118 As the numbers of the 
Epistles are not the same in the edition of Pamelius and in 
that of Fell, the critic may be excused for mistaking my 
quotations, if he will acknowledge that he was ignorant of 
ecclesiastical history, and that he never heard of the troubles 
excited by the spiritual pride of the Confessors, who usurped 
the privilege of giving letters of communion to penitent 
sinners. But my reference to the treatise De Unitate 
Ecclesics was clear and direct ; the treatise itself contains 
only ten pages, and the following words might be distinctly 
read by any person who understood the Latin language. 
" Nee quisquam miretur, dilectissimi fratres, etiam de con- 

114 Remarks, p. 15. lis Id. p. m. 116 Id. p. 72-S8. 

in Remarks, p. go, 91. us Gibbon, p. 661. Note 91. 



86 A VINDICATION. 

" fessoribus quosdam ad ista procedere, inde quoque aliquos 
" tarn nefanda tarn gravia peccare. Neque enim confessio 
" immunem facit ab insidiis diaboli ; aut contra tentationes, 
" et pericula, et incursus atque impetus seculares adhuc in 
" seculo positum perpetua securitate defendit : ceterum 
" nunquam in confessoribus,/)^?/^?,?, et stupra, et adulteria 
" postmodum videremus, vuae nunc in quibusdam videntes 
" ingemiscimus et dolemus." This formal declaration of 
Cyprian, which is followed by several long periods of ad- 
monition and censure, is alone sufficient to expose the 
scandalous vices of some of the Confessors, and the disin- 
genuous behavior of my concealed adversary. 

After this example, which I have fairly chosen as one of 
the most specious and important of his objections, the can- 
did Reader would excuse me, if from this moment I de- 
clined the Gentleman 's acquaintance. But as two topics 
have occurred, which are intimately connected with the 
subject of the preceding sheets, I have inserted each of them 
in its proper place, as the conclusion of the fourth article of 
my answers to Mr. Davis, and of the first article of my re- 
ply to the confederate Doctors, Chelsum and Randolph. 

It is not without some mixture of mortification and re- 
gret, that I now look back on the number of hours which I 
have consumed, and the number of pages which I have 
filled, in vindicating my literary and moral character from 
the charge of willful misrepresentations, gross errors, and 
servile plagiarisms. I cannot derive any triumph or conso- 
lation from the occasional advantages which I may have 
gained over three adversaries, whom it is impossible for me to 
consider as objects either of terror or of esteem. The spirit 
of resentment, and every other lively sensation, have long 
since been extinguished; and the pen would long since have 
dropped from my weary hand, had I not been supported in 
the execution of this ungrateful task, by the consciousness, or 
at least by the opinion, that I was discharging a debt of honor 
to the Public and to myself. I am impatient to dismiss, and 
to dismiss for ever, this odious controversy, with the suc- 
cess of which I cannot surely be elated ; and I have only to 
request, that, as soon as my readers are convinced of my 
innocence, they would forget my Vindication. 

Edward Gibbon. 
Bentinck-Street, 
February 3, 1779. 



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